The aging German population.
Young people between the ages of 15 and 24 made up just ten percent of the German population at the end of last year, the lowest in seven decades.
Since 1950, when the census began, the highest percentage of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 was in 1983, when they made up 16.7 percent of the population.
The number of young people has been in constant decline since then, with the exception of 2015, according to data from the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden.
Today there are quite big differences between the German provinces in terms of the number of young people between 15 and 24 years old.
Most of them are in Bremen, 11 percent, and the smallest in Brandenburg, eight percent.
In the East German states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, their share of 8.3 percent is significantly below the average, while the states of Baden-Wurttemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony are still above the average with 10.6 percent each.
A recently published study on the main preoccupations of young people in Germany shows that their lives are marked by a crisis.
Young people surveyed cited the war in Ukraine (68 percent), climate change (55 percent), inflation (46 percent) and divisions in society (40 percent) as their biggest concerns.
The study also pointed to the disastrous impact of anti-pandemic measures on their mental health, and the three things that worry young Germans the most are stress (45 percent), insomnia (35 percent) and exhaustion (32 percent).
About 27 percent of young Germans talk about depression, 13 percent have a feeling of helplessness, while 7 percent of respondents said they have thought about suicide.