Population Development in Germany to 2030

The 13th Coordinated Population Projection is the most widely accepted source of information on the future development of Germany’s population. The assumption that there will be a sustained high level of net migration suggests that, on balance, the total population will have changed little by 2030. This makes the demographic challenges faced by German business seem less dramatic. Yet German society continues to age. Moreover, the scenario technique used by Germany’s official statisticians presents problems from a methodological point of view because no degrees of probability can be assigned to the scenarios. There is a danger that political and business decision-makers will choose to regard the scenario that suits them best as the most likely and act accordingly. This can have serious consequences. The paper discusses the benefits and the drawbacks of stochastic methods on the basis of a stochastic population forecast made by the Cologne Institute for Economic research.