Oksana Krasil'nikova, PhD., the docent of the Kazan (Privolgsky) State University.

"Here you are to pick up your piece by the deadly grip".

Emigration: what they didn't know before the departure. Reasons for emigration in Germany and ways of survival in the foreign country.

In the period of the crisis and uncertainty, the topic of leaving Russia evokes the increased interest. However, abstract dreams about well-established Europe don't leave the room for understanding all difficulties the one will necessary encounter in the society with the other mentality. Who feels himself or herself more comfortable in emigration? Who has managed to adapt herself or himself quicker and to find the job in the new country? Why were some migrants unable to adapt and had to leave?

Forewarned is forearmed!

It's evident that the period of enchantment by the new country will imminently finish. Delights about clean streets and trams that arrive with the minute's precision will give room to everyday worries and the necessity to negotiate with oneself while building up the life in the new place. The more the person knows about specific features of the life in emigration, the more she is prepared to difficulties of the adaption period.

According to the acculturation theory, there are four models of migrants' cultural adaptation: assimilation, integration, separation/segregation and marginalization. Let's show all four described variants as the collective family portrait.

The head of the family, the trained English-speaking programmer, doesn't need to learn German on the expert level and to confirm his diploma. He quickly gets the well-paid job in the IT company, and is prone to integration. While realizing his potential as a professional, he studies not only German but also French and Italian that are useful to him for the communication with his foreign partners. At home, he reads the German press, follows events in Russia while using the online portal Lenta.ru. He enjoys visiting a "biergarten" with his German colleagues, from time to time visits German-Russian and Russian-speaking events.

His wife, who has the diploma of a history schoolteacher, cannot find the job that matches her qualification. She doesn't want to study again or to do a low-qualified labor, so she has turned herself into a housewife. Their home is the island of the Russian life in Germany. She is surrounded by books of Russian authors, she reads Russian magazines, cooks traditional Russian dishes (pelmeni, blini, golubtsy etc). She doesn't drink the beer, the pork knuckle gives her the ache in the pancreas. The German language is difficult for her to learn despite her efforts (visiting integration courses and the self-study). She only speaks Russian and socializes only with migrants, watches Russian TV shows in her spare time. Knowing that she won't rise herself up to her past status, she floats the life in the condition of separation, while mentally remaining in the Russian social and cultural space.

Their adolescent daughter dreams since her childhood that her parents have become "real Germans". She is annoyed by the fact that her father and mother are not fluent in German. The food rich in calories gives her anorexia and bulimia. While distancing herself from her parents she chooses the assimilation strategy: she speaks only German and spends time with her girlfriends on disco parties.

Her brother doesn't want to remember his origin at all, his name and surname have been changed: he is Kurt Züter now, but he is rejected in the school, his classmates are two years younger than he (in Russia he started going to school at seven and repeated one year in Germany). He doesn't share the football craze of local guys, he sits in Internet and plays virtual games. The teenager has found himself in "the marginalization well", has difficulties in socializing with his peers and conflicts with his parents.

Our research shows that women mostly act within the integration strategy that gives them the chance to build themselves into the adopting society while preserving their native language and culture. The separation strategy allows women to preserve their previous lifestyle but takes them out the social life of the new state. This strategy is used by women who after finding themselves in Germany haven't been able to realize themselves as professionals. This category includes, as a rule, educated women - labor migrants' wives, women who has arrived within migration programs, as well as "Russian brides". The assimilation strategy implies the loss of the native language, traditions, the national identification by the next generation, absorbing of German features and the specific mentality as the only way to have one's own place in the new society. The marginalization strategy appears as the consequence of the loss of the native land, the family, the job, friends, the absence of the common language of communication. It rarely occurs. It is accompanied by depressive conditions of women as well as appearance of psychosomatic disorders. It usually functions as the temporary strategy that flows into the one that has been described.

The integration strategy at men is like at women according to its features, however, they use it somehow rarer (47.8% and 54.5% correspondingly). The separation strategy, although ineffective, is often seen by men as the only possible one. Feeling the ethnic hatred towards themselves, men create national enclaves in immigrant communities and behave in a more distracted manner than women. 30.4 % of men and 23.6% of women use the separation strategy.

The marginalization strategy is the forced one and appears at migrants in the case when links of the past life have been lost but new ones haven't already been found (men - 15.2%; women - 3.6%). Late emigrants who, after they returned to their historic motherland, have remained "Russians" usually find themselves in this trap. They feel the continuous frustration because their expectations haven't matched the reality. Alcoholism and psychic disorders help to achieve this condition (Kirsch 2002). Sometimes, this strategy is "chosen" by Jewish emigrants who have been unable to realize themselves as professionals in Germany. But the religious community, contacts with the diaspora help them to leave this niche and to move to the other strategy. As Olaf Glöckner writes, "Jews are very selective in their job search, they stay jobless longer than German emigrants and, as a result, find a more prestigious and well-paid job" (Glöckner 2009).

Men rarely choose the assimilation strategy (6.5% of men and 18.2% of women). As a rule, they marry their compatriots, and even if they marry German women, they "learn them to cook the borsch". Men don't want to assimilate - that makes the significant difference in the strategy of men and women.

