Status: 04/12/2022 11:42 a.m
In Germany, the number of people with a migration background has increased: in 2021, 22.3 million people in Germany had foreign roots. According to the Federal Statistical Office, this is the highest value since 2005.
A good one in four in Germany has a migration background. This is the result of an evaluation by the Federal Statistical Office based on the 2021 microcensus. According to this, 22.3 million people with foreign roots lived in Germany last year. This corresponds to 27.2 percent of the total population and is the highest value since measurements began in 2005, according to a spokeswoman.
increase of two percent
Compared to the previous year with 21.9 million people with a migration background, this corresponds to an increase of two percent. In 2020 their share of the population was 26.7 percent, in 2019 it was 26 percent.
At the same time, 53 percent of the population with a migration background (almost 11.8 million people) had German citizenship. More than half of them have had German citizenship since birth (54 percent). The migration background exists because at least one parent is foreign, naturalized, German through adoption or (late) repatriate. Another 23 percent came to Germany themselves as (late) resettlers, 22 percent are naturalized and about one percent has German citizenship through adoption.
Immigrants from Europe, then from Asia
Almost two thirds (62 percent) of all people with a migration background are immigrants from another European country or their descendants. This equates to 13.9 million people, of whom 7.5 million have roots in other European Union Member States. The second most important region of origin is Asia. The 5.1 million immigrants from Asia and their descendants make up 23 percent of the people with a migration background, including 3.5 million with a connection to the Near and Middle East. Almost 1.1 million people (five percent) have roots in Africa. Another 0.7 million people (three percent) are immigrants and their descendants from North, Central and South America and Australia.
Most come from Turkey
According to the statistics, Turkey is the main country of origin of people with foreign roots in Germany, at twelve percent, followed by Poland (ten percent) and the Russian Federation (six percent).
One percent or 308,000 of the people with a migration background living in Germany last year came from Ukraine. The vast majority (82 percent) are immigrants themselves and have lived in Germany for an average of 19 years, Destatis said. “Due to the recent refugee immigration, the number of people with a Ukrainian migration background could increase significantly in the future,” the Wiesbaden statisticians explained.
Of the 22.3 million people with a migration background, 7.2 million (32 percent) speak German exclusively at home and another 3.1 million (14 percent) mainly. This corresponds to almost half (46 percent) of all people with a migration background.