A fertility rate of just 1.35 children per woman should alarm decision-makers: it is a record low for Germany and well below the roughly 2.1 children needed to keep the population stable. Data from the Federal Statistical Office make clear the demographic challenge the country faces.
In 2025 about 650,000 babies were born, down from roughly 677,000 the year before. In both years roughly one million people died. By December 31, 2025 Germany’s population was about 83.5 million — roughly 100,000 fewer than at the end of 2024.
Having children still matters to many, says C. Katharina Spiess, director of the Federal Institute for Population Research. Surveys of 19- to 29-year-olds suggest that if people could meet their stated wishes, the birth rate would rise to about 2.4. The problem, she explains, is that a long string of crises has undermined people’s sense of security, making it harder to turn the desire for children into reality.
Beyond general uncertainty, there are concrete barriers: a shortage of affordable housing, rising rents, unreliable childcare, and growing financial insecurity as parents reduce working hours. Many people now report they simply cannot afford to start or expand a family in Germany.
The Federal Statistical Office’s new long-term projection, extending to 2070, stands out in showing the population could shrink by roughly 10% under central assumptions. The office concludes that immigration will not completely offset that decline.
A falling headcount is not the only or even the main issue — the age structure is changing quickly. While numbers of children and young people fall, the share of very old people will rise sharply. Baby boom cohorts born in the 1960s, when annual births exceeded one million, are now retiring; birth rates fell substantially in the years that followed.
Today there are about 33 people of retirement age for every 100 working-age people, according to Karsten Lummer, head of the Population Department at the statistical office. By 2035 roughly one in four people in Germany will be 67 or older. The number of people aged over 80 is projected to rise from just over six million now to about nine million by 2050.
Those shifts carry major policy implications. Economists and social scientists warn that healthcare, elderly care and pension arrangements must be adapted now to avoid pressure later. Joachim Ragnitz of the ifo Institute stresses that an aging, shrinking population should already be shaping long-term political decisions, and he cautions that the pension system will face growing strains as the ratio of workers to retirees falls.
Lummer is blunt about the mismatch between demographics and institutions: Germany still operates many parts of its social system as if the country had a much higher birth rate. He argues that policymakers should have reshaped those systems years ago.
Care demand will increase substantially. Currently around 40% of people over 80 need some form of care. With more very old people, the number of care workers required will rise sharply: roughly 280,000 people work in outpatient elderly care today, and demand models suggest the workforce could need to grow to as many as 690,000 by 2049.
Immigration has helped mitigate population decline in recent decades. Since 1990 about 11 million people have moved to Germany, with peaks during the 2015–16 migration wave and again after 2022 in response to wars in Syria and Ukraine. Still, newly arrived people often enter the labor market slowly.
Martin Werding, an economics professor who advises the federal government, considers this an integration failure. He argues policy puts too much emphasis on language training, education and lengthy credential checks instead of faster recognition of existing qualifications and quicker labor-market access.
Ten years on from the 2015–16 arrivals, roughly two-thirds of those refugees are now employed, according to the Institute for Employment Research. But among predominantly 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 people from Turkey. Spiess says their arrivals have altered Germany’s population structure, and she urges society to address a vital question: will these newcomers stay? In her institute’s twice-yearly surveys, about 42% of Ukrainians say they want to remain in Germany, but uncertainty is increasing and many young people say they cannot imagine staying permanently.
The Federal Statistical Office presents multiple scenarios based on different assumptions about fertility, life expectancy and net migration, because exact prediction is impossible. But across scenarios one finding is consistent: immigration can help ease demographic pressures but cannot fully compensate for low birth rates and an aging population. The workforce needed to sustain health and pension systems cannot realistically be supplied by migration alone.
Keeping older people healthy for longer is therefore a minimum requirement, Lummer says. He hopes for medical advances but also recommends immediate measures people can take: more exercise and significant reductions in alcohol and tobacco use would help extend healthy life years.
This article was originally written in German.