S ETTLING I N

The quality of life in the UK for the older migrants is influenced by the extent to which their needs are being met. Maslow’s (1943) Hierarchy of Needs shows that biological and physiological needs must be met before any others, closely followed by safety, which includes housing and employment. If these basic requirements can be met, then migrants will feel that they have been successful. Perceived success has been shown to increase the sense of satisfaction that migrants have with their decision to

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migrate, and this success is linked to expectations (Mudege & Zulu, 2011). Older people have more realistic expectations and are therefore more likely to be satisfied (Mudege & Zulu, 2011).

This is not always so; Irena (47) goes to church every week, meeting mostly Polish people. She does attend meetings at the school to discuss her son’s progress with the teachers and she speaks to her neighbours, albeit “I speak short answers, short questions.” She was upset when interviews to get a nursing position resulted in her being told her language skills were not good enough and that she must improve her English, and she worked as a voluntary nursing care assistant for six or seven months in an effort to do so. This has made her very depressed with her situation, that she has not been able to use her nursing education, training and skills.

Previously she had been a sister in a hospital and had taken on the ensuing responsibilities, but now she feels all her experience has been wasted. Irena’s position is slightly different from some of the others as she was in a good job in Poland and came to the UK to be with her husband, who was unemployed. It is more difficult for those who did not themselves migrate for economic purposes, as they have had more to lose. As Irena says: “When a person is uneducated, they will do anything here because it’s work, but I feel wrong here. I lost something from my life.”

Women seem to be more reluctant to give up their positions than men, which may be because it was more difficult for them to achieve those positions originally and, consequently, they feel they have more to lose. Justyna (47) describes how she managed to get her university place:

My family was in opposition to the Party so I couldn’t do anything. Nobody, grandparents, parents, were part of the Party, never. At this time a lot of children from the Heads of the Party had extra points to get into university. I had to do better. I saw it as an opportunity to do something, to go somewhere.

A paper presented by Al-Dajani (2008) at the Prowess Annual Conference in Peterborough in 2008 highlights the trend of increasing self-employment involving migrant women, and that Eastern European women are likely to be more entrepreneurial than the men. Self-employment increases their chances of stability and reduces poverty and is also an indicator that English language proficiency may not be the barrier to success in this country. It may be that many of these potentially

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entrepreneurial women migrants do not yet have the confidence to become self-employed. However, there may be signs of this. Krystyna (49) says:

In England I can have my hobbies and develop everything I want to do. I can make my cards for example. Now I can do things for myself. My little business, more of a hobby. At Christmas time, for Polish people, it’s a tradition in Poland to send Christmas cards to family and friends, similar in England, and this time it will be good because people want them. This is more work for me at home.

In terms of Polish employment, women have taken on many of the vacancies in the care sector, often recruited through agencies. There has been a certain amount of exploitation of these women, many of whom are required to work long and unsocial hours for low pay. In other work facilitated by agencies targeting Polish workers, additional deductions are taken from wages on the pretext of complying with UK law (House of Commons, 2009: 96). McDowell et al (2008: 340) explain that young Polish women working through agencies in hotels described their work as demeaning, demanding and unpleasant, although they were prepared to take on such casual work until something better came along. For some of the older migrants, however, opportunities are seen in the employment available to them. Julia (45) explains that it is improving her relationship with her new partner: “Now I am starting to feel more comfortable. My man and I both work together in a chocolate factory.

He’s packing them and I am packing them.” For others, the opportunities available to them add meaning to their lives. Gabriela (52) comments: “Life is easy in England.

You can get a job at any age, it is easier to function.”

Older people find it harder to integrate, they do not have the social confidence of the young, nor do they have the same opportunities for networking. One of the main issues when carrying out this study was the lack of networking between older and younger Polish migrants. Whereas there were many portals for connecting with young Poles, these were virtually non-existent for the older generation, and younger Poles did not have social contact with older Polish migrants. There was little interaction between younger and older migrants and there was a wide generational gap which had not been evident in earlier migration flows. Older migrants did not seek out specific locations where they might feel at home with their ethnicity, and where their specific needs might be met in communities where there were Polish shops, Polish churches and Polish speaking neighbours. On the contrary, they

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seemed to be happy with accommodation in predominantly English areas and had a much more realistic attitude towards integration than was anticipated. However, they did make use of networks upon arrival in the host country, with eighty per cent stating that they had help from family, friends or other Polish people to find jobs and accommodation.