According to a new study, the desire to move to the country is growing in Germany.

After rural regions had to struggle primarily with migration to the big cities in the past few decades, there are now signs of a trend reversal, according to the study presented in Berlin on Tuesday "Landlust re-measured" by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development and the Wüstenrot Foundation.

Accordingly, all young families with parents aged 30 to 49 are drawn to the countryside.

So-called professional migrants between the ages of 25 and 29 are also increasingly settling in villages and small towns.

In contrast, large numbers of young educational migrants between the ages of 18 and 24 continue to leave rural areas.

They mainly move to big cities like Leipzig, Münster or Berlin, where there are universities and other training opportunities.

According to the available data, this trend has been apparent since 2017, said Frederick Sixtus from the Berlin Institute.

The corona pandemic has intensified this development.

According to the information, the average annual total migration balances per thousand inhabitants for the years 2008 to 2010 were compared with those for the years 2018 to 2020 for the analysis.

According to this, around two out of three rural communities in Germany recently achieved migration gains.

A decade earlier, this only applied to around every fourth rural community.

Rural communities gain

According to the study, small rural communities lost 3.8 inhabitants per thousand in the period from 2008 to 2010. Ten years later, a migration gain of 4.2 inhabitants per thousand was measured.

In the case of small towns, there was initially a minus of 2.3 and most recently a plus of 5.0.

In large cities, on the other hand, the increase in migration has fallen from 3.2 per thousand inhabitants ten years ago to 2.5 most recently.

Today, even remote regions are gaining residents through relocations, and the development between East and West has also become more similar.

Since 2014, a similar number of people have been moving from the east to the west every year and vice versa.

In the eastern and western German federal states, a similar number of rural communities, at 62 and 64 percent respectively, are now reporting gains from migration.

The study cites the scarcity of housing and rising real estate prices as reasons for the growing interest in rural life in Germany, which are dampening the previously high influx into the big cities.

This is especially true for many young families.

Even young professionals often find it difficult to find a suitable city apartment close to their employer.

On the other hand, digitization makes many professions “country-compatible”.

Many jobs, especially in creative and knowledge-intensive industries, could often be done from the rural home office.

Last but not least, the corona pandemic forced many companies to allow their employees to work from home.

"The corona pandemic did not cause the new longing for a life in the country, but it seems to have given it a strong boost," write the experts at the Berlin Institute.