Here's the age pyramid including forecasts which gives some context as to why Germany desperately needs to make their population younger or increase age of retirement.
I am so confused about how this topic is discussed. I think it's completely backwards.
If I was a nationalist in any country with roughly the demographic shape of Germany (so, most of the wealthy ones), I would regard open immigration as the highest possible leverage move, to the point, where I (not, in fact, being a nationalist) actually feel bad about the devastating effects this is ultimately going to have a few years down the line for the countries these people are leaving behind.
Bar an AI miracle, everyone is going to need bodies, and the bodies they are going to produce, to avoid societal breakdown. By current looks, it is potentially the scarcest resource of the future.
I understand that immigration of unskilled people is a little off from the "skilled immigration" pipe dream and less convenient, but are people really that confused about the slightly longer term and exponentially scarier cost of no immigration?
These countries have a system that, while not perfect, is the most excellent at creating skilled enough humans. Letting anyone willing and able to produce a child in the country, that you can then pump through that system, is the absolute cheapest and most realistic way you are ever going to get the amount of bodies you are going to need to avoid a total demographic disaster.
This take is completely ludicrous. If anything, first-world countries have a problem with an oversupply of labor, as demonstrated by stagnant real wages and weak labor force participation rates. Automation will only amplify this trend.
Also, Denmark has studied this issue extensively and found that "non-Western" immigration actually imposes additional burdens on the state, costing over $10k per year per migrant. Having a young population that doesn't work is even worse than having an inverted population pyramid, and that's without getting into the qualitative damage to social cohesion and trust caused by mass migration.
Unfortunately, I can not read the paper but according to the article, the study you are citing reviews the cost of immigration, not the cost of not-immigration. (10k/year for the opportunity to move a body through your education system sounds like a pretty good deal though in this context)
> an oversupply of labor, as demonstrated by stagnant real wages and weak labor force participation rates
How do weak labor force participation rates indicate an oversupply in labor?
Most non-Western migrants are male, 18-30, have no knowledge of Danish and minimal education. Women and children generally wait around in UN refugee camps rather than take a long and dangerous trip to Europe. You aren't getting children, you are getting adults who will need years of remedial education to function at a high school level.
> How do weak labor force participation rates indicate an oversupply in labor?
It means people either can't find work, or the work available is so unattractive that it is preferable not to work. In a tight labor market employers will offer better pay, flexibility, hire less desirable workers, etc.
OECD stats linked below, for ages 24-64 it's under 80% for OECD countries on average. And that includes part-time and underemployed workers.
> Women and children generally wait around in UN refugee camps
Reports from the Open Society Foundations show that instead of finding protection and relief in Europe, refugee women and children have often been trapped in makeshift camps that lack adequate food, sanitation, water, or safety. These camps sometimes resemble prisons, and the inhabitants, especially women, live in fear of sexual violence, smuggling, and trafficking. Legal and medical access is also a significant issue for them.
According to USA for UNHCR, 40% of individuals arriving in Europe by sea in 2019 were women and children. In 2022, over 159,000 people risked their lives trying to reach Europe by sea, with more than 2,400 reported dead or missing.
> It means people either can't find work, or the work available is so unattractive that it is preferable not to work.
I disagree with your interpretation, but let's not also get into that.
> Reports from the Open Society Foundations show that instead of finding protection and relief in Europe, refugee women and children have often been trapped in makeshift camps that lack adequate food, sanitation, water, or safety. These camps sometimes resemble prisons
Prisons? Are European refugee camps as bad as prisons, really?
73% male, 83% under 35 at the peak of the migration crisis. I think my characterization was pretty fair.
> According to USA for UNHCR, 40% of individuals arriving in Europe by sea in 2019 were women and children. In 2022, over 159,000 people risked their lives trying to reach Europe by sea, with more than 2,400 reported dead or missing.
That number should be 0. Guess how we can make it 0? Eliminate pull factors that incentivize migrants and allow NGOs to aid and abet human trafficking. Australia had a similar issue with migrants arriving via ship, but through effective policy they have virtually eliminated both arrivals and deaths.
You are now conflating your earlier claims about immigration with statistics of asylum seekers. This might not be an important distinction to you but it is to me, and also an important signal, when I am having a discussion that requires a lot of good faith to begin with.
You will notice (in sofar you are willing to do so) that I was at not debating your claims about the prevalence of males among asylum seekers. That is because I do not disagree. I just don't think it's terribly important. I was just irritated by your characterisation of life in migration camps.
The earlier assessment still applies. Short sightedness aside, I fail to see how anyone can confuse immigration for not being the lesser of two issues.
