Demographic Change in Germany from a spatial point of view:
beyond East vs. West
Claus Schlömer
(Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development
(BBSR) within the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR),
Bonn, Germany)
Introduction
For demographers and some few other experts the phenomenon which is now called
"demographic change" was clearly visible since it emerged some decades ago.
However, among a wider public only in recent years the term has become an
important issue. Meanwhile a lot of papers have been written on this matter from a
large variety of points of view. There is one simple reason for this growing concern
and popularity: More and more people realize that the size, age composition and
regional distribution of a country's population are an important framework for many
fields of policy. Policy and planning are made "for the people", and very often it is
simply necessary to know how many people there are, how old they are, and where
they live. This is even more important when these mentioned properties of the
population undergo considerable changes, and when these changes eventually
become evident.
Demographic change, as it is currently understood, consists of three main
components. First, there is a change in population dynamics. The population begins
to shrink, or to be more precisely, growth takes place only in case of migration gains.
The second component, demographic ageing is even more important: the share or
the number of younger people is decreasing while the share or the number of older
people increases. Finally, the share of immigrants and their descendants grows. This
process is called internationalization of the population. Sometimes a forth component
is added: individualization refers to the trend that a growing number of people are
living in small households with just one or two persons.
Figure 1 shows that these components do not occur independently from each other.
There are strong interactions between them, making demographic change a complex
and comprehensive process. All three basic demographic parameters, i.e. fertility,
mortality and migration contribute to it. The details will be explained later in this
paper. Yet it should be noted that not all effects point in the same direction.
1
Figure 1: Components of demographic change in Germany and their interactions
Beyond its relevance for planning and policy, demography can tell us a lot about a
country and its regions. Very often demographic processes can be interpreted as an
impressive result of social, economic and political circumstances. Historic events
have left their marks on today's population. Peculiarities, like a drop in the birth rate
or a massive impact of migration can very often be identified in the age composition
for decades. In other words: Most people living today in a country or a region have
lived there in the past, and many of them will be living there in the future, just being
some years older. This is also the main reason why quite reliable forecasts are
possible for the population. Even the open questions, how many children will be born
and how many people will die within the next, say 20 years can be answered with at
least some certainty. Birth rate (fertility) and death rate (mortality) usually follow
systematic patterns. They are strongly linked to social conventions and customs,
economic needs and, what can be even more important, to biological constraints. To
a lesser degree this also holds for migration.
Although nobody knows the future, it is useful to give an idea of it. However, such an
image of the future should be well-founded and based on reason, not on speculation
or guesses. Therefore demographic forecasts are valuable means, both for the needs
of planning and policy, and for a better understanding of "what is likely to happen" in
a country or a region in the long run. The assumptions of the forecast follow a so
called status-quo principle. Its results show what demographic development would
occur, if current and recent long-term trends (the status quo) continued.
In this paper, the demographic development of Germany in the past, the present and
the future is presented. It concentrates on regional contrasts within the general
trends. The main focus lies on population dynamics and demographic aging, whereas
internationalization is only briefly touched. The source for most of the data and
especially the forecast presented is the monitoring system of the German Federal
2
Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR)
and its Spatial Planning Prognosis (Raumordnungsprognose), a system of models
that assesses selected benchmark figures of spatial trends of the next about 20 years
to come. (see BBR 2006b, Bucher /Schlömer 2009).
The national and international level
Changing population dynamics
The beginning of today's demographic change lies in the past. The pivotal reason is
the decline in the total fertility rate (TFR, which can be interpreted as the average
number of children per woman) below the level of replacement. In the long run, a
human population (in the western world of today) is stable in its number, when about
2.1 children per woman are born. In the baby-boom generation of the 1950s and
1960s this threshold was considerably exceeded in Germany. But after a maximum in
1964 the TFR dropped, in 1970 it fell under the level of replacement and since 1975
it has stabilized at about 1.4 children per woman. The drop in the birth rate after the
baby boom is linked to many changes in society that took place in the late 1960s,
especially to those concerning the role of women and families.
