Falling Through the Net of Social Protection: The Precarity of Retirement Migrants in Thailand

Abstract

Cornelia Schweppe explores the question of social protection which has not yet been examined systematically in international retirement migration research and analyzes it in the context of retirement migration from Germany to Thailand. German retirees who migrant to Thailand tend to be a vulnerable group already in Germany, given the large proportion of them with relatively low pensions, relatively poor health, and limited social ties. In Thailand they fall through the net of social protection. They can neither draw on public social security benefits from Germany—as the German social security system largely ends at the borders of the European Union—nor can they resort to private coverage due to limited financial resources. Their personal social support networks are also very limited. The lack of social protection leads to a life that, for many, is marked by poor health, a lack of old age care, and financial problems which have moreover become a serious burden for Thailand. Schweppe highlights that the findings lead back to Germany and its old age social security system, for two reasons. First, as low pensions are a main reason for migration and pensions will most likely continue to decrease, international retirement migration (IRM) will probably increase in the future; countries of the Global South thus will increasingly act as the backyard for unsolved problems of aging in high-income countries. Second, since the lack of benefits of the German social security system in Thailand is a major reason for the retirees’ precarious life situation that burdens Thailand and its public resources, she urges the international opening of Germany’s social security system.