Ageing and pensions of women in East Germany and during the transformation process

Aging and Gender in the Socialist System

In 1989, 74 percent of GDR pensioners were women; thus, the elderly population was decidedly female.1<p>Kuhlmey-Oehlert, Adelheid: Das Alter ist weiblich. Zur Situation älterer und alter Frauen in der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, in: Gather, Claudia (Ed.): Frauen-Alterssicherung. Lebensläufe von Frauen und ihre Benachteiligung im Alter, Berlin 1993, 249‒259; Winkler, Gunnar (Ed.): Frauenreport '90. Im Auftrag der Beauftragten des Ministerrates für die Gleichstellung von Frauen und Männern, Marina Beyer, Berlin 1990, 171.</p> The attitude toward age, “despite the esteem often expressed in official documents and statutes … ,” had “a negative bias.”2<p>Ibid.</p> The Frauenreport ’90 (Women’s Report 90), commissioned by the outgoing GDR government, criticized the country’s policies for “not being sufficiently trained on developing the self-esteem of older women,” saying their accomplishments “were not adequately recognized by society.“3<p>Ibid.</p>

The official journal of the ‘Demokratischen Frauenbund Deutschlands’ (Democratic Women’s League, DFD) lernen und handeln published numerous articles about social welfare, integration, and care of the elderly as a socialist norm.4<p>See also Jung, Hertha: Unsere Aufmerksamkeit und Fürsorge gilt den alten Menschen, in: Lernen und handeln, Vol. 19, 1968, no. 15, 1‒3.</p>In everyday life, older people were supported by the DFD, but above all by the Volkssolidarität5<p>Runge, Irene: Älter werden - alt sein. Soziale und kulturelle Aspekte des Alterns im Sozialismus, Berlin 1982, 80 ff.</p> ,which identified local needs, with the DFD primarily helping older single women (not just members). 6<p>See also Freundin Heidrich (stellvertr. Kreisvorsitzende des DFD Zittau): Unsere Erfahrungen in der Arbeit mit älteren, alleinstehenden Frauen, in: Lernen und handeln, Vol. 25, 1974, no. 9, 34‒37.</p>. In discussions, DFD found that many women of retirement age took advantage of the right to continue working.7<p>Ibid., 35.</p> This was “the most direct way to remain part of societal life”8<p>Frauenreport '90, 186.</p> and, apart from the pleasure of working, it was a way to supplement a state pension9<p>Demmler, Horst: Ergebnisse und Probleme der sozialistischen Lebensweise älterer Bürger, in: Wissenschaftlicher Rat für Soziologische Forschung in der DDR (Ed.): Lebensweise und Sozialstruktur, Berlin 1981,146; Reuter-Boysen, Christiane: Rentendiskussion und Artikulation von Fraueninteressen in der DDR. Zur Situation der Frauen-Altersversorgung in den 1950er-Jahren im Spiegel von Eingaben, in: Zeitschrift Für Geschichtswissenschaft, Vol. 58, 2010, no. 4, 332‒354.</p>.

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It was not until the late 1970s that research into women and aging in East Germany began to look at the postwar generation. The Grüne Reihe published studies on age and generation-specific employment history, among other things, and about what early women’s activists thought their retirement might look like. With the demographic shift, an interest in the role of family, the desire for intergenerational contact, and leisure activities became the counterpoint to gainful employment.10<p>Michel, Marion: Zur Rolle der Familie bei der Betreuung älterer Bürger, in: Informationen des wissenschaftlichen Rates "Die Frau in der sozialistischen Gesellschaft", Berlin 1983, 39‒51; dies.: Die familiäre Situation von Vorrentnern und deren Erwartungen an künftige familiale Beziehungen: Forschungsberichte zur ersten Etappe der Intervallstudie "Stellung des alten Menschen in der Familie", in: Informationen des Wissenschaftlichen Rates "Die Frau in der sozialistischen Gesellschaft", Berlin, 25. Bd., 1989, no. 5, 64‒76.</p>

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During the upheaval years of 1989–90, the discourse on age and aging took a back seat, as social and political movements were more closely focused on gender research11<p>Richter, Anna Sarah: Intersektionalität und Anerkennung. Biographische Erzählungen älterer Frauen aus Ostdeutschland, Weinheim/Basel 2018, 56.</p>. The question of whether GDR pension policies were women-friendly was discussed principally among the pensioners themselves.