How migrants' expectations about their life in the new environment have or have not been adequate has the direct effect on their adaptation. The worse their situation was in their native land, the more comfortable migrants feel in the new place. Failures that are related to the overestimated threshold of expectations result into returning to the country of exodus. Here is the extract from the letter of the woman who moved to Germany within the late emigration program with her whole family: the grandfather, the grandmother, Dad, Mom, the child. "I'll write in a short about us: we've returned home, to Russia. Honestly speaking, the decision has been hard and it has taken a long time to make it. But we had to define where the child was going to study before September. My husband is back to his previous job, we managed to enroll our little son into his class, his school. I think it's just the miracle after the last absolutely worthless 1,5 years of our existence in Germany. May be, I'm not right in something, but I cannot remember anything good except the good ecological situation and the rich Bavarian nature". (Marina, 43).

Late emigrants of the first generation rarely turn themselves into full members of the German society. The inadequate level of German doesn't allow them to get the education, the fragmental information about the accepting country leads to disappointment. According to the opinion of the interviewed, Germany may not become the paradise for all migrants. "People who have come to Germany with the firm mission to find their motherland that they lost several centuries ago, achieve the success, and the big one, because Germany is the country of open opportunities. If the person makes the aim and firmly, step by step follows it, she will achieve everything. If she hopes only on subsidies and the governmental assistance while taking a little care about her own personal and professional growth, her results are very small. At this, people of this kind naturally try to justify their failures and, of course, don't start from themselves. And everything is guilty for them: the incorrect system of kindergartens, bad schools, stupid beamtors in different authorities, very strict laws, the bad medicine, too small subsidies, the silly boss and, in general, Germans are idiots". (Alla, 45).

Taking everything into account, we emphasize that women show the adequate flexibility and readiness to act according to new situational requirements. They quicker follow the way of compromises, that means, choose successful strategies for adaptation - integration and assimilation. However, men are unable to refuse needs that have already formed and habitual ways to meet them, that's why they are less adaptive.

In the next part of our work we'll examine reasons for such behavior, point out the specific difference between men and women.

Main reasons for moving and migrants' stereotypes in the sphere of employment.

According to the information of our research, main reasons for migration were: the wish to improve one's lifestyle; the need to live in the calm environment, the need to take care about one's children and to give them as many opportunities as possible; to settle down in the civilized country; the family reunion. The specific female reason for migration can be considered to be the marriage, and the male one is the need to realize his professional potential in the Western country (to work according to his qualification, but to earn the good money).

Approximately in the half of all cases the decision about moving were taken jointly, by the whole family. Women decided to move somehow more actively than men when they spoke of the individual migration (34.7% and 30.9% correspondingly). However, if the issue was the move of the family, men called themselves initiators of migration three times more often than women. Such replies as "parents decided" could be seen in both male and female groups. Some people pointed out the temporary character of their stay abroad: "We haven't come forever, we think of this trip as of the career stage" (Polina, 30), or its involuntary character: "I am the wife" (Sonya, 63), "I had to, because of my husband" (Olga, 37), "The husband was the one who decided" (Maria, 57), "The husband decided and I don't argue with him" (Nikolina, 54), "My spouse" (Elvira, 37), "My mother-in-law" (Irina, 49), "The move had objective reasons" (Lyudmila, 62). It's characteristic that in cases when the decision about the move wasn't taken by oneself, but under the pressure of parents, one's husband or wife, circumstances, each third member of the survey supported the idea of coming back.

Motives for the move then had the impact on migrants' stereotypes in the sphere of employment. The modern situation in Germany is that there are 60 listed occupations for which the official recognition of correspondence of foreign diplomas and German ones made by the competent governmental authorities is obligatory. This category concerns doctors, veterinaries, pharmacologists, teachers, nursery teachers, lawyers, translators, architects, engineers, tax and economical consultants etc. Confirmation of the diploma with passing all formalities is not for everyone as well as getting a new profession that matches the previous status. Such variants are good for young women but migrants who are 35-40 years old and able to follow this way are exceptions. House chores, children, sometimes the low material interest due to the wealthy marriage in fact leave out women from the process of professional self-fulfillment and, correspondingly, integration. They find themselves "professionally remote" not only for their country but for the society that accepts them.

The diploma obtained in the country of exodus as well as fluent German don't allow migrants to occupy the professional niche in the new country unless they get the additional training. During the interview, it has been discovered that 36.3% of women and 26% of men, due to different reasons, were disqualified after they had lost their job during the move. At the same time, 41.6% of men and 38% of women found the job according to their qualification or work in a close field. At this, men changed their qualification much more often, in order to find the job. The most popular reply of men about the job (30.4%): "the new job is not in the field of my qualification but I'm happy with it".

As we've said earlier, mostly educated women move and the main reason for their migration is marital, not labor one, that's why they don't take the first job they see and are not prone to change the occupation. However, in this case they in fact have to be satisfied with the role of a housewife. They are not opposed to this situation, because the social opinion still supports the image of an unemployed woman as a respectable and wealthy one or as a toy-woman who makes the man happy by her existence. This stereotype is included into traditional ideas, while the image of an unemployed man is pictured as the source of negative feelings and complexes - the man has to be industrious and active. An unemployed woman is called by the folk a housewife and and unemployed man is called a vagabond.

Women with the university or the high school education, the fluent knowledge of the language who have lived 5 or more years in the new country often work as domestic assistants or take care of elderly and disabled people (the lawyer turned into the garbage loader, the mining engineer - into the orderly, the designer technologist became the cleaner, the teacher works in the bakery).

