The Current Demographic Shape of Germany: Similarities and Differences in Eastern and Western Population Processes

The far-reaching political changes in Central and Eastern Europe in the early 1990s brought forth a reunified Germany with unique demographic characteristics: two significantly different populations of 63.3 million in the former Federal Republic of Germany (“West Germany”) and 16.1 million in the former German Democratic Republic (“East Germany”) were melted together. A main consequence of this development is a dichotomy in Germany’s new population structure, which continues to prevent demographic analysis on an aggregate basis. For this reason, demographic phenomena are generally reported and analysed mainly separately for West and East Germany in this contribution.