Inequality and Inequity in the Merger of the East and West Pension Systems

The DFD’s successor organization, the nonprofit dfb, immediately criticized the 1991 the ‘Rentenüberleitungsgesetz’ intended to create parity between East and West German pensions, demanding that both lifelong employment time and domestic labor time spent raising children be taken fully into account.12<p>Koelges, Barbara: Der Demokratische Frauenbund. Von der DDR-Massenorganisation zum modernen politischen Frauenverband, Wiesbaden 2001, 177 ff.</p> A 1997 nationwide pension reform did not, as originally planned, incorporate into West German law elements of the East German pension system directed specifically at women. This effectively did away with the protections of property, grandfathered claims, and expectations based on existing law for women of the former GDR..13<p>Seefeld, Dorothea: Die Alterssicherung der in der DDR Geschiedenen, in: Seidel, Christina: Mütter ohne Wert. Scheidung in der DDR – Frauen berichten, Halle 2014, 153‒159.</p> As a result, the dfb demanded a new revision in 1999..14<p>Koelges: Der Demokratische Frauenbund, 180.</p> That same year, women who had divorced in the GDR founded a nonprofit to assert their legal pension status. They wanted the pension rights adjustment enshrined in West German divorce law since 1977 to be applied to women who had divorced in GDR prior to 1992.15<p>Arnold, Kerstin / Salzmann, Susanne / Stender, Gerda: Buch der Briefe DDR geschiedener Frauen, Dresden 2018, 58.</p> 

However, this form of “discrimination targeting women, recognized as such by the United Nations Commission on Women in 2017, has yet to be rectified.“16Berntsen, Tina: 30 Jahre Rentenungerechtigkeit. Die Zeit l&auml;uft davon!, in: Das Feministische Blatt. Wir Frauen, 38. Jg., 2019, H. 3, S. 14.

Discussion of the Changes to Aging and Pensions in the OWEN Interviews

The OWEN Women’s Memories project conducted 130 interviews, producing extensive material on the largely unexamined intersection of gender and age/aging in East Germany and during the transitional period of 1989–90.

The focus of the women, born between 1920 and 1960, differed according to their specific generation. It was primarily the older interviewees who talked about retirement security, since their social conditions were determined, in part, by the amount of their pensions. Some were glad that they had opted in to the voluntary supplemental pension plan (Freiwillige Zusatzrente, FZR) available in GDR starting in 1971, calculating their benefits from disability, survivor, or widow’s pensions. The older respondents most frequently cited the latter in their comparisons of East and West, because in postwar West Germany, some women were eligible for a war widow pension. Class differences in pension levels were also a subject of discussion, from the pensions of the privileged intelligentsia to the lower pensions for agricultural workers. A few women criticized the policy measures for women, saying the state should have done more for older women.

The 1920–1930 Generation

The most elderly interviewees had been pensioners since the 1980s and had not reaped the benefits of programs for the advancement of women or more recent educational policies; thus, overall, they had fewer professional qualifications. Not all of these women had worked full time, since universal child care did not yet exist in their era. Many of them had meager pensions, such as one retiree, born in 1926, who described working as a seamstress from home: “We earned very little. And that makes up the pension … But (sighs) what can you say? The children were taken care of in school. … we were content. … and now, people have everything. But nobody is really happy being unemployed. Right? We have our pension, whether it’s a lot or a little; it doesn’t matter. We get by.”17Deiche, Elsbeth: Dass der Mensch, Mensch bleibt. Transkript des biografischen Interviews, 1999.

Some of the other women calculated how their GDR pensions were determined. One biographer born in 1928 talked about how much she received in 1988 as both a widow and a retiree. “I got a pension of 397 marks. I had forty-five years with my children—child-rearing was counted as work years—forty-five years and I got 397 marks. And the case worker said to me back then, because I was a little disappointed, “That’s a lot. What do you think other people get? You can be happy you get that much.”18Bauer, Gisela: Und die Eltern vor allen Dingen achten. Transkript des biografischen Interviews, 2000.

In December 1989, the minimum GDR pension was between 330 and 470 marks.19<p>Frauenreport '90, 182.</p> It was supplemented by subsidies for rent, food, heating fuel, services, and public transportation, as well as free health care20<p>Ibid.</p>.