Women who had managed to realize their professional potential gave following replies: "I work in the field of my qualification, but in the junior position" (Natalia, 30), "I've got the new occupation and the chance to combine my job with my favorite hobby" (Larissa, 45), "I acquired the new profession here" (Alyona, 33), "I studied anew" (Kristina, 29). But only a few ones managed to preserve their profession - only 22% of interviewed women and 24% men replied that they could find the job in the field of their qualification (they are mostly experts in the field of transportation, service, building, owners of their own businesses).

The typically male strategy is the search for any job in order to find the means for survival and women, as a rule, enter the category of domestic assistants and housewives which are sometimes not very different. The professional inadequacy in the previous career sphere, the low-qualified labour and the forced status of a housewife have the direct gender correlation - they are female problems. The research shows that women who've got used to work are rarely satisfied by the role of housewives. In the future, they will have to either lower their expectations while trying to realize their potential in a more approachable sphere, or, while disagreeing with lowering of their status, to try recovering their previous positions.

So, men and women who have decided to move to Germany are motivated by different reasons that at the end define their ability to adapt. The analysis of periods and ways of migrants' adaptation is shown below.

Periods and ways of migrants' adaptation.

Being based on migrants' feelings one can make the conclusion that adaptation periods for men and women are approximately equal: according to the interview data 78.2% of respondents are fully or partially adapted. Among emigrants who have lived in Germany for more than 15 years, 86.3% have adapted; for 5-15 years - 81.5%; for less than 5 years - 57.8%. The adaptation process of young people (aged under 30) is much quicker: 18.1% of women and 23.9% of men who fall under that age group pointed out that they had been able to adapt within few months. On the contrary, the social exclusion expressed in the reply: "I feel that I'm a foreigner here" is characteristic for people of the middle and old age - 5.4% of women and 10.8% of men hadn't been able to build themselves into the society and now they feel alienation. The same 5.4% of women replied that they would never be able to get used to the life in Germany. Among men, this rate was much higher - 23.9%.

The term "adaptation" is understood by respondents mostly in the psychological than in the social and cultural or the economic sense. More than 80% of the interviewed, regardless their gender, linked adaptation with the emotional serenity, finding one's own circle: "to adapt means to feel like you feel in your native city, among your people" (Andrey, 46), "to feel as at home" (Anatoliy, 54). Quite a great number of women - 40% understand adaptation as the recovery of the previous status and career positions; moreover, 34.5% of women said that the most important marker of adaptation was the opportunity to provide the stable future for one's children.

It's commonly thought that men are more orientated to the career and achievement of professional results, but during the interview it was discovered that the said male strategy wasn't the dominating one. Many respondents believe that the provision of the stable future for one's children is more important - 36.9%, as well as solving of financial problems - 19.5% and status issues are relevant only for 15.2%. Under circumstances of migration men are rather adequate in estimating their career chances. They understand that achievement of the previous social status is quite difficult. They put more emphasis on the emotional comfort, the family, the future of children, the material wealth beforehand.

More than 58% of respondents, regardless their gender, pointed out that they had been able to achieve the better lifestyle in the new place. The equal number of men and women estimated their material position like the previous one as well as chose "I used to live better in the past". At the same time, "hopes on the future" are more characteristic for women (12.7% and 6.5% correspondingly). Moreover, they understand that they are to fight for their place under the sun - "my hint is that here your own piece, as it's said, is to be picked up by the deadly grip" (Snezhana, 32).

The leading indicator of adaptation is the desire of migrants to stay in the accepting country. Most of respondents would like to stay in Germany, and this index is higher among responded women - 58.6% of men and 76.3% of women. "In my case, it would be better for me in Germany, no matter what my job will be, I'll earn more money than in my mother country, and in my industry (commerce) it's easy for me to be promoted here, I have the future (they said it to me on the interview). I'm going to have children here and there'll be the better life for my children, as well as there will be more opportunities for traveling (the German visa opens many doors). In general, I feel awesome here, if not one BUT - I feel alone here in a moral sense, I have neither friends nor a family here, I also lack the drive of life that is abundant in Ukraine, in general, I miss the atmosphere I've got used to. But everywhere there are their own + 's and -'s. For me, Germany has already more pros than contras" (Natalia, 29).

The second most frequent reply, chosen regardless the gender (12.9% of respondents) was: "I like it here but I would like to move to some other place". Men more often defined their marginal position - 13% of respondents gave following replies: "I don't like it here and I don't want to come back" (Dmitry, 38), "I want to come back, but later" (Nikolay, 54), "I don't like it here, I don't want to come back but I want to move to the other country" (Inar, 45), "I'm not happy with multiculturalism and the false tolerance" (Constantine, 55). The desire to come back was experienced by the approximately equal number of men and women - 8% each, at that migrant moods are correlated only with the single marker - the job in the field of one's qualification and profession - and don't depend on the period of living in Germany or from the marital status, or from the material wealth, or the country of exodus.

Migrants who needed the psychological unload used approximately same approaches (made contacts with locals, communicated in the social media, watched their native TV and went for a trip to their native land). However, men more often used virtual than real contacts.