More technically this means, since three decades every birth cohort is about one third
smaller than their parents' generation and conditions for an exponential shrinking
process are given. This is not a specific German situation. A decline in the fertility
rate was recorded in most countries in north-western Europe in the 1970s. Roughly
speaking, in the 1980s most countries in southern Europe experienced a similar
period, and in the 1990s, after the fall of the Iron Curtain a third wave of decline
reached Eastern Europe. Today almost all countries of the developed world have a
fertility rate considerably below the level of replacement (see Coleman 2007, Frejka
et al. 2008, or UN 2009).
The decline in the total fertility rate took place in East and West Germany virtually at
the same time (Figure 2). Amazingly, two countries divided by the Iron Curtain,
having different economic systems, different social systems and ideologies, still
showed a similar development. The changes in society standing behind this seem to
have been independent of the political system. In the late 1970s to the mid 1980s a
temporary increase took place in East Germany, yet leaving the TFR below
replacement level. This was mostly because young families were granted additional
financial advantages by the government. Among demographers, this bulge on the
diagram is sometimes colloquially called "Honecker-hunchback", named after the
former chairman of the council of state in East Germany, who was in office in these
years.
3
Fig. 2: Total fertility rate in Germany 1871/80-2006
In East Germany the fertility rate rapidly collapsed after 1990 to an all-time low of
0.77 in 1994, but recovered in the years afterwards. Currently it is still slightly below
the fertility level of the western part of the country. This decline in the early 1990s is
more or less directly attributed to the "shock" of changing socialism to capitalism, and
it was even deeper than in World War I and at the end of World War II (Fig.2).
Despite its meanwhile recovery, its effects will shape East Germanys demography for
decades to come.
As a result, German population dynamics slowly turns from growth to decline.
Besides the special case of East Germany, however, this course was delayed by the
intrinsic momentum of the population and the age composition. Still large birth
cohorts were in the age groups of parenthood, and many children were born until the
1990s, although the average number of children was already on its low level. At the
same time small birth cohorts were in ages of a high mortality, leading to relatively
small numbers of deaths. Continuing gains in life expectancy additionally reduced, or
rather postponed, the number of deaths. So the intrinsic decline became clearly
visible only in the second generation after the drop of the fertility rate.
But what is more important, the low fertility was – particularly in West Germany –
counteracted by net immigration. International migration gains reached a peak in the
1990s, just before the inherent natural shrinking characteristics of the population was
about to become evident.
4
1000 persons
Figure 3: Components of population balance in East and West Germany 1950 to 2007
800
600
400
200
0
-200
-400
-600
1950
1961: the Berlin
w all is built
1955
1960
1965
1970
1989: the w all
falls
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
East to West net migration (balance of East)
East to West net migration (balance of West)
International migration balance (excluding east-w est-migration)
Natural balance West
Natural balance East
Figure 3 shows the components of population balance in East and West Germany
since the 1950s. In West Germany the natural balance became negative in 1972.
This was however compensated by international migration gains. In the 1960s and
1970s workers from southern Europe and Turkey were recruited, as there was a
shortage of labour. Recruitment was stopped in times of smaller economic crises in
1967 and after 1973, leading to temporary migration losses. As can be seen, at least
since the 1970s migration gains are by far more important for the overall balance
than births and deaths, but they also follow an oscillating and unsteady path. Since
the late 1980s, migration seems no longer to be linked to economic cycles. It rather
reflects changing political circumstances. Asylum seekers, refugees, many of them
fled from the wars in former Yugoslavia, repatriation of ethnic Germans from Eastern
Europe and continuing family reunions contributed to most of the early 1990s
immigration. Today immigration to Germany is much more manifold than it was until
the 1980s.
After east to west migration had been practically stopped by the Berlin Wall and the
fortified border for 28 years, East Germany experienced heavy migration losses in
the years 1989 to 1991. Later in the 1990s, migration losses of East Germany – now
technically internal migration within the unified country – became less important.
They were exceeded by a death surplus in the second half of the 1990s, and in
recent years both sources of decrease are on a similar (still negative) level.
