Germany's population is aging at an unprecedented rate, national birthrates are falling, and immigration is slowing. Is there any good news for Germany's demographic future?
 | A homemade flag combining elements from the Turkish and German flags at a match between the two national football teams in June 2008 (Photo: Reuters) |
Fertility and Aging
Germany's birthrate began a steep decline in the early 1970s, around the time birth control pills hit the market. For the last 35 years, the number of births across Germany has been far below what is needed to sustain its population. Germany's fertility rate of 1.34 children per woman is now the lowest in western Europe, and its 8 annual births per 1,000 people is the lowest in the world.
The latter ratio is important because it defines the future mix of young people with old. In Germany, there are now around 32 elderly (65 and older) people for every 100 people in the workforce. Because of low birthrates and other trends, this "dependency rate" could double by 2050. That means that for every 100 people of working age, there could be 64 people in retirement. This kind of population development would make today's pension and social security system financially unsustainable.
Another factor affecting population aging is increasing life expectancy. Over the last century, life expectancy in Germany has increased by over 30 years. If current trends continue, a baby boy born in 2050 could expect to live to 83; a baby girl to 88. This is good news because it reflects Germans' health and high living standards. Rising life expectancy, however, also presents the challenge of more elderly people collecting pensions longer into old age.
 | Animation (click on the image to begin)See the transformation of Germany's demographic pyramid (Animation: Destatis) |
Immigration
Germany's postwar immigration began in the 1950s. To man the factories and plants of the postwar "economic miracle" in West Germany, Germany recruited hundreds of thousands of industrial workers, mostly from Turkey, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece. Many of these Gastarbeiter ("guest workers") stayed and started families, even after the miracle and recruitment ended in the early 1970s.
Far fewer foreigners came to Communist East Germany, though the government recruited many contract laborers from other socialist countries, including Vietnam, Mozambique, and Cuba. Most of these workers returned to their home countries, but around 90,000 of them - including 60,000 from Vietnam - were still in the country when the Berlin Wall came down in 1990.
Today, roughly seven million foreigners live in Germany, including 1.7 million Turks, 528,000 Italians, 384,000 Poles, and 330,000 Serbs. The next five biggest immigrant groups are Greeks, Croatians, Russians, Austrians, and Bosnians, which together account for about a million people. The number of annual immigrant arrivals has steadily declined since German unification in 1991, when around 1.2 million people came to Germany. Just over half that number - 680,000 people - came in 2007.
Once in Germany, many immigrants and their descendants have had difficulties integrating into German culture and society. Foreigners are twice as likely as Germans to be unemployed and dependent on social welfare, according to the Berlin Institute for Population and Development. Meanwhile, the children of immigrants are less than half as likely to attend Gymnasium, the secondary school that leads to university.
Emigration and Domestic Migration
Migration in Germany is not a one-way street. Around 165,000 Germans moved abroad in 2007. These were mostly job-seeking Germans and their families who settled elsewhere in Europe. With the country's unemployment hovering at around eight percent, the German government has even offered financial support to many of the country's 3.7 million jobless Germans who want to relocate for work.
East-to-West domestic migration also continues in Germany, worsening depopulation in the six eastern states. Two-thirds of the 1.5 million people that have left eastern Germany since unification are young, educated women. Many head west to more prosperous German cities like Frankfurt, Munich, and Stuttgart. There are now as few as 76 women to every 100 men in some parts of eastern Germany. Demographic experts say the absence of young women not only leads to fewer babies, but also to frustration and right-wing extremism among the young, uneducated men that remain in economically depressed areas.
Learn how the German government is responding to these trends here.
editor: Valdis Wish
publishing date: July 21, 2008
