Neue Formen des Alter(n)s

The experience of ageing has become more and more pluralized and
diversified in recent years, with retirement migration being one
important expression of such lifestyles oriented towards
consumption and self-realization. Within Europe, Spain is the most
important destination for retirement migrants. This study focuses
on German retirement migrants living in the city of Denia on the
Spanish Mediterranean coast. Empirically based on a large-scale
quantitative survey of European retirement migration to Spain and a
locally embedded ethnographic field study, this investigation
provides a detailed insight into the life circumstances,
socio-economic features and general characteristics of this
particular group of migrants. Besides the empirically based
descriptions of quotidian activities, attitudes, self-concepts and
modes of life of the German retirement migrants in Denia, a
specific focus of the study is centered on transnational family
relations and the experience of ageing within retirement migration.
Within retirement migration, transnationality is produced in a
number of ways. Extended use of telecommunication and media,
frequent travels and visits, the regular keeping-up of plurilocal
living arrangements between Germany and Spain and a cultural
bifocality based on social integration within multiple localities
provide the basis for the transnational characteristics of this
social phenomenon. Familial and social relations to the areas of
origin are largely perpetuated and, while family relations are
usually experienced as satisfactory despite spatial separation,
areas of tension within families may occur in situations in which
the provision of care, especially for grandchildren or ageing
parents, may become necessary. Hence, in regard to family
relations, the project of retirement migration is often perceived
by the actors as being situated within conflicting areas of
personal self-realization and autonomy linked to living in Spain on
the one hand and familial obligations and responsibilities on the
other hand. However, the positive images and conceptions of ageing
in Spain are crucial for the retirement migrants and ultimately
serve as an explanation and personal justification for their
physical separation from families and friends. People reported to
be happier, more active and healthier, evaluating the advantages of
living in Spain as outweighing the disadvantages of being separated
from their families. Spain is constructed as a place of warmth,
health and freedom, where an active, meaningful and preventive
lifestyle can be performed. This is contrasted with more negative
depictions of Germany, where the retirement migrants localize much
smaller chances of successful ageing.