Trips to the native land as the stress-relieving method were used by 29% of women and 19% of men. Such difference doesn't mean differences in ways of relaxation but tells about categories of respondents. Women, "Russian brides" and wives of labor migrants cannot bring their parents and sometimes their children with them. But men often don't go to the native land because their successes in the new place are more than modest ones and they are not ready to meet their friends and classmates as laborers or unemployed people who "live on the welfare".

It's interesting that women used the rich set of psychological unloading methods twice more often than men (they traveled, listened to songs (V. Vysotsky, T. Bulanova, I. Kuchin), meditated, immersed themselves into the work, found a hobby, made sports), while men found consolation in watching TV shows, enclosed themselves in the social medias.

Sources of the emotional discomfort for men and women are significantly different. Men had to face the whole range of difficulties - "as a whole, everything is foreign", that was their most frequent reply. Women pointed out their greatest problem as: "limitation of social contacts" and "the absence of relatives". More than 20% of responded men and 12% of women mentioned "the absence of the mutual trust between migrants and locals" as the annoying factor.

The attitude of the accepting society towards migrants was estimated as "normal" and "good" by almost all respondents. Women mostly believed that the attitude was "good" and men - that it was "normal". Only 13% of respondent men and 3.6% of women pointed out that locals were "hostile, bad" towards them. Some of them added their own comments: "It depends" (Maria, 47; Radik, 39), "They are indifferent, for we'll always be foreigners here" (Alexander, 59), "No attitude, as to the empty space" (Raissa, 46), "When they look into your eyes they smile but they are ready to kill you once you'll turn away" (Igor, 36). In general, 37% of responded men and 9% of women directly faced facts of the ethnic discrimination.

Advantages of the move was approximately equally estimated by respondents. Most of men pointed out the calm life and women mentioned the chance to give a good education to children as the most important advantage. Most of men and women put in their own variants of advantages including "We've got the ideological freedom" (Nikolina, 54), "I've found the husband" (Natalia, 30), "I'm with my husband" (Diana, 27), "We travel a lot" (Larissa, 45), "Great opportunities for the personal fulfillment and the self-improvement" (Rezeda, 33). However, such replies don't mean that everybody is happy. There were replies like those: "No advantages" (Tatiana, 52), "Nothing good, only the clean environment" (Marina, 43), "No advantages, only the heap of problems in everything" (Rudik, 31), "No advantages, only you can travel across Europe without visas" (Victor, 58), "More because of the lack of knowledge and stupidity, I believed that everything was better here, but it proved to be a myth" (Mikhail, 30). The changing economical, political, demographic situation always reflects on the mood and feelings of migrants: "In the past you could buy much more on marks in Germany, so we took the mortgage for the house but now I don't know how to pay for it. I'll have to work until I die..." (Andrey, 47). The main drawback of the move, upon the opinion of respondents is the narrowed circle of friends. Moreover, for women there was the significant drawback to be unable to take care of old parents who were left in the native land.

While estimating how successful the adaptation of men and women was, according to their own feelings, it's necessary to take into account the difference of subjective esteems when we see different starting conditions. For example, it's wrong to consider that male migrants who moved from the former USSR in the period of the economical catastrophe achieved significant results, if they had the initial low level of the life. In that case, living in a rented apartment, on a low income or even on a welfare was considered by them to be the improvement. "I deliver lunches in kindergartens, earn 1000 euros per month, rent an apartment, ride a bicycle, it's enough for me to live. It would be better for me to find a woman and to pay the rent together with her" (Eugene, 44). And women who moved to Germany because of the marriage - from big cities, highly educated, with a successful career - while estimating their new conditions, taking into account the loss of the social status and the job, pointed out that their lifestyle remained the same or became worse.

In migration circumstances, women are more successful than men in preserving the family or marrying again. Among responded men at the moment of arriving to the new country there were not any divorced ones (30.4% were unmarried; 69.6% were married), at the moment of the interview 17.3% were already divorced (in the female group of those who were interviewed after the move, the number of divorces didn't increase). In the critical situation (the loss of the job, personal failures) women are better to mobilize themselves, to find objectives and to successfully adapt. Migration is not the standard situation by itself, it's likely to be the critical one in which men need assistance. Women who are divorced with children or widowed, continue sustaining contacts, actively interact with their environment. At the same time men become closed, angry, use asocial ways of escaping from the reality.

Conclusion

As the conclusion, let's reply on questions posed at the beginning of the research.

How successful were men and women, citizens of the former USSR in adapting to migration circumstances?

The success level of migrants from the former USSR in Germany is quite high. The research has shown that family migrants, regardless their gender, are more successful to adapt than single ones. Approximately 2/3 of married respondents were fully or partially adapted. On the contrary, there are much less common features of adaptation among unmarried men and unmarried women. About a half of responded men were not able to psychologically adapt themselves while most of single women were successful to adapt. The adaptability of women is higher in the absence of men's support, they are prone to self-organization, they are able to achieve great results. While single men, deprived the female support, feel themselves to be excluded, they remain socially and psychologically foreign to the new environment.

Did gender differences influence on the speed of adaptation?

Upon terms of adaptation, male indicators were fixed in two extreme time coordinates - some of them managed to adapt within the extremely short period from few months to one year, others had to spend from five to fifteen years to do that. The adaptation period of women was from two to five years.

How did the migrant's gender influence on his or her successes in getting a job?

