Emigrate to where exactly? These modern problems seem to be pretty universal so far….
Nordic countries, Denmark, Sweden, Norway
The Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Canada, Australia
As someone who was born outside of Germany but now lives here (with no immediate plans for going anywhere else) I regularly ask myself this question. Obviously many Germans seek economic opportunity in Switzerland, but the Swiss seem to really have about enough of all these immigrants. Then there might be other destinations that some people also bring up like Denmark, Sweden or Norway, but these fail to even break the top 20 destinations statistically.
In 2024 most emigrations seem to be in the context of people returning to their other European home countries. Out of the statistical top 20 only Spain/Italy (climate, retirement) Switzerland (economic opportunity) and the United States (again, economic opportunity, but recently with more people moving from the United States to Germany than the other way around) sound like plausible targets for German emigration at scale.
In all likelihood this could just be part of the general "mopiness" that seems to be prevalent in German culture.
Things are pretty good here in Denmark. We rank higher than the U.S. in ease of doing business, and our economy is strong. This means good wages and low rates of poverty. Americans are surprised to learn that we don't even have a minimum wage. It's also very easy to fire people, unlike most of our European neighbours. On the other hand, we have strong social safety nets to catch people if they are fired, and give them enough time to find a new job. We also have universal healthcare, meaning no one is desperate to remain in a bad workplace to keep their health insurance. This levels the bargaining power between employers and employees, and results in much fairer workplaces and wages.
I think the best combination for prosperity is pretty clear: a strong, dynamic economy with low regulations and a strong work ethic; and an expansive social safety net paid for by high taxes. For the record, other nations I think are doing pretty well right now include Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, and Singapore. This is not to say those nations have no problems. Of course they do. I mean that in aggregate, when we look at the many factors which produce prosperous societies, these countries are doing well right now, and have positioned themselves to continue doing well into the future. I will also add that I think many places in the U.S. continue to be great places to live with excellent economic prospects. Say what you will about the president, but the U.S. is a huge and diverse place. It's full of bright entrepreneurs.
I wonder how this compares to similar euro countries? It’s only polling youth 29 down to 14 year olds, of course they dream of adventure elsewhere. What kid thinks their perfect life is in their hometown?
Auf der anderen Seite ist das Gras immer grüner
I too classify this as common Fernweh. They earn for something different and fresh but most of them will never leave for more than a month or two and even those who do migrate will come back after a few years. Most of the time.
But it doesn‘t mean that‘s a bad thing at all. I think cultural exchange like that is a good sign. They know there is something else out there and there‘s at least a longing to explore it. If anything, more people should actually attempt it and not just say they would like to.
I found his trend study here,( German pdf) His sample was around 2K youngster , and his findings have ca. 2% error margin iiuc. He's been publishing regularly since corona epidemic according to his website. What called my attention was especially this worrisome quote, which might explain what's going on:
" The proportion of young people who say they need psychological support has also reached a new peak of 29 percent. Women, at 34 percent, and students, at 32 percent, are particularly affected by this psychological strain. Among young Germans without a job, 42 percent likewise rely on psychological support services."
I'm not sure how this trend compares to other ( European) countries, but I remember reading similar trends in several countries for years since the Corona epidemic. These issues require much more serious attention, studies and rapid & adequate solutions imo.
Add; just posted a comparative study here
Okay, hear me out. If a bunch of germans want to go to different countries and a bunch of people want to go to germany from different countries, you could just make immigration easier and allow a constant flow of people arround the eu. We already know international exchange programs are good for people, so im guessing moving to a new country also is. You get a new perspective, learn a new language, have to adjust to new conditions, etc, all really good things to learn in the long run.
No borders No nations Free migrations?
By emigrating you exchange problems from your own country you know, for problems of another country you don't know.
Exchange problems that you're sick of, for problems you're not yet sick of. Move every few years until you've become sick of all possible problems. Then you'll be ready to solve them all.
Moving to a country with a language you can't read is peaceful because you can't read ad slogans or yellow paper headlines.
They're not going to find things to be any different anywhere else. They probably don't realise how many young people want to imigrate to places like Germany; the country with the highest immigration figures of EU born people.
It should be no shock that times are the way they are now for young people. There's been generational neglect for decades.
They probably don’t realise how many young people want to imigrate to places like Germany;
Of the 14 to 29 year olds, more than 20% should have a migration background. It could be that most of the 20% are immigrants who want to move on because Germany is not as good as they or their parents thought.
1 in 5 young Germans are pretty ignorant about how good they have it in Germany.
"hope to find" is not a great plan.
I tend to agree with you, but, having lived many years in other countries, I can tell you, you have to leave to appreciate it. Traveling gives you perspective.