For both parts of the country this means that unless an unrealistic enormous increase
in fertility can be realized, future demographic growth can only come from
immigration. Variants of model calculations usually show that depending on the given
number of immigrants only the point in time, when the population balance becomes
negative, varies (Statistisches Bundesamt 2006; cf. Edmonston 2006 for a more
formal demographic approach).
5
Aging
While demographic shrinking becomes a relevant component of demographic change
only in the long run, demographic aging is a more persistent trend and is in progress
since decades. Although one might intuitively understand demographic aging, it is in
fact a very complex process. Basically the mean age rises, and age composition
changes. The share of younger people becomes smaller and at the same time the
share of older people increases. Depending on what particular age groups are
considered, there can be different answers to the question which population is "older"
and how much aging is taking place at what pace. This paper concentrates on two
age groups. Both of them are consumers of certain services, and both of them
undergo substantial changes.
First, the school-aged population (6 to 16 years, i.e. ages of compulsory school
attendance) can of course directly be connected with the demand for schools. Six
years after being born people enter the age group and ten years later they leave it. If
migration and mortality are negligible, the development reflects just the number of
births in the period of 16 to 6 years ago.
Figure 4: school-aged population in East and West Germany 1990 to 2025
140
forecast
120
Index (1990=100)
100
80
West
East
60
40
20
2025, born
2010 to 2019
2020, born
2005 to 2014
2015, born
2000 to 2009
2010, born
1995 to 2004
2005, born
1990 to 1999
2000, born
1985 to 1994
1995, born
1980 to 1989
1990, born
1975 to 1984
0
Figure 4 shows the relative development of this age group as a percentage of the
age group's population stock in 1990. It reveals a distinctive east to west contrast. In
the east, the collapse of the birth rate in the early 1990s can be easily retraced in the
school-aged population, starting in the mid 1990s. The recovery of the birth rate in
recent years eventually leads to a slight temporary increase, starting on a very low
level. In 2025 there will be only half as many school-aged persons as there where in
1990. In the west the number of school-aged people increased by about 20% in the
1990s, but will again decrease in the next ten years. This hill is a so called echo
effect of the 1960s' baby boom. Many people were in born in the 1960’s, hence many
people were in the ages of founding families in the 1990s. As a result, many children
6
were born in the 1990s, although the average number of children per woman virtually
did not change at all.
The second age group considered are the high aged (80+ years). In this group health
care and especially long-term care are of a particular importance, the latter partly
performed within families, partly in institutions or nursing homes. Again, the births 80
years ago and earlier are a good starting point to understand the current and future
number of the high aged people. Moreover, the development of this age group
depends on the given and future mortality. Figure 5 shows the number of high aged
people in East and West as a percentage of the age group's population stock in
1990.
Figure 5: high aged population (80+) in East and West Germany 1990 to 2025
250
forecast
Index (1990=100)
200
150
West
East
100
50
2025, born
before 1946
2020, born
before 1941
2015, born
before 1936
2010, born
before 1931
2005, born
before 1926
2000, born
before 1921
1995, born
before 1916
1990, born
before 1911
0
Unlike the younger population, the general path of development is very similar in East
and West Germany. This is no big surprise. Almost all of the people considered were
born in the same, then undivided country. Small birth cohorts of WW I and the early
1920s who are currently in this age are replaced by larger, i.e. "normal" ones of the
1930s, who reach the considered age in the future (Fig. 5, cf. also Fig.2). Most of the
massive future increase of the number of high aged people is thus some kind of
normalization. Reduced old-age mortality amplifies this development, but it is by far
not its main cause. The stronger dynamics in the west by 2015 reflects the higher life
expectancy in the west. Moreover, since retired people were to some extent allowed
to move from east to west even in times of the closed borders, even smaller cohorts
reached the age of 80 years in the east. In the long run, these east-west differences
will vanish. In the last years of the forecast, after 2020, again small birth cohorts, born
in the final stages of WW II and the first post-war years reach the age of 80 years and
the number of high aged people stops growing for some years.
Both age groups show a somewhat different development in the east and the west.
Besides this crude but partly striking distinction, there are more specific
7
developments on the regional and local level, where supplying services of public
interest become even more important. This will be discussed in the next chapter.
