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German population will grow over coming decades after all, experts reckon

DPA/The Local
DPA/The Local - [email protected]
German population will grow over coming decades after all, experts reckon
Photo: DPA

Most expert predictions in recent years have made gloomy predictions about a massive drop in the German population size. But researchers in Cologne have come to a rather different conclusion.

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Demographics experts at the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW) believe that the country’s population will grow by more than a million to 83 million by the year 2035.

That encouraging figure goes against analysis by the federal statistics office (Destatis), which reported in 2015 that the German population could drop by more than 10 million over the next 40 years.

“The long-expected decrease in the German population clearly isn’t going to happen in the coming decades,” the IW report states, citing a growing birth rate and sizeable immigration as the two main factors behind the unexpected prediction.

Source: Statista

The IW figures even reckon the German population will grow to 84 million in 2023 before declining slowly over the following decade.

But the trend isn’t set to be even across the whole country. While Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Berlin and Hamburg are all predicted to grow, the states of former east Germany will see sometimes drastic declines.

By 2035, Berlin will have grown well beyond the 4 million mark, with an extra 510,000 inhabitants expected in the capital. Hamburg is also expected to grow by 162,000, meaning almost 2 million people will call the port city home.

The proportion of young people living in the cities is to grow strongly, according to the IW. But this will come at the cost of the ageing populations of more rural states such as Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, which are predicted to suffer population losses of over 10 percent.

SEE ALSO: Germany sees highest birthrate in decades, still lags behind in Europe

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