Just like in Germany, only better? Old-age care facilities in Poland for people from Germany and the question of legitimacy

AbstractThis article deals with old-age care facilities in Poland which are aimed at people from Germany. These facilities emerge against the background of severe criticism of old-age care facilities in Germany. The media projects a widespread use of these facilities, claiming this is mainly due to the lower costs as compared to Germany. Against the backdrop of normative discussions about old-age care in Germany, doubts about a widespread use of facilities abroad may arise. Indeed, we will show that in quantitative terms, the facilities in Poland are a marginal phenomenon. Drawing on neo-institutional organisation theories, we demonstrate that the facilities face legitimisation challenges that consist of being able to align with the socially shared values and norms of old-age care in Germany to position themselves as a legitimate option. We analyse whether and how the facilities deal with these challenges. We particularly focus on the only facility we found that has a substantial number of residents from Germany. We show how the facility takes on the legitimation challenge by its motto ‘Just like in Germany – only better’, while other facilities position themselves as ‘low-cost facilities for people from Germany’. The low take-up of the latter indicates that low prices alone do not attract a substantial number of residents from Germany into the facilities.