ABSTRACT

Care for the elderly is one of the key challenges of almost all European countries, a challenge that is often referred to as the "old-age care crisis". This chapter analyzes the sociopolitical context of old-age care in Germany as an important background to the facilities. It argues that old-age care facilities for elderly Germans increasingly emerge in Thailand and other countries with lower wages and living costs. The main reasons and structural preconditions for this development are the so-called old age care crisis in Germany and the gradual transnational opening of its social security system. As revealed by the empirical research, the facilities emerge as a response to the old-age care crisis, with old-age care facility operators referring explicitly to the central criticisms of long-term care in Germany. In doing so, the facilities are constructed as both affordable and qualitatively better alternatives to old-age homes in Germany.