May 4, 2024 - 8:00am

Few countries fear the power of demography as much as Germany. Newly released figures show that the country’s birth rate has fallen to its lowest in a decade — cue predictions of economic doom and knee-jerk suggestions for Germany to fill the predicted shortfall of people through immigration. Yet that approach would create more problems than it would solve. Falling birth rates are more than a statistic. They deserve public discussion, not sticking-plaster solutions.

There is no doubt that the situation is serious. Only 693,000 babies were born in Germany last year, a decline of 6.2% from the previous year. Even then, German women had just 1.46 children on average when 2.1 are required to keep population levels steady. There will be fewer Germans overall, which also means fewer women of childbearing age, and so the demographic downward spiral continues.

This is an enormously consequential process with ramifications for all areas of public life. Yet, in Germany, reports of falling birthrates are treated primarily as economic news. The social security system relies on the taxes of the young to directly pay for the pensions of the old. With potentially fewer workers paying in as people get older and older, the imbalance threatens to break the system. News of an ageing society invariably creates personal fear for Germans alongside economic gloom.

Rather than identifying causes for the ongoing drop in birth rates, the issue is often reduced to its most immediate economic consequence: the workforce problem. The German economy has lamented the lack of both skilled and unskilled workers for years. The Institute for Economic Research, an influential Munich-based think tank, calls it “one of the biggest challenges for businesses in Germany”.

Demanding a quick fix, Germany’s Federal Employment Agency wants demographic change to be combatted by attracting 400,000 immigrants a year to the country. Other economic experts go further. Monika Schnitzer, chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts which advises Olaf Scholz’s government, says 1.5 million immigrants annually are needed.

What is presented as pure economic policy would have huge cultural, social and political ramifications. Nearly half the children under the age of five in Germany already have a “migration background”, meaning they are first- or second-generation immigrants. People without a German passport have significantly higher birth rates than those with citizenship. So while the economy would receive more workers with increased migration, the country would also change drastically and irrevocably without its citizens’ consent.

High levels of immigration are already causing a huge political backlash in the rise of the Right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the formation of a new Left-wing but anti-immigration party under former communist Sahra Wagenknecht. As the political centre loses ground, coalitions will become more difficult to form, potentially making individual states and the country more difficult to govern. Alongside the political strife, social tensions are on the rise. Violent attacks against refugees rose last year, as did crimes committed by them.

The issue of demographic change is too complex to be solved purely by economic minds. Many young couples are reluctant to have children while war and multiple crises create uncertainty. “People need life affirmation and optimism to decide to have a child,” one expert told the German press. Others have pointed to improving childcare provision or financial stability for young families so that work and family life aren’t mutually exclusive. Other solutions could involve a managed population decline in which the pension system is reformed and the economy restructured.

Immigration may well be part of Germany’s response to demographic change, but it’s not the panacea it’s presented as. Population decline is not an issue for economic experts alone to decide as it goes well beyond their expertise and remit. It concerns society as a whole and should be tackled with democratic consent, not spreadsheet politics.


Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian and writer. She is the author, most recently, of Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990.

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