“When East German pensions were paid out in West German marks, two-thirds of them went up […]. This adjustment mostly benefited older women who, due to their age, were not enrolled in the … supplemental pension plan (FZR).21<p>Ibid., S. 183 f.</p> Women received lower pensions than men largely because of gender divides in training and job markets, where they were concentrated in low-paid areas such as retail and textile and household chemical industries.22<p>Haupt, Hanna: Von der Ungleichheit in die Armut, in: Andruschow, Katrin: Frauen in den neuen Bundesländern – go West?, Berlin 1996, 74.</p> That led to unjustified social differences, particularly among older people.23<p>See also Winkler, Gunnar (Ed.): Sozialreport ’90. Daten und Fakten zur sozialen Lage in der DDR, Berlin 1990, 336.</p>

The reunification pension adjustment resulted in better circumstances for some of the generation born between 1920 and 1930.24<p>See also Schwitzer, Klaus-Peter / Haupt, Hanna / Liebscher, Reinhard: Lebensbedingungen älterer Menschen, in: Winkler, Gunnar (Ed.): Sozialreport 1992. Daten und Fakten zur sozialen Lage in den neuen Bundesländern, Berlin 1993, 250.</p> In contrast to women who made up the majority of the mass unemployment wave in the early 1990s, female retirees in the East were considered the “winners”, while those still working were the “losers”.25<p>See also Kade, Sylvia: Die andere Geschichte. Spurensicherung im Vorruhestand, Frankfurt a. M. 1997, 10; Haupt: Von der Ungleichheit in die Armut, 75.</p> In other words, given mass unemployment, it was an advantage to have already retired.

The 1930–1960 Generation

Women from the ‘Aufbaugeneration’ 1930-1940 were particularly affected by the declining employment rate and discrimination on the labour market since 1990.26<p>Ferree, Myra Marx: Feminismen. Die deutsche Frauenbewegung in globaler Perspektive, Frankfurt a.M. 2018, 208 f; vgl. Arnold: Buch der Briefe, 57.</p> Some voluntarily withdrew from the labor force to avoid early pension, unemployment, or retraining.27Richter: Intersektionalit&auml;t und Anerkennung, S. 331. For instance, a biographer born in 1932 wrote, “… as early as September … I thought, what are you doing, we are all going to be unemployed … and then in October … I applied for a disability pension … it went through very quickly and starting April 1 [I] … collected … my disability pension. And the others were gradually let go after that."28Blass, Tina: Wer rastet, der rostet. Transkript des biografischen Interviews, 2000.

Some women born between 1940 and 1950 talked about temporary jobs, job creation programs, and often, unemployment. They hoped that retiring would give them back a degree of financial and planning security.29Schulze, Ivonne: Du bist ein freier Mensch, f&uuml;r dich selbst verantwortlich. Transkript des biografischen Interviews, 2001.

During the interviews, conducted between 1998 and 2003, many women born between 1940 and 1960 focused not on retirement issues but on how they came to terms with the difficulties and opportunities of the new system. Some said that their West German colleagues were unaware of their situation. A biographer born in 1941 reported that “… in the DDR system, I would have been a pensioner in 2001. Now I have to work longer and I talked to my professor … they have no idea what we’re going through. And his wife (a teacher) … she received the same pension as what I am currently earning … this is completely out of proportion.“30Karlstedt, Heidi: Mit dem Hute in der Hand, komm&rsquo;ste durch das ganze Land. Transkript des biografischen Interviews, 2001.

The differences between East and West were a more prominent issue than the gendered inequality of pensions, which already existed in GDR and became greater with reunification.31<p>Behrend, Hanna (Ed.): Die Abwicklung der DDR. Wende und deutsche Vereinigung von innen gesehen, Köln 1996, 206; Koelges: Der Demokratische Frauenbund, 176 f.</p> In the OWEN interviews, structurally devalued positions in terms of age, gender, and origins were32<p>Richter: Intersektionalität und Anerkennung, 352 f.</p> interpreted subjectively, and the way the interview subjects shaped their own lives—for instance, how they combined family and career as a matter of course— was given greater weight.

The subject of aging was often examined intergenerationally, in relation to grandchildren and memories of grandparents. Some of them said they were content and grateful in their old age, reflected upon cultural differences in the approach to age(ing) or friendships, and reported on their activities.

Currently, women born in the 1950s are retiring almost unnoticed, looking back at their working lives both in GDR and in a unified Germany. Their disadvantages are not an issue. They receive a pension according to West German law but accrue pension credits from both East and West Germany for working and raising children.

The interviews also provide a basis for examining the historical processing and intersections of gender, generations, and age. This essay complements the Genderbibliothek (Humboldt University Gender Library) DDF project of interviews with three generations of women.

• Frauen im Sozialismus: Generation 1920–1930
• Frauen im Sozialismus: Generation 1930–1940
• Frauen im Sozialismus: Generation 1940–1960