One-Third of Young People in Germany Have Foreign Background, Government Stats Reveal

A quarter of people in Germany have “immigration history,” rising to as many as a third among the youngest cohort, but Germany’s restrictive definition of what constitutes a migrant may mask even greater numbers of foreign-heritage residents.

The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) published a demographical bulletin this week, noting that, for the first time, the proportion of people who are either migrants themselves or born to two migrant parents is one-quarter of the national population. This works out at 21.2 million people, an increase of four per cent in a year, or 873,000 people from 2023 to 2024.

Destatis notes migrant communities in Germany tend to skew younger, and in the 20-39 cohort, a full third of people living in Germany have that “immigration history”.

While this rate of demographic change is significant, Destatis’s categorisation of its data may conceal further change. Only first-generation migrants and those born to two migrant parents are counted in the headline figures, and those born to one migrant parent and one German parent are excluded.

“They are therefore not considered part of the population with an immigration history,” the nation’s official statistician said.

Single-migrant parent individuals will account for a further 4.1 million people in Germany in 2024. Per the Destatis figures, accounting for all first- and second-generation migrants, this puts the total “immigration history” population of Germany at 30.7 per cent.

Depending on the degree to which various migrant communities have successfully integrated into German society, and given Germany’s Gastarbeiter (guest worker) programme — a misnomer given very few ever return home — is now 70 years old, the statistics are not designed to capture individuals who may have four migrant grandparents, for instance.

The rate of immigration has surged in recent years. Destatis said 6.5 million people arrived in Germany since 2015, the first year of the European Migrant Crisis. In the most recent cohort of arrivals, the top countries of origin are Ukraine, Syria, and Turkey.

Meanwhile, in a development reported by Germany’s Die Welt newspaper, the most productive source of migration to Germany, in terms of economic engagement and tax revenue, is showing signs of drying up. Describing migrants from Eastern Europe as “a key pillar of the German labour market,” the report notes that the number of arrivals is plummeting, down two-thirds in recent years.

The paper noted that, because of the decline in this source of migrant labour, which the German government believes it needs to survive, the German Economic Institute advises attempting to attract more immigrants from non-European countries.