Young people continue to migrate to the west: Loses East Germany

Young people continue to migrate to the west: Loses East Germany

The migration in Germany continues to run in a dramatic direction! In 2023, more young people from the East German federal states are drawn to the west of the country. According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), Netto decided 7,100 young adults between the ages of 18 and 30 to pack their suitcases and pull west. This trend continues the immigration current that has existed since 1991 and throws a bright light on the challenges with which East Germany is faced.

The numbers are alarming! More and more young people are leaving their homeland in East Germany to find better opportunities for studying and vocational training in the West. Since reunification, a total of almost 727,000 young people have dared to take this step. This is a clear indication of the continuing flight of young talents to West German space - a phenomenon that drastically changes the demographic landscape of the entire region. Since 1991 there have been almost 1.2 million people who migrated from the east to the West!

a dark picture for East Germany

In the past ten years, a more balanced picture of the migration movements has become emerging, but the current statistics make you listen: Last year, for the first time, more people from the East German federal states to the West were hiked than vice versa. With a loss of just 3,000 people, one might think that the situation had improved. But appearance is deceptive! While some federal states in the east can record positive immigration, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt are still severely affected by emigration.

Net immigration from abroad shows an even more drasty imbalance! In western Germany, net immigration in 2023 was five times as high as in the east. While 517,000 people moved to the western federal states, it was only a modest 97,000 in the east. A clear sign of where people look alive and optimistically into the future!

The age structure - an alarming signal

The effects of these migration flows cannot be overlooked: the proportion of people of working age in the East German federal states is now alarming! With only 57.5 % of the population, this is far behind the West German average. The sad leader is Saxony, where only 57.1 % of the population in the age group counts from 18 to 64 years. This has far -reaching consequences - a faster aging of the population that could become even more worrying in the coming years.

In addition, the statistics show that the circles with the lowest proportion of 18 to under 65 year olds are all in East Germany. In Dessau-Roßlau, for example, this proportion is 53.4 %! At the same time, the cities in the west bloom, with Heidelberg and Regensburg, where the proportion of the employable population is over 68 %.

These developments are not just numbers - they are a clear signal: East Germany urgently has to act in order to stop the emigration of young people and to keep the region attractive for future generations. The clock ticks and the challenges are huge - how long can East Germany still withstand this trend?