Male migrants more often found the job in the field of their qualification. It is explained by the difference in the education of male and female migrants and their professional ambitions: for example, electricians, builders, drivers were quite quick to find a job. But women with typically female professions - nursery teachers, school teachers etc - couldn't get a job without the additional training and the complicated procedure of the diploma's confirmation.

Who found oneself in a better position and why did some migrants initially have the negative "integration forecast"?

Doubtless, migrants who had professions that didn't require the diploma's confirmation as well as those who had arrived to Germany with their families, without destroying previous relationships, found themselves in a better position. Migrants who had expected to significantly improve the quality of the life if it had been quite high before the move had the negative integration forecast.

Before starting the research we had the working hypothesis according to which women, due to low chances to get a job in the field of their qualification, were worse to adapt themselves. As a result of checking it, it was discovered that the certain part of women really feels difficulties in personal fulfillment. According to the collected data, 17.3% of men and 25.4% of women mentioned the loss of the social status and career positions as one of the move's main drawbacks.

But, despite of this, according to respondents' estimation, adaptation rates for women were higher - 83.6% of women and 71.7% of men feel themselves fully or partially adapted. What is the secret in it that allows women to adapt better? We've made the conclusion that women are quicker to get used to new conditions, they are more active to contact with other migrants and locals, it is easier for them to overcome the acculturation stress. The German society is more sympathetic toward them, so they rarer face the open gender or ethnical discrimination.

Not the last role in accepting the adapting situation and one's position is played by the social environment and the public opinion. The stereotypical idea of unemployed women as wealthy ones through the mark of the man's high status and financial position give them the chance to preserve the internal stability and self-confidence. The traditional distribution of gender roles in the family allow the woman to shift her energy to the domestic field in the case of the job loss. Even the unsuccessful social, cultural and economical adaptation allows women to find the family niche for themselves while strategically being involved into "the intensive motherhood". But men who haven't found the employment and haven't achieved any material successes lose themselves in the family too.

Reasons for migration also play the important role in the adaptation process. Besides the general desire to live in the civilized country, to reunite with relatives and to take care of children, women are motivated during the move by the marital reason and men by the need to develop themselves in the professional sphere. It consequently defines migrants' strategies.

The analysis of the obtained data is the evidence of the quite prolonged, complex and multi-faceted adaptation process. Taking into account the whole set of markers we've made the conclusion that women are better to adapt themselves. While effectively interacting with the new environment and using effective ways of shifting, women are quicker to achieve the stable emotional condition and are more balanced to be integrated into the accepting society. Due to their flexibility and the tendency to make compromises, they are more successful in entering the society and adapting in it.

However, women suffer much more from the unemployment, the absence of employment's guarantees and the professional disqualification than men. They often find themselves again in the role of a housewife and a mother. Despite the fact that many housewives consider their occupation to be the job and they've chosen it by their own will, such way of activity is not related to the development of internal potentials. Moreover, the part of "voluntary housewives" found themselves in this position not "because of the luxury", but forcefully. The female employment that preserves features of "the inferior labour", implying the low level of salary and unenviable activity spheres is still the problematic aspect of adaptation.

The research has shown that the psychological and cultural success of women's adaptation doesn't counter-balance but emphasizes their insecurity in the economical sphere. Quite a large part of female emigrants who are mostly highly educated feel themselves vulnerable in the new society, due to the loss of the job and decreasing of the previous social status. The wealth of their family and the financial stability depend exclusively on the husband's incomes.

The said inequality evokes the need to expand opportunities for female migrants in the sphere of the productive labour and receiving the good salary in order to change contracts of "a housewife" and "a breadwinner" characteristic for emigrant communities to contracts of "the equal status" (Zdravomyslova, Tyomkina, 1996: 7). The elimination of said inequalities is the most important condition for migrants' successful adaptation.

Literature:

E. Zdravomyslova, A. Tyomkina. The Introduction. The social construction of the tender and the tender structure in Russia/The gender measuring of the social and political activity in the period of transition. ZNSI Works. 4th Issue. Saint-Petersburg, 1996

O. Glöckner. Wählerisch//Jüdische Allgemeine 09.07.2009

J. Kirsch. Migration von Russlanddeutschen: Aus gesellschaftlicher und ärzlicher Sight. 2002

The complete text of the article: The gender specifics and determinants of the adaption behavior at Russian-speaking migrants in Germany//The Journal of Sociology and Social Antropology. 2014 - No 3 - p. 77-93м

Oksana Krasil'nikova, PhD., the docent of the Kazan (Privolgsky) State University.

"Here you are to pick up your piece by the deadly grip".

Emigration: what they didn't know before the departure. Reasons for emigration in Germany and ways of survival in the foreign country.

In the period of the crisis and uncertainty, the topic of leaving Russia evokes the increased interest. However, abstract dreams about well-established Europe don't leave the room for understanding all difficulties the one will necessary encounter in the society with the other mentality. Who feels himself or herself more comfortable in emigration? Who has managed to adapt herself or himself quicker and to find the job in the new country? Why were some migrants unable to adapt and had to leave?

Forewarned is forearmed!

It's evident that the period of enchantment by the new country will imminently finish. Delights about clean streets and trams that arrive with the minute's precision will give room to everyday worries and the necessity to negotiate with oneself while building up the life in the new place. The more the person knows about specific features of the life in emigration, the more she is prepared to difficulties of the adaption period.

