One in three families in Germany now has an immigration history. Since 2005, the share has risen from 17 percent to 31 percent, the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden reported on Thursday. At the same time, immigration in recent years has helped stabilise the share of families in the overall population after years of decline.
Today, 49 percent of the population lives in a family, meaning just under half. This is roughly the same level as in 2015, when the figure was 48 percent. In 1996, 57 percent of people still lived as a parent or child in a family.
“The long-term decline in the population living in families is mainly due to the ageing of the large post-war birth cohorts,” explained Thomas Körner, a demography expert at the Federal Statistical Office. “The baby boomers have moved beyond the typical family phase with children in the household.”
Immigration has helped stabilise the share of families since 2015 because immigrants and their descendants are younger and more likely to live in families. On average, they also have more children. Last year, 60 percent of people with an immigration history lived in families, compared with 43 percent of those without an immigration history.
Families with an immigration history are also more likely to have several children. In 2025, 21 percent of these families had three or more children. Among families without an immigration history, the figure was only 10 percent. At the same time, the share of families with one child was significantly lower among families with an immigration history, at 43 percent, compared with 54 percent among families without an immigration history.
Only children who still live in the household are counted. A family is considered to have an immigration history if both parents, or in the case of a single parent, the relevant parent, immigrated to Germany since 1950 or are descendants of immigrants.
Migration in particular has helped keep the number of children living with their parents in a family almost constant. In 2025, half of all families, 50 percent, had one child living in the household. In 37 percent of families, two children lived in the household, while 13 percent had three or more children. The figures were similar 30 years ago.
However, family structures in Germany have changed over the past several decades. The share of married couples with children has declined, while unmarried couples with children and single-parent families have become more common. In 1996, married couples with children accounted for 78 percent of all families, meaning more than three quarters. Today, they account for 66 percent, or two thirds.
At the same time, the share of single-parent families increased from 18 percent to 24 percent over the same period. The share of unmarried couples with children rose from four percent to 10 percent. According to the statistical experts, this is particularly due to the growing acceptance of unmarried families in West Germany. In East Germany, these family forms were already more widespread.
The share of people living alone also increased over the past 30 years, rising from 17 percent to 23 percent. The proportion of people living in partnerships without children in the household also increased since 1996, although only slightly, from 26 percent to 28 percent. All data are based on the Microcensus, in which around one percent of the population is surveyed each year.
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