In 2024, the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reported that about 134,000 young people were placed in state-run institutions while roughly 87,500 were placed in foster families. Together this meant that approximately 221,500 children, adolescents, or young adults lived outside their own families, at least for part of the year. Compared with 2023, the number of affected young people rose by three percent – around 7,000 more cases. After five consecutive years of decline, this is the second growth in a row, following a 2023 increase of four percent.
A major contributor to the recent rise is the situation of minors who entered Germany without a parent or legal guardian. After a short-term placement in custody by the youth welfare offices, many are put into institutions or, less often, into foster families. About two‑thirds of the 2024 increase – 69 percent, or 4,800 cases – can be explained by this group. Altogether, around 25,300 young people were cared for in institutions or foster families after such temporary custody following unaccompanied entry. Ninety‑four percent of them lived in institutions, group homes, or other supervised living arrangements; only six percent were placed with foster families.
Among the young people placed in 2024, 57 percent were male and 43 percent were female. Roughly three‑quarters (76 percent) were still minors. Children up to 10 years old were more often placed in foster families, whereas from the age of 11 onwards, home placement became the dominant form of care. Almost a quarter (24 percent) of those placed were “care leavers”: young adults transitioning from state care to independent life.
Parental circumstances varied. In nearly half of the cases (47 percent), the parent was a single parent. About one‑fifth (18 percent) of the origin families were cohabiting couples, and another 16 percent involved parents in a new partnership. In the remaining cases – for example, where the family background was unknown due to unaccompanied entry – the family situation was unclear in 17 percent, and parents had died in 2 percent of the cases.
On average, placement outside the family lasted 2.4 years. Placement in an institution averaged only 1.8 years, whereas placement with foster families lasted longer, at about 4.3 years.
In 2024, 61,100 young people were newly placed in institutions or foster families. The most frequently cited reason was the loss of the primary caregiver (19 percent), often as a result of unaccompanied entry from abroad or the illness of a parent. The second most common reason was the parents’ limited parenting skills (15 percent), such as uncertainty in childrearing or feeling overburdened. A third frequent cause was the risk to the child’s welfare from neglect, abuse, or sexual violence (13 percent).