I just responded to how you originally framed the situation:
> I understand that immigration of unskilled people is a little off from the "skilled immigration" pipe dream and less convenient, but are people really that confused about the slightly longer term and exponentially scarier cost of no immigration?
In the case of Germany (and Europe more broadly) the unskilled migrants typically arrive as asylum seekers. So when we look at the data and the facts on the ground for how unskilled migrants integrate into society, and if they make a positive economic contribution or not, the population being studied will largely be asylum seekers from MENA countries.
So far it has been a bit of a disaster. Sweden has done a 180 on immigration policy, Denmark has tightened its rules, Merkel tarnished her legacy with her complete mishandling of the migration crisis, etc.
Canada is struggling with this now. There is a balance between fixing demographic issues, and exacerbating existing inequality (housing-haves vs have-nots) and infrastructure inadequacies (our medical system is failing with too few doctors, nurses, etc to support existing population, let alone all the newcomers).
So it isn’t like opening the immigration floodgates is a magic bullet. There are definitely growing pains and it ideally is something that is phased in rather than a sudden reaction to a problem that should’ve been foreseen for decades.
> So it isn’t like opening the immigration floodgates is a magic bullet.
It is not painless, but, for all intents an purposes, it is magic. Chemotherapy. Right now it really sucks, but, bar an actual (as far as I can tell) unforeseeable miracle, it is the only thing that is going to keep your system alive in a few years,
Either you do the chemo now, or you are going to have a really bad time later. Right this second you might not feel the cancer, while the drug hits you hard. But are people really that confused about what it is going to happen if they refuse?
The west can obviously always hope for wars to rage on, to at least have people at the then open door. Fingers crossed. But People will not be so super excited to leave Africa in, oh I don't know, 10 years or so. Living conditions are improving and people are actually not that excited about leaving a country, if everything is pretty okay in that country.
Of course you are right, that does not make it easy and it could have been a lot simpler. That would have required foresight. Not our forte. Alas.
What’s the alternative? Everyone knows it’s the eventual ruin and end of Germany (and much of the West has the same problem) but that’s still generations away. The current existing people who understand that the entire government run social system can’t work unless more people can pay into it are obviously making the best out of 2 bad choices. And the locals aren’t reproducing so they’ve essentially have said that the idea of Germany (and more generally the west) isn’t important. At least not as much as ensuring they can continue to receive state run benefits that only work with growing populations generally.
So what’s the solution if not this? The entire developed world is seeing a drop in fertility and reproduction so they’ll all eventually be fighting for people from places that are - Africa and Middle East and some other regions.
I'm an immigrant in Germany, and I'll likely apply for citizenship now. I was waiting for this, as were many of my friends.
The alternative is eternally staying on a residence permit, and getting kicked out when you stop making money and paying taxes. It's not what I want, and the transactional relationship cuts both ways, but it gets you taxpayers with no strings attached.
However I want to be more than a worker. I want to build a life here and I'm getting really tired of the humiliating residence permit renewals at the dysfunctional immigration office.
>So what’s the solution if not this? The entire developed world is seeing a drop in fertility and reproduction so they’ll all eventually be fighting for people from places that are - Africa and Middle East and some other regions.
Gulf states have awesome solution. You can go there and make money, never path to citizenship. If you are expat - you can make a lot of money and live well. If you are low skill laborer - well they can improve their conditions.
But I no see problem with importing people just to work, send money home and then send them back.
> And the locals aren’t reproducing so they’ve essentially have said that the idea of Germany (and more generally the west) isn’t important
That is if you have an explicitly ethnic understanding of "the west" and Germany and, implicitly, that there is any kind of significant ethnic overlap between the west and Germany: there isn't. The west is made up of Anglos, Scots, French, Germans, Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians, and many hundreds of smaller cultural and ethnic groups which have spent the better part of the last 2000 years of european history trying to utterly annihilate each other (not to mention that larger "political west" which can include Japan, Korea, and other non-european liberal democracies).
Imagine going back in time and lamenting to the French people of the late 1800s that there aren't going to be enough Germans left. I don't think they'd react with the same sadness as you but rather breathe a sigh of relief. "The west" is an invention: what matters is the survival liberal democracy and the human race
Funny you should mention it; one of the election posters in Alexanderplatz is for the Partei für schulmedizinische Verjüngungsforschung ("Party for Biomedical Rejuvenation Research") — a single-issue political party in Germany that seeks to accelerate the development of medicine to reverse the aging process.
I can't vote here, but if I could, this is appealing.
