Germany’s proportion of young people remains at a historically low level, according to data released Tuesday by the Federal Statistical Office. At the end of 2024, approximately 8.3 million individuals aged 15 to 24 resided in the Federal Republic. The segment of young people within the overall population has held steady since the end of 2021, remaining near a low of 10.0 percent.
This stabilization, preventing further decline, is primarily attributed to the influx of predominantly younger individuals following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Without this migration, the proportion of young people would be even lower. Data from the 2024 Microcensus indicates that when considering only the population without an immigration history, the percentage drops to 8.6 percent; conversely, within populations with an immigration background, the figure stands at 12.0 percent, representing one in eight individuals.
Regional disparities are also evident. City-states Bremen (11.1 percent) and Hamburg (10.5 percent), alongside the state of Baden-Württemberg (10.5 percent), recorded the highest proportion of individuals aged 15 to 24 at the close of 2024. Brandenburg, meanwhile, had the fewest young people (8.7 percent), closely followed by Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony-Anhalt (both 8.9 percent).
Comparatively, figures from Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency, show that Germany held a smaller proportion of young people at the beginning of 2024 than the average across all 27 EU member states (10.7 percent). Ireland had the highest proportion (12.6 percent) followed by the Netherlands (12.3 percent) and Denmark (12.2 percent). Bulgaria (9.2 percent) and Lithuania (9.5 percent) reported the lowest proportions within the EU.