According to the acculturation theory, there are four models of migrants' cultural adaptation: assimilation, integration, separation/segregation and marginalization. Let's show all four described variants as the collective family portrait.

The head of the family, the trained English-speaking programmer, doesn't need to learn German on the expert level and to confirm his diploma. He quickly gets the well-paid job in the IT company, and is prone to integration. While realizing his potential as a professional, he studies not only German but also French and Italian that are useful to him for the communication with his foreign partners. At home, he reads the German press, follows events in Russia while using the online portal Lenta.ru. He enjoys visiting a "biergarten" with his German colleagues, from time to time visits German-Russian and Russian-speaking events.

His wife, who has the diploma of a history schoolteacher, cannot find the job that matches her qualification. She doesn't want to study again or to do a low-qualified labor, so she has turned herself into a housewife. Their home is the island of the Russian life in Germany. She is surrounded by books of Russian authors, she reads Russian magazines, cooks traditional Russian dishes (pelmeni, blini, golubtsy etc). She doesn't drink the beer, the pork knuckle gives her the ache in the pancreas. The German language is difficult for her to learn despite her efforts (visiting integration courses and the self-study). She only speaks Russian and socializes only with migrants, watches Russian TV shows in her spare time. Knowing that she won't rise herself up to her past status, she floats the life in the condition of separation, while mentally remaining in the Russian social and cultural space.

Their adolescent daughter dreams since her childhood that her parents have become "real Germans". She is annoyed by the fact that her father and mother are not fluent in German. The food rich in calories gives her anorexia and bulimia. While distancing herself from her parents she chooses the assimilation strategy: she speaks only German and spends time with her girlfriends on disco parties.

Her brother doesn't want to remember his origin at all, his name and surname have been changed: he is Kurt Züter now, but he is rejected in the school, his classmates are two years younger than he (in Russia he started going to school at seven and repeated one year in Germany). He doesn't share the football craze of local guys, he sits in Internet and plays virtual games. The teenager has found himself in "the marginalization well", has difficulties in socializing with his peers and conflicts with his parents.

Our research shows that women mostly act within the integration strategy that gives them the chance to build themselves into the adopting society while preserving their native language and culture. The separation strategy allows women to preserve their previous lifestyle but takes them out the social life of the new state. This strategy is used by women who after finding themselves in Germany haven't been able to realize themselves as professionals. This category includes, as a rule, educated women - labor migrants' wives, women who has arrived within migration programs, as well as "Russian brides". The assimilation strategy implies the loss of the native language, traditions, the national identification by the next generation, absorbing of German features and the specific mentality as the only way to have one's own place in the new society. The marginalization strategy appears as the consequence of the loss of the native land, the family, the job, friends, the absence of the common language of communication. It rarely occurs. It is accompanied by depressive conditions of women as well as appearance of psychosomatic disorders. It usually functions as the temporary strategy that flows into the one that has been described.

The integration strategy at men is like at women according to its features, however, they use it somehow rarer (47.8% and 54.5% correspondingly). The separation strategy, although ineffective, is often seen by men as the only possible one. Feeling the ethnic hatred towards themselves, men create national enclaves in immigrant communities and behave in a more distracted manner than women. 30.4 % of men and 23.6% of women use the separation strategy.

The marginalization strategy is the forced one and appears at migrants in the case when links of the past life have been lost but new ones haven't already been found (men - 15.2%; women - 3.6%). Late emigrants who, after they returned to their historic motherland, have remained "Russians" usually find themselves in this trap. They feel the continuous frustration because their expectations haven't matched the reality. Alcoholism and psychic disorders help to achieve this condition (Kirsch 2002). Sometimes, this strategy is "chosen" by Jewish emigrants who have been unable to realize themselves as professionals in Germany. But the religious community, contacts with the diaspora help them to leave this niche and to move to the other strategy. As Olaf Glöckner writes, "Jews are very selective in their job search, they stay jobless longer than German emigrants and, as a result, find a more prestigious and well-paid job" (Glöckner 2009).

Men rarely choose the assimilation strategy (6.5% of men and 18.2% of women). As a rule, they marry their compatriots, and even if they marry German women, they "learn them to cook the borsch". Men don't want to assimilate - that makes the significant difference in the strategy of men and women.

How migrants' expectations about their life in the new environment have or have not been adequate has the direct effect on their adaptation. The worse their situation was in their native land, the more comfortable migrants feel in the new place. Failures that are related to the overestimated threshold of expectations result into returning to the country of exodus. Here is the extract from the letter of the woman who moved to Germany within the late emigration program with her whole family: the grandfather, the grandmother, Dad, Mom, the child. "I'll write in a short about us: we've returned home, to Russia. Honestly speaking, the decision has been hard and it has taken a long time to make it. But we had to define where the child was going to study before September. My husband is back to his previous job, we managed to enroll our little son into his class, his school. I think it's just the miracle after the last absolutely worthless 1,5 years of our existence in Germany. May be, I'm not right in something, but I cannot remember anything good except the good ecological situation and the rich Bavarian nature". (Marina, 43).