While Germany seems nice in comparison to poor countries, our neighboring countries do many things a lot better than we do. Denmark has a functioning social security system, Netherlands have actual liveable cities, Norway is rich and laid back, Sweden is great, Spain is currently the progressive inspiration for Europe, etc.
Germany is fucking boring, full of Nazis, falling apart due to neglected maintenance of Infrastructure over the course of the past 30-40 years, suffers from garbage conservative politics, is smothered by shit tons of bureaucracy, etc. I fully understand why young people want to leave. There's nothing here for them.
With that Germany is about EU average. However there are also a lot of reasons to stay in Germany, like a still relatively strong job market and still relatively innovative regions(both compared on an EU level).
Still something German politicians would be wise to keep in mind. Those things can change and will, given that the German economy is stagnant right now and there are some massive head winds.
However there are also a lot of reasons to stay in Germany
With an easily overlooked one being that the actual problems in Germany are not Germany-specific at all.
Political shift to the right, stagnating wages, bad housing market, an aging population calling the shots and giving a fuck about the future? Pick one (or a few) and tell me where to go instead... Moving in the exact same direction but a few years behind is basically the best you can get. And that's a bad reason to leave your life behind and lose a few years to start fresh.
In 2024, most Germans, regardless of age, settled in Switzerland, which was home to around 324,000 German citizens.
That doesn't seem like the most obvious place, as it's one of the few places in Europe that isn't in the EU and to which German citizens don't have an automatic right to move to.
It's very wealthy and AFAIK has low taxes, though. But I'm not sure that Switzerland has a better housing situation.
But also, it's not particularly surprising that Germans are settling in a German-speaking country (even if the local accent/dialect is quite different).
Borders are open. Switzerland did not join the EU (by a 0.1% vote margin in 1997 IIRC), but through three consecutive agreements is very closely aligned with and integrated to the EU, including free movement and work (IIRC).
EU/EFTA citizens get automatic residents permits in Switzerland, if they have a job in Switzerland. They can even work in Switzerland without a permit for up to three months. So this is mostly not an issue. Switzerland is also one of the few countries in Europe, which is significantly richer then Germany and partly German speaking.
That would be best for Germany as well, they'll get to experience the world and hopefully come back with ideas for improvements. they'll all be immigrants to where it is they move too, so they get that experience as well of being ostracized for being a human.
I've no interest in moving to Germany personally, from the outside it seems overly bureaucratic, more and more fascist leaning and super car centric and I get enough of all that shit where I am already.
While it is definitely car centric in some ways, it also has quite good public transport, and usually also has good bike/pedestrian paths, depending on the area. I've lived here for almost a decade now, and for 8+ years of that I didn't have a car.
The article is very negative, so I assume the study results are too.
It would be nice if we could see it as the European idea of free movement and exchange between countries. With most Germans emigrating to Switzerland, Austria, and Spain - that is the European idea of a union, free movement, and free personal exploration. People leaving Germany is a national view. They are European citizens.
What the actual fuck.
Shocking: Young people want to see what's it like elsewhere.
This is most likely a nothingburger, because other age groups have the same rate of emigration willing people. In German: https://tube.funfacts.de/w/uV2VJ1XmsG2MMgqQTekmFD Edit: machine translation of the video transcript: There are many quality criteria for scientific studies.
Can the results be representatively applied to the average society? How were the methods evaluated? That’s what we wanted to directly verify with this youth trend study. But you have to buy it on the authors website for €73.90. That’s €73 more than I earn today. And they’d probably also deduct the 9 cents for the glass of tap water. Join the gang! What we did find out for free on the study aurhors website. The study—the author seems quite proud of it—is known, among other things, from Lanz und Brecht and Gemischtes Hack. Those are actually nice podcasts, at least one of them. But still nothing I’d use to promote my scientific credibility. I might as well have the Amigos sing my study. We tried to find a license-free photo of Markus Lanz, but mostly found photos he uploaded to Wiki Comments. So, here’s our photo with Markus Lanz. He photographs a lot of birds—I don’t know why. We have different audiences and different platforms. So, to all the young women on Instagram and TikTok, we see you, we hear you. And to all the old men on YouTube, Lanz und Brecht is not a science podcast. The €73.90 also includes appealing infographics. We didn’t have the money for that, so we just made up an infographic. This study is basically the Galileo of scientific works. So, let’s get back to emigration. 21 percent of young people want to emigrate according to this trend study. That’s the same as the national average. Pretty wild, if you ask me. Average is already wild. Or, to put it in terms for Galileo viewers, that’s ten football fields in Saarland.
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