German women are having fewer children at the lowest rate since 1996.
According to the latest report from the country’s Federal Statistical Office published on July 17, women with German citizenship had on average 1.23 children in 2024.
That was a 30-year low only surpassed in 1996 when they had 1.22 children on average.
The dearth of births in the early 1990s, though, was mainly due to statistics in Eastern Germany. There the fertility rate plummeted following German reunification – driven by economic crisis and the flight of young people, especially women, to Western Germany.
In 1989, the Communist German Democratic Republic reported a fertility rate of 1.57 children per woman in Eastern Germany. In 1994, the same region was down to 0.77 births per woman.
The latest drop in fertility, though, was a phenomenon affecting all of Germany. In 2021, a German woman had 1.49 children on average. Within three years this value has now fallen by more than 17 per cent to 1.23 children in 2024.
Women with foreign citizenship living in Germany have on average 50 per cent more children than German women, the statistical data shows.
In 2024, the fertility rate for this group was 1.84 children per woman. Foreign women, though, have also continuously borne fewer children on average since 2017.
Researchers attributed the decline in birth rates to insecurity due to the many crises afflicting Germany, such as the ongoing economic slump.
“Most people want children,” researcher Martin Bujard of the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB) told German newspaper FAZ on July 17.
“But couples put off having children because they are insecure.”
According to Katharina Spieß, director of the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB), the lack of nurseries and kindergartens also played a role. “Using econometric causal methods, we can prove that an expansion of childcare leads to the realisation of peoples’ wishes for children,” Spieß said.
All in all, 677,117 children were born in Germany in 2024 – a decline of 2 per cent compared to the previous year. The fertility rate for all residents combined was 1.35 children per woman.