The regional and small-scale level
Although demographic change in the first place is an attribute of the entire population
in Germany and in many other countries, there are strong differences concerning
regions, cities and rural municipalities. Some characteristics are more prevalent in
certain parts of the country than in others, and in some cases even opposing trends
can occur.
On a regional and small-scale level, demographic change becomes an essential
framework for spatial planning and other fields of policy that take place on a local or
regional level. Additionally, as on the national level, many features of demographic
change can be related to other aspects beyond demography (in a narrower sense),
topics usually studied within human geography and its large variety of related
disciplines. This includes matters like regional labour markets, the housing markets,
land use, infrastructure or, in a broader sense, local and regional living conditions.
Changing population dynamics
All cities and counties in Germany have a total fertility rate below the level of
replacement. So in the long run the natural balance in all parts of the country will
become negative. At most locally in a few municipalities exceptions might be found.
Currently the overall trend for Germany and for many regions is a slow turnaround
from natural growth to natural decrease.
For a population that does not change its size on a big scale in a country, in theory
there are two possibilities of what can happen to the population in the country's
regions. All regions can show the same relative stability or, what is much more likely
in practice, some regions will grow and some will shrink. In this context, regional and
local population development is heavily modified by internal migration. But this is a
zero-sum situation: if one gains, another loses. In other words: in a population that
does not have natural growth any more, population gains are only possible at the
expense of others. In a way the struggle for population has begun.
In the 1990s this split dynamics was largely identical with an east-west-contrast. Most
regions in West Germany experienced population gains while most regions of the
east lost population. The collapse of the birth rate hit all parts of East Germany in a
similar manner, and most of these regions had migration losses to the west,
especially in the first years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The map (Fig. 6) shows
this general contrast, as most shrinking municipalities in the past (blue on the map)
are found in the east. In the west, only the old industrial core of the Ruhr and the
Saarland and some remote rural parts, e.g. in northern Bavaria had lost population.
These losses were still much smaller than the strong decline in most parts of East
Germany.
In addition to this large-scale contrast, a small-scale redistribution of population took
place in the east due to emerging suburbanization. In East Germany under the
socialist reign the housing market was tight, restricted and controlled by the
8
government. Many families lived in prefabricated large housing estates, often situated
in inner cities. After the German reunification, an enormous backlog demand for
single-family homes led to migration gains for some municipalities in the outskirts of
urban areas, places that were in many cases only sparsely populated before.
Furthermore, also for residents of West-Berlin low-cost suburban housing became
available behind the former wall surrounding the city. Suburbanization peaked in the
mid and late 1990s, when many East German cities experienced double losses.
Besides the local movers to the suburban hinterland, there were still losses due to
the economic gap between east and west. However, this migration stream has
become far less important compared to the "exodus" in the years 1989 and 1990.
Besides this local redistribution, the map shows that a change in population dynamics
from growth in the past to decrease in the future will predominantly occur in the west.
Most regions which in the past have had growth but are expected to face population
losses in the future (purple coloured on the map) are found in the western part of the
country. They are however adjacent to the east, to regions that are shrinking since
the German unification. In the future this "triangle of demographic decline" moves
west. It now comprises southern Lower Saxony, northern Hesse, the north-east of
Bavaria and the Ruhr as its westernmost point. The slow change from growth to
decrease on the national level has a counterpart in the regional population dynamics.
Like in a domino effect more and more regions, counties and municipalities will
change their position from demographic growth to stagnation and decrease. By the
year 2025 only "islands" of demographic growth (red coloured on the map) will
remain, most of them around economic centres in the south and the north-west such
as Munich and Southern Bavaria, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Hamburg and perhaps
Cologne.
9
Figure 6: Change of small-scale population dynamics by 2025
The question of demographic growth depends more and more on migration gains. As
international migration is very difficult to predict, the extent of this development is not
very reliable. In the given forecast, the assumptions for international migration gains
are based on a long-term average ignoring short-term up-and-downs. For regional
and local population stocks, internal migration becomes an even more important
factor for growth and decline. This means that the division between growing and
shrinking municipalities shown in the map does not claim to be exact for the future. It
provides an overall image that still has room for local special cases and exceptions,
most of them based on small-scale migration.