Late emigrants of the first generation rarely turn themselves into full members of the German society. The inadequate level of German doesn't allow them to get the education, the fragmental information about the accepting country leads to disappointment. According to the opinion of the interviewed, Germany may not become the paradise for all migrants. "People who have come to Germany with the firm mission to find their motherland that they lost several centuries ago, achieve the success, and the big one, because Germany is the country of open opportunities. If the person makes the aim and firmly, step by step follows it, she will achieve everything. If she hopes only on subsidies and the governmental assistance while taking a little care about her own personal and professional growth, her results are very small. At this, people of this kind naturally try to justify their failures and, of course, don't start from themselves. And everything is guilty for them: the incorrect system of kindergartens, bad schools, stupid beamtors in different authorities, very strict laws, the bad medicine, too small subsidies, the silly boss and, in general, Germans are idiots". (Alla, 45).

Taking everything into account, we emphasize that women show the adequate flexibility and readiness to act according to new situational requirements. They quicker follow the way of compromises, that means, choose successful strategies for adaptation - integration and assimilation. However, men are unable to refuse needs that have already formed and habitual ways to meet them, that's why they are less adaptive.

In the next part of our work we'll examine reasons for such behavior, point out the specific difference between men and women.

Main reasons for moving and migrants' stereotypes in the sphere of employment.

According to the information of our research, main reasons for migration were: the wish to improve one's lifestyle; the need to live in the calm environment, the need to take care about one's children and to give them as many opportunities as possible; to settle down in the civilized country; the family reunion. The specific female reason for migration can be considered to be the marriage, and the male one is the need to realize his professional potential in the Western country (to work according to his qualification, but to earn the good money).

Approximately in the half of all cases the decision about moving were taken jointly, by the whole family. Women decided to move somehow more actively than men when they spoke of the individual migration (34.7% and 30.9% correspondingly). However, if the issue was the move of the family, men called themselves initiators of migration three times more often than women. Such replies as "parents decided" could be seen in both male and female groups. Some people pointed out the temporary character of their stay abroad: "We haven't come forever, we think of this trip as of the career stage" (Polina, 30), or its involuntary character: "I am the wife" (Sonya, 63), "I had to, because of my husband" (Olga, 37), "The husband was the one who decided" (Maria, 57), "The husband decided and I don't argue with him" (Nikolina, 54), "My spouse" (Elvira, 37), "My mother-in-law" (Irina, 49), "The move had objective reasons" (Lyudmila, 62). It's characteristic that in cases when the decision about the move wasn't taken by oneself, but under the pressure of parents, one's husband or wife, circumstances, each third member of the survey supported the idea of coming back.

Motives for the move then had the impact on migrants' stereotypes in the sphere of employment. The modern situation in Germany is that there are 60 listed occupations for which the official recognition of correspondence of foreign diplomas and German ones made by the competent governmental authorities is obligatory. This category concerns doctors, veterinaries, pharmacologists, teachers, nursery teachers, lawyers, translators, architects, engineers, tax and economical consultants etc. Confirmation of the diploma with passing all formalities is not for everyone as well as getting a new profession that matches the previous status. Such variants are good for young women but migrants who are 35-40 years old and able to follow this way are exceptions. House chores, children, sometimes the low material interest due to the wealthy marriage in fact leave out women from the process of professional self-fulfillment and, correspondingly, integration. They find themselves "professionally remote" not only for their country but for the society that accepts them.

The diploma obtained in the country of exodus as well as fluent German don't allow migrants to occupy the professional niche in the new country unless they get the additional training. During the interview, it has been discovered that 36.3% of women and 26% of men, due to different reasons, were disqualified after they had lost their job during the move. At the same time, 41.6% of men and 38% of women found the job according to their qualification or work in a close field. At this, men changed their qualification much more often, in order to find the job. The most popular reply of men about the job (30.4%): "the new job is not in the field of my qualification but I'm happy with it".

As we've said earlier, mostly educated women move and the main reason for their migration is marital, not labor one, that's why they don't take the first job they see and are not prone to change the occupation. However, in this case they in fact have to be satisfied with the role of a housewife. They are not opposed to this situation, because the social opinion still supports the image of an unemployed woman as a respectable and wealthy one or as a toy-woman who makes the man happy by her existence. This stereotype is included into traditional ideas, while the image of an unemployed man is pictured as the source of negative feelings and complexes - the man has to be industrious and active. An unemployed woman is called by the folk a housewife and and unemployed man is called a vagabond.

Women with the university or the high school education, the fluent knowledge of the language who have lived 5 or more years in the new country often work as domestic assistants or take care of elderly and disabled people (the lawyer turned into the garbage loader, the mining engineer - into the orderly, the designer technologist became the cleaner, the teacher works in the bakery).

Women who had managed to realize their professional potential gave following replies: "I work in the field of my qualification, but in the junior position" (Natalia, 30), "I've got the new occupation and the chance to combine my job with my favorite hobby" (Larissa, 45), "I acquired the new profession here" (Alyona, 33), "I studied anew" (Kristina, 29). But only a few ones managed to preserve their profession - only 22% of interviewed women and 24% men replied that they could find the job in the field of their qualification (they are mostly experts in the field of transportation, service, building, owners of their own businesses).

The typically male strategy is the search for any job in order to find the means for survival and women, as a rule, enter the category of domestic assistants and housewives which are sometimes not very different. The professional inadequacy in the previous career sphere, the low-qualified labour and the forced status of a housewife have the direct gender correlation - they are female problems. The research shows that women who've got used to work are rarely satisfied by the role of housewives. In the future, they will have to either lower their expectations while trying to realize their potential in a more approachable sphere, or, while disagreeing with lowering of their status, to try recovering their previous positions.

