This is how the population in Germany is redistributed

There is a lot of migration back and forth not only across national borders, but also within the Federal Republic.

This is how the population in Germany is redistributed

There is a lot of migration back and forth not only across national borders, but also within the Federal Republic. For a long time, Baden-Württemberg was a main destination for people from German low-wage areas. Keyword "work at Daimler or at Bosch". Good money for good work, even for hard-working people without a matriculation background.

In the meantime, however, more people from Baden-Württemberg are moving to other federal states than there. According to the migration statistics recently presented by the Federal Statistical Office, Baden-Württemberg even lost the most citizens of all federal states in 2021 due to internal German moves. With a total minus of around 12,200 people – i.e. people moving in less people moving out – it was still behind Hamburg with a minus of around 9300 and Berlin of around 9200. Many people are moving from these two city states to the quieter and cheaper surrounding areas.

It is unclear whether the emigration from Baden-Württemberg is already reflecting the slow relocation of the important combustion engine automotive industry abroad, for example to Slovenia and Hungary. In any case, the car companies are gradually converting their domestic production facilities to electric vehicles.

For example, Audi has already cut 3,000 of the former 18,000 jobs in Neckarsulm. The troubled auto supplier giant Mahle is cutting jobs at many locations, the plant in Swabian Gaildorf with 300 employees will soon be completely closed, and a filter plant in Stuttgart-Öhringen was closed at the end of 2020.

It is interesting that the relocation balance of Baden-Württemberg is negative with every federal state except Bremen. As in the other federal states, a particularly large number of people from the Ländle are moving to the neighboring federal states. Baden-Württemberg loses the most to Bavaria (minus 2400) and Rhineland-Palatinate (minus 1700), but also many to the capital (minus 2300).

Berlin, on the other hand, is gaining ground from all western federal states except Schleswig-Holstein - because the capital attracts people as the center of politics, the media, associations and art schools. However, the bottom line is that Berlin is losing around 18,500 people so many citizens to Brandenburg and other eastern countries that the inner-German migration balance of the capital is even negative. Overall, however, it is again positive because even more people are moving there from abroad than are moving away from within Germany.

Also very interesting: Not only Brandenburg, but also the other eastern states except Thuringia are now recording a positive balance. So more people are moving there from other federal states than from the East. These east-west relocations show that German citizens tend to move to the east German federal states – and people without German citizenship tend to move from the east to the west.

The WELT special evaluation of migration movements between all German federal states shows that each eastern federal state is losing non-Germans to each western federal state. With just one exception: more foreigners move from Berlin to Brandenburg than vice versa.

The situation is reversed when German citizens move, they move more frequently from West to East: Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania attracts more Germans from each of the eleven West German federal states than move away from there. Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg have a positive migration balance of German citizens with ten West German federal states, with the exception of Schleswig-Holstein. Saxony-Anhalt also gains German citizens from most of the western federal states, namely eight, with the exception of Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen and Hamburg.

For migration researcher Antonia Milbert, there is increasing evidence that “some East Germans are returning to the West after a few years. Non-Germans, on the other hand, are more likely to move from the East to West Germany because the social networks and diaspora groups of their respective nationalities of origin are still much larger in West Germany.” This often opens up better career opportunities and closer social contacts. In addition, "apparently some foreigners also tried to move away from East Germany because of negative headlines" about xenophobia.

According to Milbert, “immigrants are more likely to be drawn to the big cities, while Germans, on the other hand, are more likely to be drawn out of the cities into the suburbs or out into the country, according to empirical findings in recent years,” says the migration expert from the Federal Office for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development WELT. The fact that North Rhine-Westphalia gained around 10,200 non-Germans from other federal states also shows that non-Germans are more likely to move to the West and more to the cities. However, the negative balance of the Germans (minus 18,000) was even larger.

The Federal Institute for Population Research already identified a “trend reversal” in east-west migration in 2017. At that time, for the first time since reunification, there was a gain in migration from the east (plus 4,000). In a study by the institute from 2020, the researchers attribute the trend reversal primarily to the continuous decline in emigration among young adults. While more than 60,000 young people moved from East to West in 2001, in 2018 there were only around 20,000. This is the case because of better job opportunities for highly qualified people in East German cities.

"The incentive to go west is significantly lower today than it was a few years ago," said geographer Nikola Sander, summarizing the results. However, the institute observed somewhat more emigration of 18 to 29-year-olds from the east to the west than vice versa, mainly because of the "continued better career opportunities". In the case of people between 30 and 49 years of age, however, the Federal Institute has seen migration gains from the East compared to the West German states for several years, which, however, can only be partially explained by returning East Germans.

Also interesting: In the study on east-west migration, the researchers of the Federal Institute contradict the thesis that the “lower proportion of women among the population of some rural regions in eastern Germany can be attributed to increased emigration to the west”. More men migrated from east to west. The unequal gender ratios in many rural regions are more likely to be due to rural-urban migration. For example, young women in East Germany move more often than men from the country to the city for training and studies.

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