Only very few spots on the map fall in the category "decrease in the past, increase in
the future" (orange-coloured). Most of them are some big cities including Berlin. This
"change" is rather an expression of relative stability, as small losses in the past turn
into small gains in the future. Again, the dependency on (forecasted) migration gains
and losses make these results much less reliable than the general, large-scale
picture. Although many people are interested in "reliable" forecasts for a specific
city's population, it has to be said that there is no such thing. This clear declaration
10
can be misunderstood, as regionalized forecasts (including the one presented here)
in fact provide data for individual cities and other small spatial units. However, the
forecast can only be interpreted as a whole. Its results form some kind of mosaic,
where some individual pieces can have odd or even "wrong" colours, but the overall
picture is still clear.
Beyond the strict but simple division between positive and negative population
balance, figure 7 gives a more detailed impression of regional population dynamics in
the past and in the future. The 1990s were years of bustling migration, especially in
East Germany. In the future, a steadier and calmer development is expected, since
most of the transformations in society and economy will have come to an end. This
does not mean that changes have come to an end completely. In the east,
demographic change enters its second generation. The strongest shrinking of more
then 20% is expected to take place in remote rural areas, whereas bigger cities and
their close neighbours in general only have slight decreases. As a result, in East
Germany there will be a spatial concentration within a decreasing population. It
should be noted that most of the future losses in East Germany are due to a surplus
of deaths over births. Even if migration losses could be stopped, the general decline
could only be slowed down but not reversed.
In the west only a few regions can keep their past growth rates. Even for those
municipalities that do not shrink in the future only small growth or a more or less
stable population balance (yellow on the map) are expected. The "island"-character
of the remaining growth regions becomes very clear, particularly if compared to their
almost comprehensive extent in the past. A surplus of deaths will also be recorded in
most regions in the west. In some places migration gains can compensate for this
negative trend. This is not the case in the aforementioned "triangle of decline".
However, the population losses in these areas of the west are still smaller than in
most parts of the east. Yet, for most of them shrinking will be a new experience. This
has to be mentioned, since for decades regional and local planning usually followed
some kind of growth paradigm. But sooner or later a new awareness of changing
demographic conditions has to be established.
11
Figure 7: Recent and future population dynamics
Figure 8 gives a summary of regional population dynamics from German unification
to the year 2025. It shows the relative development in urban, rural and suburban
categories of counties in east and west, displayed as a percentage of the population
stock in 2005, the base year of the forecast calculations. For the west most of the
growth in the past, especially in the early 1990s, took place outside the cities. Unlike
in the east, there is no real difference between rural and suburban counties. In the
future the contrasts between cities and suburban to rural places are even smaller.
The map (fig.7) shows that the actual development is much patchier, and rather the
large-scale situation than the small-scale level of urbanization matters.
12
Figure 8: population dynamics in urban, suburban and rural counties
120
115
110
Index (2005 = 100)
105
100
95
Cities w est
Suburban w est
Rural w est
Cities east
Suburban east
Rural east
West total
East total
90
85
80
75
70
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
2020
2025
For East Germany, in the first three years covered, there were losses in all three
categories. Then, in the 1990s the suburban areas experienced population gains that
peaked in 1999. In the first years of the 21st century and in the future cities and
suburban counties share a similar, yet decreasing development. Their decline is
however not as extreme as the rural counties. They were the spatial category with
the highest losses since 1990 and in the future they will lose another 20 percent of
their current population.
Aging
Basically, demographic ageing takes place everywhere in the country. The general
path of development for two age groups undergoing strong changes has been
discussed in a previous chapter. For the school aged population a distinct east-west
contrast was revealed, while for the high aged people a similar development in east
and west became clear. Are there regions and places within the west or within the
east that are affected by these trends more than others? Figure 9 gives an answer to
this question. However, it needs some explanation.
13
Fig 9: Future dynamics of school-aged and high-aged population
A future decline in school population by one fifth is expected for Germany as a whole
until 2025. Additionally, there are systematic regional differences that are related to
urban, suburban and rural categories. The smallest decrease in the number of
students will be found in the core cities, some cities may even face slight increases.
