Immigrants Run High in Germany

A recent study shows that immigrants make up 23% of the German Population. In other words, approximately 19 million immigrants. 

‘Immigrants’ here refers to individuals who have either immigrated to the country since 1950 or are the children of immigrants. The data of the study pertains to the year 2021.

The Federal Statistical Office of Germany, Destatis, posted a new population census yesterday. The 2nd March statistics are different than any other population survey in Germany. 

Destatis has never before examined the population of the nation based on migration statistics. Prior to this, the population was just counted by citizenship. The latter parameter of judgment lacks accuracy because many immigrants, particularly the children of immigrants, have just acquired German citizenship. 

Immigrant-Based Calculation System

The Federal Government’s Expert Committee on the Framework Conditions for Integration made the recommendation to consider immigrants and their direct descendants in 2021. Under that definition, everybody who immigrated to Germany (the current region) after 1950, whether themselves or both their parents, has a history of migration. As such, Germany has exactly 18.9 million immigrants as of 2021.

The rest of the population is divided into further 4.5% and 72.5% segments. 3.7 million people, the 4.5% segment, of German-born citizens have just one immigrant parent. They are not included in the 23% segment as official immigrants, per the Expert Commission’s recommendations. 59.7 million people account for the 72.5% segment and these have no immigration background.

If we were to further breakdown the 23% of the population into first-generation immigrants and their descendants, the stats are 17% and 5% respectively. 

Germany Outperforms EU Immigrant Average

The census has brought new interesting information to light in terms of comparability. Eurostat, the Statistics Office of the European Union, found that first-generation immigrants (17%) outperform the 10.6% average of all 27 Member States. 

To be pedantic, Germany is the seventh country in the EU to have the highest percentage of the first-generation immigrant population. The proportion of immigrants was highest in Malta (22.3%), Cyprus (22.1%), and Sweden (21.9%). Luxemburg, Austria, and Ireland come to follow them in rank. 

Ukrainian Refugees

Since the recently released data is from 2021, it excludes the more than a million Ukrainians who fled to Germany after Russia seized their nation.

According to Statistica reports, there were more than a million Ukrainian refugees registered in Germany as of January 2023. In March and April 2022, the vast majority of Ukrainian refugees in the nation were officially registered. Most of them are children & young people.

The real number of Ukrainian refugees is difficult to calculate since they do not require a visa to travel to Germany.

Limitations of the Census

• The study is based on a microcensus format which is based on estimates of a fraction of the population.
• The Microcensus Act of 2016 does not account for the people in collective living quarters. Based on this, the data only includes the people who have a personal residence. 
• The data is for the year 2021. 

More such censuses can be expected in the coming years as Destatis promises to offer clarity on the subject. They want to further integrate the changes in the immigrant population of Germany.

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