Germany Demographic Profile Part 5: Outlook | Germany

How Demographic Change Transforms Germany

Exodus (1/8)

This 2003 photo of Wittenberge shows an all-to-familiar scene in the small towns of eastern Germany - the signs of exodus: boarded-up and crumbling buildings, and empty streets. About 1.7 million people, about a tenth of the former population of East Germany, have left eastern Germany since the end of the Cold War. Surrounded by industrial decline and economic stagnation, many go looking for jobs in western Germany or abroad. (Photo: Reuters)

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How Demographic Change Transforms Germany

Demolition in the East (2/8)

Projected onto the dismantled former East German parliament building in Berlin are the words "Clobber it, before it clobbers you."

It is not only the parliament building that is coming down. Since German unification in 1990, around 390,000 empty residences in eastern Germany will also have been torn down by 2009 with government assistance. To cut down on service and maintenance costs, some infrastructure, like roads, pipes, and cables are also being ripped out in places where it is no longer needed. (Photo: Reuters)

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How Demographic Change Transforms Germany

Hour of the Wolf? (3/8)

Wolves were nearly entirely killed off in Germany by mass exterminations during the early 20th century, but they are slowly making a comeback in Germany's depopulated eastern states. After crossing over into Germany from Poland and the Czech Republic, a few dozen wolves roam in the eastern German forests. With fewer of their only predator - human beings - around and legal protection from hunting, their numbers are expected to increase. (Photo: Reuters)

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How Demographic Change Transforms Germany

Family policy (4/8)

The Roth family with their son, Danny, the first baby born in Hamburg, Germany in 2007. Parents of children born on or after January 1, 2007 qualify for the German government's new package of benefits aimed to encourage would-be parents to have children.

The centerpiece of these policy is Elterngeld ("parent money"), which pays out one parent per household 67 percent of their net wage while they take up to a year off to stay home with their baby. The government has also pledged to triple the number of daycare places over the next five years. (Photo: Reuters)

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How Demographic Change Transforms Germany

Women and Careers (5/8)

From a small town in East Germany, Angela Merkel - pictured here with German students - earned a doctorate in chemistry and rose the political ranks to become Germany's first female chancellor. But as many commentators point out, Merkel has no children.

Family policies in Germany are aiming to make it easier for women to balance career and family instead of having to decide for one or the other. The gender pay gap in Germany, however, remains one of the largest in Europe. Women get paid on average 22 percent less than men. (Photo: Reuters)

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How Demographic Change Transforms Germany

A Pensioners' Democracy? (6/8)

Pensioners look out onto Lake Chiemsee in southeastern Germany. Because rising a life expectancy and long period of low fertility, Germany faces an unprecedented aging of its population over the next few decades. By 2050, only half of Germany's population will be of working age, 20-65 years old. Around 15 percent of the population will be younger than 20, which is roughly the same percentage that will be over 80. (Photo: Reuters)

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How Demographic Change Transforms Germany

Painful Reforms (7/8)

German auto workers demonstrate near Frankfurt, Germany in January 2007 against the governments plans to gradually increase retirement age from 65 to 67 - one of the more unpopular reforms of the country's pension and social security system. Because of low birthrates and rising life expectancy, the percentage of pensioners to people of working age is expected to nearly double - from 32 to up to 64 retirees per 100 people in the workforce. This kind of population development would make the current pension system unsustainable. (Photo: Reuters)

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How Demographic Change Transforms Germany

Integration (8/8)

Turkish and German fans mingled in good spirits in Berlin during the Euro 2008 semifinal match between the two national teams. But integration for Germany's 2.6 million Turks and other ethnic minorities has not been easy.

Germany recruited hundreds of thousands of Turks, Italians, Greeks, and Yugoslavians as "guest workers" during the 1950s and 60s. Many stayed and started families, even after the German "economic miracle" ended in the early 1970s. Today, foreigners in Germany are twice as likely as Germans to be unemployed and dependent on social welfare. Children of immigrants are less than half as likely to attend Gymnasium, the secondary school track leading to university. (Photo: Reuters)

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