Also the suburban hinterland of some cities benefits from in-migration of families and
shows only modest decreases. The strongest decline in school population (more than
one quarter of today's stock) is expected to take place in rural areas, particularly in
remote and sparsely populated regions. In the future this holds for east and west in a
similar manner. But as can be easily deduced from figure 4, for the west this is a new
experience, while for East Germany most of the decline in school population already
has taken place. For the planning of schools and related matters, such as public
transport or school buses, this leads to a specific need for adjustment. Securing
carrying capacities and economic sustainability was a major task for planning in East
Germany and is a forthcoming task in many regions of the west.
The relative increase in the number of older people is even bigger than the relative
decrease in the number of young ones. The basic process has been described in the
previous chapter. Figure 9 reveals that in all parts of Germany the number of the high
aged will grow by at least one third, but for many regions much higher rates are
expected. In some regions, there will be twice as many 80+ years old people in 2025
than today.
In most cases regional aging due to the increase of the number of old people means
"aging in place". Unlike in some other countries, migration of older people does not
14
contribute very much to changes in the age composition of larger regions. Only
locally, on a very small scale, retirement migration can have a considerable impact.
The low spatial mobility makes the prediction of the number of older people a more
reliable part of the forecast. Knowing the number of 60+ years old people today, it is
eventually mortality which determines how many 80+years old people will be living in
a certain region 20 years later.
Two types of region can be identified, where this aspect of demographic aging will be
really massive (Swiaczny et al. 2008). First, the stronger relative increase since about
2005 in East Germany already shown in figure 5 again can be seen in most regions,
especially in remote and sparsely populated rural areas.
In the west the regional situation is much more distinctive. It is a result of former
internal migration. However, this migration took place when the people considered
belonged to younger age groups. They were in fact the parent generation of families
that moved from cities to suburban communities. A highly positive migration balance
of a birth cohort and a subsequent low mobility of people in this age group are
responsible for a high impact of the aging-in-place process in a region, as explained
above. A region with a large positive migration balance in the past and low mobility of
these people afterwards will hence ‘age in place’. This is in particular related to the
suburbanization which has taken place since the 1960s in the western part of
Germany. In the west the highest rates of growth of the high aged people in figure 7
are found almost exclusively in counties surrounding the core cities (Swiaczny et al.
2008).
The young families of the suburbanization in the 1960s and 1970s have become
older. The children usually have moved out and founded their own households, while
the parents remained. As a result, neighbourhoods of single family homes, originally
designed for families with children, are now and in the forthcoming future increasingly
inhabited by old couples and old widows. For many suburban municipalities this is an
unprecedented situation. Basically it means that people with presumably a lower daily
mobility tend to live more and more in places where longer distances have to be
overcome.
This process is also expected to have an effect on the urban and suburban housing
market, when eventually the old people have to give up their own household. Most
people stay in their homes as long as possible, particularly in owner occupied homes
that they have built with their own hands (or at least their own money). But sooner or
later there will be an increasing offer of vacant houses from the early suburban
period. This is sometimes considered a chance to stop urban sprawl, especially since
the intrinsic demand for family housing will decrease (due to demographic change,
again!) and these homes are situated closer to the central cities than newly built ones
on the edges of suburban fringes.
Looking at demographic aging in regional categories of urbanization generally
reveals a reversal of former patterns of age composition (Fig.10). Around 1990, not
only the population in the east was "younger" than in the west. Moreover in the west
the cities had an "older" population than the suburban and rural areas. They had both
a lower share of younger age groups and a higher share of older people. During the
late 1990s and the forthcoming decades this situation is changing. Particularly in rural
and suburban counties the number of younger people goes down, whereas in the
cities only a slight decrease in this age group is about to happen. In the last years of
15
the forecast, the share of under 20 years old in the countryside will be on the same
level as in the cities. This shows again that the component of aging predominantly is
taking place outside the cities (cf. fig. 9). Cities (in the west) are affected by aging in a
less direct way.
For the 60+ years old an increase takes place everywhere, but again in the cities the
pace of demographic aging is slower. This also contributes to a reversal of age
compositions. In 1990 the cities in West Germany had the highest share of older
people. But by 2010 they will be the category with the smallest share.