(I might still not actually vote for them, it depends on the details of the voting system and single-issue parties like this in the UK seem to attract people that don't play well with others).
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Another solution is one I mention in half the threads around here on the topic "are AI companies evil copyright pirates?", where my comments revolve around asserting that any AI good enough to be economically disruptive is necessarily also good enough to be the kind of thing that a government can take ownership over in order to supply the means of production that enables a sustainable UBI alternative to the current economic paradigm.
The solution to the encumbered pension fund is to transition to privately run retirement schemes like the superannuation scheme of Australia.
The problem with Germany today is that the social state is archaic and has not been updated for the modern world. Unsurprising when the government still uses fax and snail mail for all communication.
This of course does not fix declining populations as a whole, but all advanced economies go through population decline almost like a rite of passage now. Unless growth is maintained, the system shrinks. Ultimately politicians and economists are more concerned with this over any other social ramifications of bringing migrants into the country. Obviously a balance needs to be struck, but Germany doesn't seem to be good at moderate and effective policy, e.g swinging from being a haven for refugees to now wanting to initiate mass deportations
> transition to privately run retirement schemes like the superannuation scheme of Australia.
How is this a solution? Let‘s say you are a social worker or a teacher, lower middle class income. What kind of financial trickery can potentially save you after retirement if you barely meet the ends now and demographics aren’t looking good?
Are Australians able to fund their retirement in 2050? This is the only question that matters, because Germans can fund their retirement now too.
Investing savings via a fund is not unreasonable, but will it beat the inflation in the long term, taking into account management commissions and taxes? The answer is not obvious to me.
> Everyone knows it’s the eventual ruin and end of Germany
This is not an "Everyone knows..."
Unfortunately, the major right-wing party wants to reduce immigration and actually remove German citizenship from non "native" Germans with multiple passports.
That’s inflammatory and unnecessary. And you can hardly say “check the data” without reference. This kind of comment does not belong here or in any decent discussion.
Pretty much every immigrant friend of mine (including myself) has been waiting for this. It's really good news and it means a lot to us, especially those of us with an equally strong citizenship.
What exactly are the changes, or what will they be? Even this article is using qualifiers like "open up the possibility of dual citizenship".
> Dual nationality is usually only allowed for citizens of other EU countries or Switzerland, although it is permitted for other immigrants in certain exceptional cases.
Yes, but that's the law as it's been, 1 exception is e.g. one can't renounce one's Turkish citizenship, so Turks granted a German citizenship become dual citizens. As far as I've read the changes will apply to children born with dual citizenships, not adults who want to gain the German one, AFAIK they (if they're not EU/Swiss) still have to renounce their old citizenship when able to.
Edit: OK according to this[1] the AFAIK above no longer applies now.
Been waiting for this. Opposite direction though - want UK citizenship without losing German. That was previous possibly but require submitting a rationale/motivation letter of some sort.
I believe so based on coverage read but anyone in scope should confirm independently.
Also, the official article that deals with loss of German citizenship on gaining another now has a banner thing at the top pointing to this new law (without saying anything too solid)
Would frankly also be quite weird for German law to favour "foreigners" over native Germans by having it go one direction only.
Any thoughts on Fat FIRE (e
g. retirement on investments) in Germany with a family with 2 kids under 5?
Generally smaller eastern EU countries would be much easier on the wallet, but the quality of education and the need to learn irrelevant language bother me.
Retiring to Germany is highly problematic because of the health insurance requirements.
It is mandatory for all German residents to have comprehensive health insurance which covers all treatment for any condition at any hospital with no deductibles.
Employees are eligible for a government scheme which delivers health insurance for a fixed proportion of your income, and covers all non-working spouses and children for free. You would however have to purchase private insurance for 4 people which complies with German requirements, which would cost a fortune, particuarly if any of you have any pre-existing conditions.
I think you also really don't know much about Germany if you think it is a good place to get by without learning the local language. German is such a widespread language that Germans can live their whole lives without having to have much contact with English, whereas in smaller countries films and books in English are widespread because it's not worthwhile dubbing/translating them.
My reading of the comment was that the German language is used enough that it would make sense to invest the time to learn. But that languages from smaller countries are less relevant outside of the given county.
Not him, but I think there are languages which are important out of their home countries: many east Asian languages, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi. Languages which are widely spoken in other countries as a lingua franca as well as by immigrant communities. Outside of an EU perspective, German isn't a very useful language to know across the world economy. If you're going to move somewhere where your kids will grow up learning the language, I don't think it's a bad idea to weigh the value of them learning German vs. Chinese vs. Swahili and how it will help them in the future
It's a sober analysis of the pros/cons of moving to that country. Familiarity with Chinese or Arabic can help you navigate parts of the global economy. German less so. I don't think it's disrespectful to point out that Germany is culturally irrelevant to the vast majority of the world.
