Germans marrying less, aging faster, new statistics confirm

Oct 5, 2011, 10:42 GMT

Berlin - New statistics released Wednesday drove home the fact that Germans are aging faster, having fewer babies and more likely to live among people who were born in a foreign country.

Although most of the trends have been well documented over the years, Destatis, the Federal Statistics Agency, used the release of the 60th edition of its Germany yearbook to highlight the degree of changes.

Thus, in 1951 West Germany, there were 486,000 people registered to live in Germany who held a foreign passport. In modern Germany, that number has climbed to 9 per cent, almost one in ten people. Many more people living in Germany - 19 per cent - claimed a parent from a foreign country.

Likewise, the percentage of people aged 65 or over has doubled - from about 10 per cent of the population in 1950 to 20 per cent by 2009, reported Destatis.

That, in turn, was keeping in line with a trend of ever fewer births, with 678,000 reported in Germany in 2010. That is down from a reported 1.1 million in 1950, for both East and West Germany.

The rate factored into yet another demographic trend. In 1950s Germany, only about 10 per cent of births were reported out of wedlock. In 2009, that figure had risen to 33 per cent.

However, Destatis reported, those children born in Germany in recent years were statistically likely to enjoy some of the world's best living standards, with newborn boys enjoying an average lifespan of 77 years, and girls living an average of 83 years. That was between 13-14 years longer than for children born in 1950s Germany.