How population decline is exposing Germany's old divides
It doesn't take long to spot an empty shop front, or several of the area's growing number of elderly people. Now Jan-Niklas, who sees reunification
It doesn't take long to spot an empty shop front, or several of the area's growing number of elderly people. Now Jan-Niklas, who sees reunification as a "success story" overall, is on a mission to bring younger people and families back. It's "home", he says. "I like the people. I think they deserve [to do] well." He left when he was in his late teens, to later return having built a career as a recruiter for a major German bank. His move home made the local news. "Back in Oschersleben after 13 years," read the Volksstimme (People's Voice) headline. "Returnee calls for ways to combat the skilled-worker shortage." That's just one problem with population decline; filling vacant jobs, including crucial social and healthcare roles to support the increasingly elderly population.
Fewer people can also lead to fewer services, such as shops, maternity wards, and schools. While a large number of migrants or refugees have come to Germany from countries including Ukraine, Syria and Turkey – as well as from other EU nations – those immigrants have mainly headed to big cities, such as Berlin, and the more urbanised west. And even when accounting for these people, Germany has an ageing population as the baby-boomer generation increasingly retires, and the nationwide birth rate stays stubbornly low. It means a shrinking workforce is having to shoulder the cost of a growing number of retirees. Birth rates began falling in the late sixties, after the introduction of the contraceptive pill and at a time when women became more likely to enter the workforce.
But last year the number of births reached their lowest level since 1946, according to preliminary figures. Professor Martin Bujard, from the Federal Institute for Population Research, a government agency, says data suggests that the impact of global crises like covid and the war in Ukraine have exacerbated the trend. "After Russia launched its full-scale invasion, nine or ten months later, birth rates in Germany fell," says Professor Bujard. The latest figures show that women without German nationality have more children than German citizens, with rates of 1.84 and 1.23 respectively (known as the fertility rate). But both are below the "replacement rate" of 2.1; the level at which a population stays steady from one generation to the next.
Germany's not alone in this. The UN has warned of an "unprecedented decline" in global fertility rates, driven by factors such as affordability and a lack of suitable housing. What's unique about the east of Germany today is that these birth rates are happening within a population that was so recently – and so rapidly – hollowed out.
The BriefWire