Netherlands might work for them then. 15% of people here don't speak Dutch well enough to use it as a primary language, and this is generally accepted.
Set your expectations first, it is hard to reason about it without more context. You will need to learn local language anywhere and, if not English, it may not be very useful for you elsewhere.
For children Germany is ok, but you have to take into account that they must attend school (yes, home schooling may be a problem here). No shopping on Sundays, housing crisis, low level of digitalization, terrible weather in winter (at least in Berlin, which I assume you would prefer as an expat).
You were always able to do this, you just needed a Beibehaltigungsgenehmigung. That requirement is also being dropped but only for new cases. If you already lost your citizenship you're still SOL.
However Germans could already become dual citizens of a European Union country (and Switzerland) so many were covered under the old law (that will remain).
IMO immigration would focus on merits AND integration more than length of residency. In the past by physically traveling and being in another country is a testament of the financial means and the willingness to adopt the new culture.
Nowadays traveling is much easier and many immigrants are simply, put it harshly, colonizing the foreign country instead of adopting it.
The description of people migrating from developing countries (that to a large extent are still reeling from the West's previous colonization efforts and current neo-colonialist control) as "colonizing" the foreign country angers me on so many levels I can't even explain it in words.
I hope one day humanity will surpass its empathic barrier of societies. It might be too much to hope for, I suppose.
That’s exactly what is happening though, regardless of how much it is angering you. Millions of people moving to another country is colonization no matter how you want to spin it.
Not exactly, people moving without trying to take control is just settling, when they try to overtake control instead of assimilating into the culture they immigrated to then I think it can be considered some form of colonisation.
In The Prince, Machiavelli describes the use of settlers to exert indirect control over an area. One benefit of this approach is that the values and attitudes of the settlers will spread to or exert influence over the locals. At the very least, it destabilizes the existing order.
If a group doesn't assimilate, it looks like a ghetto or a "colony". Settling, on the other hand, is inherently about control.
Settling doesn't imply control, it's just people moving to a place and settling on it; colonisation is the act of taking control of an area, which settling can help to achieve.
What could they possibly be reeling from? By your logic, that wasn't "colonization", but rather White Europeans enriching Africa with our vibrant culture and great food.
So what if the indigenous people are displaced, demoralised, dispossessed, marginalised, denigrated, etc? Nobody seems to give a damn for what indigenous Europeans are currently experiencing.
Please don't ask us to be empathetic to your dislike of a particular term considering the very real danger and harm being imposed on our entire race.
What adjective would you use to refer as the colony of Moroccans that are next to my neighborhood that sit on public spaces threatening everyone (thus preventing people form using them), being the primary source of crime in the area and displaying their hate towards Spain over and over?
Is it because they were colonized by the french and we had a war many decades ago I have to take a punch in the stomach, or how does this work exactly?
as long as inequality exists most people will dehumanize other humans for attempting to achieve equality. And then these same people will cry hoarse about Jeff bezos and Zuckerberg and bill gates etc.
"When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
There is still a silver lining though. EU (and specifically Germany) ruined any optimistic future of theirs by severing energy with Russia and allowing US to bomb the nordstream pipeline.
The effects of de-industrialization due to higher energy costs along with reduced usage of Euro in international usage is not going to paint a pretty picture for EU in the long term future.
This allows third world countries to equalize quickly and hopefully in a generation from now we have less dehumanizing language for people trying to seek a better life for their families.
You're right. As much as I'd like to give a well-thought-out argument to the horribleness of this kind of thinking, I think my time will be more useful for people doing other more productive things than convincing bigots of the meaning of caring for others.
That's sort of built-in already. To stay in Germany for the requisite five years, you're likely going to need a sponsored visa or some other kind of job-based visa (e.g. their freelance visa).
To those interested in the actual data: On June 2023 roughly 280k failed asylum seekers were met with a a yearly deportation volume of around 16k or 6%.
Note that "failed asylum seekers" does, for the most part, not mean people actually resisting deportation in any illegal/violent way, but mostly consists of people who are being granted a sort of amnesty ("Duldung") for various reasons in line with german law.
This only leaves 54k people that would actually be candidate for deportation in June 2023, which increases the deportation rate to roughly 30%. At this pace deportation for the average failed asylum seeker that is actually traget of deportation shrinks to 3 years.
https://service.destatis.de/bevoelkerungspyramide/index.html