Enlarge image
Passers-by at Cologne Central Station
Photo: imago stock&people / imago/Future Image
Social aging poses significant challenges for society and the economy - among other things because fewer people will tend to be actively working, but social systems will have to care for more and more older people. But how exactly will Germany's population change in the coming years?
Statistically speaking, according to a study, Germany's population will increase minimally by 2040 - at least when you look at the country as a whole. According to the Bertelsmann Foundation's “Guide to Municipalities” presented on Tuesday, around 0.6 percent more people will be living in the Federal Republic in 16 years.
The problem: The development is distributed very differently across the individual federal states. While Saarland and the eastern federal states have to plan for population declines, the authors predict a plus for the other states. The comparison point for the foundation with 2040 is the year 2020. According to the Federal Statistical Office, four years ago 83.15 million people lived in Germany.
Saxony-Anhalt has not only been shrinking since reunification
According to the calculation, the population development in the 13 federal states is between plus 4.6 percent for
Baden-Württemberg
and minus 12.3 percent in
Saxony-Anhalt.
In the city states
of Berlin
and
Hamburg
there is a significant increase of 5.8 and 3.5 percent.
Bremen
only increased moderately by 1.1 percent.
Among the independent cities,
Leipzig
,
Potsdam
and
Bamberg
expect an increase of more than 10 percent. This also applies similarly to the districts of
Biberach
(Baden-Württemberg),
Mühldorf am Inn
and
Kelheim
(both Bavaria). Districts and independent cities in the eastern federal states are at the bottom of the list with declines of 17 percent or more.
For many of the new federal states, the development is particularly extreme.
Saxony-Anhalt
, for example, has lost around twenty percent of its inhabitants since reunification. However, this trend is only partially a result of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the like: the country's population has been declining for many decades: in 1955 there were still 3.5 million people living in Saxony-Anhalt, in the last year before reunification (1989) there were almost three million and in 2019 only 2.2 million people (you can find the time series here).
While the population decline has affected many regions in the east, this phenomenon also occurs - to a lesser extent - in the west of the republic: the population in
Saarland
is shrinking the most of all western federal states. By 2040 it will decline by 5.3 percent.
Unclear factor migration?
»Three factors are crucial for forecasts: births, deaths and migration. Points 1 and 2 develop relatively stringently, the hikes are the difficult part," says study author Petra Klug. »There have been two events in recent years that have made forecasts difficult. That was the war in Syria in 2015 and the war in Ukraine in 2022. Both had and continue to have extreme effects on the calculations,” said the Bertelsmann Foundation expert.
And according to Klug, both events brought different influences with them. “Unlike from Syria, a high proportion of young and middle-aged women in particular have come to us from Ukraine,” says the scientist. Experts believe that the extremely high level of immigration following the war of aggression against Ukraine will not continue.
Significant shift in the age structure
The numerical changes in the population size are one thing, the demographic development is another, i.e. the change in the age structure. The baby boomers are reaching retirement age and the number of employed people is decreasing. According to calculations,
the
number of people over eighty
will increase from around 5.8 million in 2027 to around 7.7 million in 2040. The share of this age group in the total population will then be 9.2 percent.
The so-called median age shows how big the differences are in the age structure of the population. This value divides the population into a younger half and an older half.
Nationwide, the median age will rise by 1.2 years to 47.1 by 2040
. The range between the federal states is almost 10 years. In Hamburg and Berlin the value is around 43 years in 16 years. In four of the five eastern countries, the median age is between 52 and 53 years. At the district level the differences are even greater. The oldest district will therefore be Greiz in Thuringia with 57.3 years, the youngest the city district of Heidelberg (Baden-Württemberg) with 38.8.
Regarding possible errors in such forecasts, Klug says: The assumptions are discussed with various experts at federal and state levels to the best of our knowledge and belief. »The smaller the territorial units, the more error-prone the forecasts are. But even small municipalities have to be able to plan and need the numbers to be able to assess trends,” says Klug.
In particular, large companies moving away from a city have an impact on population development - these can rarely be planned for. “All the calculations are no longer correct.” Another problem for the forecast are municipalities with initial admissions. Klug speaks of special cases that distort the statistics with their reporting data.
beb/dpa