So, men and women who have decided to move to Germany are motivated by different reasons that at the end define their ability to adapt. The analysis of periods and ways of migrants' adaptation is shown below.

Periods and ways of migrants' adaptation.

Being based on migrants' feelings one can make the conclusion that adaptation periods for men and women are approximately equal: according to the interview data 78.2% of respondents are fully or partially adapted. Among emigrants who have lived in Germany for more than 15 years, 86.3% have adapted; for 5-15 years - 81.5%; for less than 5 years - 57.8%. The adaptation process of young people (aged under 30) is much quicker: 18.1% of women and 23.9% of men who fall under that age group pointed out that they had been able to adapt within few months. On the contrary, the social exclusion expressed in the reply: "I feel that I'm a foreigner here" is characteristic for people of the middle and old age - 5.4% of women and 10.8% of men hadn't been able to build themselves into the society and now they feel alienation. The same 5.4% of women replied that they would never be able to get used to the life in Germany. Among men, this rate was much higher - 23.9%.

The term "adaptation" is understood by respondents mostly in the psychological than in the social and cultural or the economic sense. More than 80% of the interviewed, regardless their gender, linked adaptation with the emotional serenity, finding one's own circle: "to adapt means to feel like you feel in your native city, among your people" (Andrey, 46), "to feel as at home" (Anatoliy, 54). Quite a great number of women - 40% understand adaptation as the recovery of the previous status and career positions; moreover, 34.5% of women said that the most important marker of adaptation was the opportunity to provide the stable future for one's children.

It's commonly thought that men are more orientated to the career and achievement of professional results, but during the interview it was discovered that the said male strategy wasn't the dominating one. Many respondents believe that the provision of the stable future for one's children is more important - 36.9%, as well as solving of financial problems - 19.5% and status issues are relevant only for 15.2%. Under circumstances of migration men are rather adequate in estimating their career chances. They understand that achievement of the previous social status is quite difficult. They put more emphasis on the emotional comfort, the family, the future of children, the material wealth beforehand.

More than 58% of respondents, regardless their gender, pointed out that they had been able to achieve the better lifestyle in the new place. The equal number of men and women estimated their material position like the previous one as well as chose "I used to live better in the past". At the same time, "hopes on the future" are more characteristic for women (12.7% and 6.5% correspondingly). Moreover, they understand that they are to fight for their place under the sun - "my hint is that here your own piece, as it's said, is to be picked up by the deadly grip" (Snezhana, 32).

The leading indicator of adaptation is the desire of migrants to stay in the accepting country. Most of respondents would like to stay in Germany, and this index is higher among responded women - 58.6% of men and 76.3% of women. "In my case, it would be better for me in Germany, no matter what my job will be, I'll earn more money than in my mother country, and in my industry (commerce) it's easy for me to be promoted here, I have the future (they said it to me on the interview). I'm going to have children here and there'll be the better life for my children, as well as there will be more opportunities for traveling (the German visa opens many doors). In general, I feel awesome here, if not one BUT - I feel alone here in a moral sense, I have neither friends nor a family here, I also lack the drive of life that is abundant in Ukraine, in general, I miss the atmosphere I've got used to. But everywhere there are their own + 's and -'s. For me, Germany has already more pros than contras" (Natalia, 29).

The second most frequent reply, chosen regardless the gender (12.9% of respondents) was: "I like it here but I would like to move to some other place". Men more often defined their marginal position - 13% of respondents gave following replies: "I don't like it here and I don't want to come back" (Dmitry, 38), "I want to come back, but later" (Nikolay, 54), "I don't like it here, I don't want to come back but I want to move to the other country" (Inar, 45), "I'm not happy with multiculturalism and the false tolerance" (Constantine, 55). The desire to come back was experienced by the approximately equal number of men and women - 8% each, at that migrant moods are correlated only with the single marker - the job in the field of one's qualification and profession - and don't depend on the period of living in Germany or from the marital status, or from the material wealth, or the country of exodus.

Migrants who needed the psychological unload used approximately same approaches (made contacts with locals, communicated in the social media, watched their native TV and went for a trip to their native land). However, men more often used virtual than real contacts.

Trips to the native land as the stress-relieving method were used by 29% of women and 19% of men. Such difference doesn't mean differences in ways of relaxation but tells about categories of respondents. Women, "Russian brides" and wives of labor migrants cannot bring their parents and sometimes their children with them. But men often don't go to the native land because their successes in the new place are more than modest ones and they are not ready to meet their friends and classmates as laborers or unemployed people who "live on the welfare".

It's interesting that women used the rich set of psychological unloading methods twice more often than men (they traveled, listened to songs (V. Vysotsky, T. Bulanova, I. Kuchin), meditated, immersed themselves into the work, found a hobby, made sports), while men found consolation in watching TV shows, enclosed themselves in the social medias.

Sources of the emotional discomfort for men and women are significantly different. Men had to face the whole range of difficulties - "as a whole, everything is foreign", that was their most frequent reply. Women pointed out their greatest problem as: "limitation of social contacts" and "the absence of relatives". More than 20% of responded men and 12% of women mentioned "the absence of the mutual trust between migrants and locals" as the annoying factor.

The attitude of the accepting societ