Internal migration: the rural exodus of young Germans

The country is aging and the cities are still young. What sounds like a truism at first sight is actually a relatively new development. By the mid-nineties, the rural population was on average even younger than the inhabitants of cities. In the meantime it is the other way round - and the contrast is rapidly increasing. Young adults are moving from the countryside to the city, while elderly and old people are moving out of town to the countryside.

This is one of the results of a study by the RWI Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, which is exclusively available to SPIEGEL. For this purpose, the researchers examined the internal migration of different age groups from 2008 to 2014 for each of the more than 400 districts in Germany, ie the relocations within Germany across county boundaries. In doing so, they not only analyzed the extent of internal migration - but also the factors that influence whether and where someone moves.

Accordingly, the demographic inequality in Germany by the relocation decisions tightened considerably. This is already clear from the migration balance of all adult Germans of all ages: on balance, in the seven years under review, 250,000 Germans moved more to the cities than moved out of them - correspondingly high was the loss for rural areas. (The researchers actually considered only the moves of German citizens within the federal territory to exclude the effects of immigration from abroad - in the period, for example, because of the euro crisis and the flight from civil wars.)

The problem becomes even clearer when one takes into account the age of internal migrants: among the 18 to 29-year-olds, almost 460,000 Germans moved more to the cities than from there. On the other hand, the Germans aged 30 and over moved more often from the city to the countryside - which, on the one hand, limited the total loss of rural population, on the other hand, widened the gap in the age structure.

In the following map, you can see for each county in Germany, how much the inflow or outflow affects - for all adults or separated by age groups. The basis is the total population (including foreign nationals) in the respective age group in 2008.

Loser and winner

All adults18- to 29-year-olds30- to 49-year-olds50- to 64-year-oldsover 65 years old

In general, young adults under the age of 30 (43 percent) make up by far the largest share of all internal migrants, compared with only 14 percent of the total population. The fact that they are moving in such a large number - and so often in cities - is largely due to the fact that there are the universities there. And apparently many of them stay there even after graduation.

But what other factors influence the decision to move depending on age and to what extent? The researchers included data on unemployment, wages and housing costs in their investigation. Accordingly, the labor market of a region is of high importance:

• The wage level plays an important role - but only among the under-50s: Where the pay is good, relatively few of them migrate and relatively many - while conversely there is high emigration where low wages are paid.
• Unemployment is also an important factor for young people - but interestingly enough, it is above all for the decision to leave a place: where it is high, many leave. By contrast, the relationship between low unemployment and high immigration is statistically much lower. For the over-50s, this factor plays almost no role anymore.
• Housing costs , on the other hand, have a relatively small impact on internal migration. Most striking is the influence on the group of 30- to 49-year-olds - the life phase, which often requires more living space for the growing family. With them, the price level also significantly increases the emigration.

The extent to which the internal migration driven by these factors has already led to demographic inequality in Germany is illustrated by the following maps. For each district, they show the share of one age group in the respective total population in 2014:

18 to 29 year olds30 to 49 year olds50 to 64 year oldsover 65 years old

The extent to which internal migration can have an impact is also clear from individual examples - for example, in the district of Bautzen, which had 46,420 inhabitants aged 18 to 29 in 2008. Within seven years, a total of 10,924 Germans in this age group left the district - in other words, almost a quarter of them emigrated. In some East German districts, the emigration of the boys was even higher, but also in the Schleswig-Holstein Plön.

On the other side there are cities of millions such as Munich or Hamburg: From 2008 to 2014, many young adults under the age of 29 moved more to the Bavarian capital than they did - the net migration in this age group was 33.6 percent in relation to the number of people at the age that already lived there in 2008. In Hamburg, the corresponding ratio was 24.5 percent.

The RWI study shows that this drastic intensification of demographic inequality can best be stopped with sufficient jobs in the emigration regions - with well-paid jobs.