Young people comprise only 10% of Germany’s population, the Federal Statistical Office said in figures released on Tuesday.

Around 8.3 million people in Germany were aged between 15 and 24 at the end of 2024. This proportion – a historic low – has remained unchanged since the end of 2021.

The fact that it has not fallen any further since then but has stabilized is mainly due to the immigration to Germany of predominantly young people following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Without immigration, the proportion of young people in the overall German population would be even lower, or just 8.6%, the statisticians said.

The proportion of young people was particularly high at 20.7% among descendants of immigrants, that is people who were born in Germany and whose parents both immigrated.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, there are also strong regional differences: the city states of Bremen (11.1%) and Hamburg (10.5%) and the south-western state of Baden-Württemberg (10.5%) had the highest proportion of 15 to 24-year-olds at the end of 2024.

The lowest proportion of young people live in the former East German states of Brandenburg (8.7%), followed by Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony-Anhalt (8.9% each).

Germany below average in EU comparison

According to the EU statistics authority Eurostat, there were proportionately fewer young people living in Germany (10%) at the beginning of 2024 than the average of all 27 EU member states (10.7%).

Across the EU, the highest proportion of 15 to 24-year-olds was in Ireland (12.6%), ahead of the Netherlands (12.3%) and Denmark (12.2%). The lowest proportion of young people within the EU was recorded in Bulgaria (9.2%) and Lithuania (9.5%).