BERLIN (AA) – Some 17.3% of the population has immigrated to Germany since 1950, and another 5.7% are direct descendants of immigrants, the latest official data revealed on Thursday.
According to the data released by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), Germany's immigration rate of 17.3% is higher than the average of all 27 EU member states, which is 10.6%.
Malta, the Greek Cypriot administration and Sweden had the highest immigration rates, with percentages around 22%. Bulgaria, Romania and Poland had the lowest percentage of immigration, each with less than 1%.
The agency counts as immigration when a person himself or both of his parents have immigrated since 1950. Thus, a total of two generations are included in the count.
According to this counting method, almost 19 million people in Germany had an immigration background in 2021. Their share of the population was 23%.
Some 14.2 million have immigrated themselves since 1950, other 4.7 million were direct descendants of two immigrants but were themselves born in Germany.
If only one parent immigrated to Germany, this does not appear in the statistics for people with an immigration background. According to the Destatis, this group comprises 3.7 million people, which corresponds to 4.5% of the population.
Since these are results for 2021, immigration as a result of the Ukraine conflict is not yet included. The census also does not record nationality.