In the east, there is also a reversal of the share of under 20 years old people. About
in 2010 the cities will surpass the rural regions. However this process happens within
a specific path of development that covers all parts of East Germany and has been
explained before. It also has to be considered that all Berlin is included in the
category of East German cities. Since the demographic upheavals of East Germany
did not apply to West Berlin, the city in total follows a more western type of
development.
The data and forecast provided here do not show how demographic change will be
present within different parts of the cities. Compared to rural and suburban areas,
cities usually have a highly complex structure full of economic, social and other
contrasts like ethnical segregation. Of course this also applies to demographic
characteristics, making a uniform statement impossible. The most reliable predictions
of demographic change in this context can be given for de facto suburban
neighbourhoods, many of them built and populated in the 1960s. They later became
incorporated into the bigger cities, or they were already situated within city
boundaries. For these quarters the central points about "aging in place" in suburban
counties (fig. 9 and 10) should also be applicable.
16
Figure 10: Demographic aging in urban, suburban and rural counties
Share of young people
30
percentage of under 20 years old persons
forecast
Cities w est
Suburban w est
Rural w est
25
Cities east
Suburban east
Rural east
20
15
10
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
2020
2025
2015
2020
2025
Share of older people
45
forecast
percentage of 60+ years old persons
Cities w est
40
Suburban w est
Rural w est
Cities east
35
Suburban east
Rural east
30
25
20
15
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
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Synopsis
A visual summary of future demographic development in Germany's regions is given
in Figure 11. The map shows which components of demographic change are
regionally most important and where different components overlap. Three major
aspects of population dynamics, demographic aging and internationalization have
been selected for this map. Such an approach is consistent with the character of the
forecast. Instead of formally "exact" quantitative results, rather qualitative spatial
trends and tendencies are displayed and related to their regional prevalence.
Fig 11: Future regional demographic development – a synopsis
The split dynamics of population with increases in the south and the northwest and at
the fringes of urban areas is also a fundamental condition for demographic aging. In
most growing regions the decrease in younger age groups is less relevant, and aging
takes place rather due to the increase in the number of old people. In most shrinking
regions on the other hand a decrease in school-aged population is expected. If
additionally the number of high aged people increases, demographic upheavals are
even more massive. This constellation applies to large parts of rural areas in the
East. Here the components of demographic change - with the exception of
internationalization - accumulate in their clearest manifestations.
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Furthermore, the map provides an image of the regional distribution of international
migration. Like in the past immigration mostly affects bigger cities in West Germany.
Moreover, in the south and west also smaller cities and urbanized districts in large
metropolitan areas undergo a considerable internationalization. New immigrants tend
to live close to former immigrants. This holds of course especially for family reunions
and other forms of chain migration. As a result, spatial distribution of international
migration very often follows some kind of self-energizing feedback loop. In the 1990s
the repatriation of ethnic Germans followed a different pattern. Most of these
immigrants were distributed via predetermined rates among the federal states. In
some cases regions outside the big metropolitan areas received a considerable
number of immigrants. In East Germany internationalization is far less prominent,
although some bigger cities modestly partake in immigration. Again, the special case
of Berlin has to be noted, the western part of the city of course belonging to the
western world before 1990 and thus having a "western" type of immigration history.
As it can be seen, in many cases the "white spots" on the map, i.e. places where no
significant demographic aging and no considerable shrinking (or growth) take place,
are just the big core cities, where internationalization has its most striking impact.
This is no accidental coincidence. It reveals again that aging and shrinking is
counteracted only by immigration, a situation that determines especially the
demographic future of many cities.
The map shows that there is shrinking (of younger age groups) in growing regions as
well as there is growth of other groups like older people and immigrants in shrinking
regions. Shrinking does not mean that every type of demand for services, housing
etc. will become smaller. Although most parts of the country are affected by
demographic change, there is no overall occurrence of all of its components. They
are as manifold as the regions' initial situations, and there is no all-purpose strategy
to deal with these individual paths of demographic development, many of them
unprecedented.
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