BERLIN
Immigration is helping Germany compensate for its rapidly growing birth deficit, but it remains insufficient to reverse its population decline after 2020, the German federal statistics office said in a report released on Tuesday.
Germany’s population, which hit 81 million in 2014, will continue to increase in the next five years thanks to immigration, but will see a continuous decrease from 2020 onwards, according to the report “Germany’s Population by 2060”.
The statistics office estimated German population to shrink to as few as 67.5 million in 2060, despite the fact that Germany will have welcomed 6.3 million immigrants in the next 45 years.
Birth deficit
Roderich Egeler, president of the Federal Statistical Office, said on Tuesday that due to the aging population and low fertility, the number of deaths will increasingly exceed the number of births in the coming years and decades.
“This will lead to a rapidly growing birth deficit, which cannot be compensated by net immigration,” he said in a press conference in Berlin.
Germany has seen a growing number of immigrants from EU member states of Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Spain and Greece in recent years.
The country also received growing number of refugees from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.
Net immigration increased from 279,000 in 2011 to 429,000 in 2013.
Egeler said that despite a significant increase in net immigration, the birth deficit had also reached a new peak of 212,000 in 2013, thus resulting in only a small increase in population.
The statistical office estimated that the birth deficit would continuously increase in the coming years to reach 550,000 in 2050.
Aging population
According to the latest estimates of the statistical office, Germany’s population will be older in 2060, and the percent of working-age people, those between 20 and 64 years old, will decrease from 61 percent in 2013 to 51 percent in 2060.
In 2060, 13 percent of German population will be at least 80 years old, according to the statistics office.
The EU’s largest economy, Germany is concerned about population decline and aging. It has adopted a number of measures to attract more qualified immigrants to the country.
But the growing number of protests by far-right and anti-Islam groups against immigrants has become another concern.
Around 20 percent of Germany’s 81 million residents have an immigrant background, according to latest figures from the Federal Statistics Office.
Some 9.7 million have become German citizens, while 6.8 million immigrants have kept their former nationalities.
