The figure 1.35 should set off alarm bells for policymakers: on average, each woman in Germany now has just 1.35 children — a record low, far below the 2.1 needed to keep the population stable. These calculations from the Federal Statistical Office underline the scale of the demographic challenge.
In 2025 about 650,000 children were born in Germany, down from around 677,000 the year before. In both years roughly one million people died. By December 31, 2025 the population stood at approximately 83.5 million — about 100,000 fewer than at the end of 2024.
Having a family remains important, emphasized C. Katharina Spiess, director of the Federal Institute for Population Research. “People still want children,” she noted, “and the question is why are they not having them?” If the wishes expressed by 19- to 29-year-olds in surveys were fulfilled, Germany’s birth rate would rise to 2.4, Spiess pointed out. “A sense of security is essential for realizing the desire to have children. The succession of crises has prevented many people from turning that wish into reality.”
Beyond general anxiety from global instability, families face concrete obstacles: a shortage of housing, rising rents and unreliable childcare. Financial insecurity is growing as parents often cut working hours, and more people say they simply cannot afford to have children in Germany.
The Federal Statistical Office issues regular long-term population projections, and the latest forecast extends to 2070. What sets it apart is the finding that the population could shrink by around 10%. The report concludes immigration will not fully offset that decline.
A smaller population alone would not necessarily be a problem; the key issue is aging. While numbers of children and young people fall, the very old are set to increase sharply. Baby boomers — generations born in the 1960s when annual births topped one million — are now moving into retirement. After that period the birth rate dropped markedly.
“Already today, there are 33 people of retirement age for every 100 of working age,” says Karsten Lummer, head of the Population Department at the Federal Statistical Office. By 2035 roughly one in four people in Germany will have passed the standard retirement age of 67. By 2050 the number of people over 80 will climb from just over six million today to about nine million.
Those shifts worry economists and social scientists. “The sharp decline and aging of the population must already be factored into political decisions with long-term consequences, for example in healthcare and care for the elderly,” warns Joachim Ragnitz of the ifo Institute. He cautions that the pension system is coming under severe strain as the shortage of workers grows.
Lummer is blunt: “We have a low birth rate, but a social system that still behaves as if we had a high one.” He says the question of what that system should look like should have been answered long ago. “We missed that chance.”
Currently about 40% of people over 80 require some form of care. As the number of very old people rises, demand for care workers will grow accordingly. Today around 280,000 people are employed in outpatient elderly care; by 2049 the system may need as many as 690,000.
Immigration has offset low birth rates and emigration in recent decades. Since 1990 eleven million people have moved to Germany, with peaks in 2015–16 and again after 2022 driven by the wars in Syria and Ukraine. Yet immigrants often enter the labor market slowly.
Martin Werding, an economics professor who advises the federal government, sees this as a policy failure. “The German approach is very much focused on language acquisition and education, often spending too much time verifying existing qualifications rather than recognizing them,” he says.
Ten years after the 2015–16 migration wave, two-thirds of refugees are now employed, according to the Institute for Employment Research. Among mostly female refugees from Ukraine the employment rate is still only around 31%.
More than a million Ukrainians now live in Germany, making them the second-largest non-German group after Turks. “They have brought about a profound shift in Germany’s population structure,” says Spiess. She urges society to confront a key question: “Can we count on them, do they intend to stay?” In surveys her institute runs twice a year, 42% of Ukrainians now say they want to remain, but uncertainty is rising and many children and young people say they cannot imagine staying forever.
The Federal Statistical Office produces scenarios based on birth rate, life expectancy and net migration because precise forecasts are impossible. Yet across scenarios one conclusion is consistent: immigration can ease Germany’s problems but not solve them entirely. The workforce the country needs — and the contributors to health and pension funds — cannot realistically be supplied through migration alone.
Keeping older people healthy for longer is the minimum that can be done, says Lummer. He hopes for medical progress but also urges immediate measures: exercise more and cut back significantly on alcohol and smoking.
This article was originally written in German.