Editorial on the special issue “Coping with Local Challenges of Population Decline and Ageing – Case Studies from Germany”

Abstract

For some years, demographic change with its effects on Germany’s future population development has been an important subject in socio-political discussions as, for instance, the Federal Government’s Demographic Strategy documents. Although Germany’s population rose in 2013, as it did in the two previous years, this increase to 80.8 million inhabitants at the end of 2013 resulted from a net migration gain of over 400,000 people from abroad, more than balancing out the negative difference of births and deaths of about 210,000 people in these years. Since, at an average of 1.4 births per woman, fertility in Germany has been one-third below the natural reproduction level for approximately 40 years, the defi cit of births will continue to grow in future. The consequences are declining population fi gures and a relative and absolute increase in older people alongside a continuous loss in signifi cance of younger age groups. Temporarily, immigration gains can quantitatively and qualitatively attenuate this trend, but they cannot reverse it in the long term. This development raises questions on societal challenges, and sustainable solutions to these challenges are crucial for preserving the quality of life in Germany. What kind of effects on economic development are to be expected from the decline in population fi gures? What kind of infl uence does the ageing of the population have on funding our social security systems? To what extent does the declining number of young people of working age endanger our economy’s global competitiveness? Can active immigration policies diminish the lack of younger workers? Can local authorities handle the challenges of integrating people with immigration backgrounds, challenges that increase along with immigration? What kind of impacts does the rise in single-person households have on social structures? With regard to public services, what consequences does the population decline in rural regions have on the quality of life of the people living there? These dimensions of demographic change have inherent regional characteristics, i.e. there are considerable deviations between regions with both comparable and different settlement structures and sizes with regard to population development and structure. Figure 1 illustrates the contrast in population development in eastern and western Germany for the period of 1990 until 2010. The causes lie in the distinctive decline in fertility in eastern Germany until 1994 as well as in the out-migration of many people to western Germany. In the early 1990s, in western Germany there was an additional population increase as a consequence of immigraComparative Population Studies Vol. 39, 2 (2014): 197-206 (Date of release: 30.06.2014)