Article

Political Unification and Regional Consequences of German East–West Migration

Authors:
  • Bundesinstitut für Bau-, Stadt- und Raumforschung im BBR (BBSR)
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract

"The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of the post-unification East to West transfer of the German population on levels of spatial concentration and deconcentration in Eastern and Western Germany. Using 1991 internal migration data, it was found that German East-to-West migration served to deconcentrate regional population in the West, but concentrate population in the East. Regional variations in German East-to-West migration during 1991 can be explained by the availability of employment and housing, a distance-minimisation effect, and the location of relatives and friends."

No full-text available

Request Full-text Paper PDF

To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.

... However, the fact that the total volume of moves to suburban areas was considerably larger than out-movement to western German states has not been refl ected in the literature. In the 1990s, studies focused primarily on aggregate intensities of East-West migration between the six states (Länder) in eastern Germany (including Berlin) and the ten states in western Germany (Heiland 2004;Kontuly et al. 1997). The literature points to strong impacts of this type of movements on regional population growth in the years following reunifi cation. ...
... Net losses from eastern states were highest in the years 1989/90, with a second peak in the temporal trend visible in 2001 (Heiland 2004). Out-migration was found to be highest among young adults with above average education, who left non-metropolitan regions in the East and moved to western states with good job prospects (Heiland 2004;Kontuly et al. 1997;Kröhnert/Vollmer 2012;Peukert/ Smolny 2011). Thus, to borrow the words of Kontuly et al. (1997: 43): "the overall consequence of unifi cation […] was a broad spatial distribution of growth to all Western German regions and a wide pattern of loss in the East". ...
Article
Full-text available
Over the last two decades, patterns of internal migration in Germany have been discussed under the headings of East-West movements and sub- and re-urbanisation. This paper argues that the intense scientifi c and public debate that ignited about the possible causes and consequences of internal migration should be based on a clear understanding of how internal migration flows impact on regional population change. Using the German Internal Migration (GIM) database, a unique new dataset that holds annual interregional migration counts drawn from the population register for 397 regions with temporally consistent boundaries, this paper aims to provide a more comprehensive picture of the spatial structure of inter-county migration in Germany and how it has changed over the period 1995-2010. To reduce the complexity of the county-level flow data and to facilitate the identification of patterns and trends, county-to-county flows were analysed using a spatial framework of 132 “analytical regions”. The results show that the intensity of migration between East German regions has been higher than East-West migration throughout the period, suggesting that the former type of migration has a stronger impact on rural population decline than commonly believed in the literature. Following a strong suburbanisation pattern in the 1990s, over the last decade, migration between counties in eastern Germany has resulted in a growing concentration of population in the cities of Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden. Increasing net migration gains were recorded by many urban cores across Germany. The trend was driven by both continuing in-migration of young adults in search for education and employment, and by a cessation of the long-term trend of family out-migration to the cities’ suburban and non-metropolitan hinterlands.
... This shift occurred within the context of a general north-to-south redistribution of population that reflected the economic and industrial transformations taking place in the country. A shift back toward spatial concentration or an urbanization tendency, with net migration occurring up the urban hierarchy, started in 1985 and continued through 1988 (Kontuly et al 1997). As a result of these changes it was not clear if regional tendencies were returning to traditional patterns of concentration , were a temporary postponement of deconcentration tendencies or represented alternating cycles of spatial concentration and deconcentration. ...
... Then the political reunification of Germany took place in October 1990. During the years 1989 to 1994, a total of 1.1 million Germans relocated from the eastern to the western part of the country (Kontuly et al 1997). Then in the post-unification period of the 1990s, an interregional deconcentration of the population was found once again for the western part of Germany (Kemper 2004). ...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper we test the importance of the regional restructuring hypothesis by investigating whether the internal migration flows in western Germany can be explained by employment changes, on the basis of data of out-migration of employed workers and employment in seventy-five regions over the period 1982 – 97 for each year separately. Starting from a conditional probability model for the unobserved individual migration decisions, we derive mathematically a dynamic version of the Poisson gravity model for the total out-migration per region per year. Estimating this model for each year separately, we find partial confirmation of the regional restructuring hypothesis.
... Before and after reunification, there has been a spatial population concentration in East Germany and a deconcentration in the West. Over time, the distribution patterns have converged, with suburbanization in both parts of the country in the mid-1990s and reurbanization in the late 1990s (Herfert and Osterhage 2012;Kemper 2004Kemper , 2008Kontuly et al. 1997;Köppen 2008;Siedentop 2008). It has been driven by the economic structural change in cities towards a knowledge-based economy with corresponding labor market and educational opportunities (Gans 2018;Geppert and Gornig 2010;Siedentop 2008). ...
Article
Full-text available
According to the academic debate, the populist radical right is particularly successful in regions that have been left behind economically or culturally. Although civic engagement in networks of civil society, a specific form of social capital, seems important, its influence remains ambiguous. In contrast, regional out-migration as a social dimension of being left behind receives limited attention despite the relevance of internal migration to political geography. This study investigates two theoretically possible models to clarify the relationships between regional out-migration, civic engagement, and their impacts on voting for the populist radical right. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and official regional statistics, logistic multilevel analyses are conducted for Germany and the election of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) in the 2017 federal election. The key finding of the cross-sectional analysis is that regional out-migration is a condition that moderates the relationship between civic participation and the election of the AfD. In general, civically involved individuals support established democratic parties, but in regions with high out-migration, they tend to vote for the populist radical right. However, there is no empirical evidence that regional out-migration contributes to the election of the AfD by reducing civic engagement and being mediated by it.
... Internal migration in Germany has been massively studied through the lens of East-West migration, and a large volume of studies was published after the reunification of Germany (Beck, 2011;Friedrich, 2008;Schneider, 2005;Schultz, 2009). It is generally found that, after the unification, East Germany not only experienced a rapid breakdown of its industrial complex, but also lost a large number of educated people, since skilled workers abandoned this region (e.g., Kontuly et al., 1997). In the aftermath of the reunification, in order to stop East to West flows of people, the government introduced several instruments, including funding to increase the standard of living through investment in housing (Michelsen & Weiß, 2010). ...
Article
Full-text available
Why are certain labour markets more resilient to economic shocks? Why are some economies deeply affected by migration? Modern migration theory remains based on simplistic neo-classical utility maximizing assumptions, despite a failure to fully answer real-world migration questions. The aim of this paper is to show that neo-classical dynamics are differentiated between subpopulations that make up the workforce. Using disaggregated data from Germany and a dynamic spatial vector autoregressive model that allows for spillovers, the paper teases out several aspects of regional labour market resilience. Results highlight that regions stand to benefit from supporting place-specific policies tailored to local circumstances.
... Ten years later these trends became less pronounced, mainly due to the inflow of international migrants, although counter-urbanisation remained a trend for internal migration flows (Gordon et al., 2018), and some centers, such as London, grew into a polycentric metropolis (Hall & Pain, 2006). In Germany different patterns of population redistribution were found in various parts of the country (Kontuly et al., 1997;Sander, 2014), but in general, the suburbanisation stage observed in the 1990s was replaced with re-urbanisation in the 2000s, followed by suburbanisation in more recent years (Busch, 2016). ...
Article
Full-text available
This paper analyses age-specific migration exchange between municipal formations (MFs) in Russia based on the net migration and population density data covering the period 2012–2018. Unlike many other developed countries, Russia’s population concentrates in only 2–5% of the country’s territory—in large cities and their suburbs. We utilise population density as an alternative measure for distinguishing between urban and rural populations (which is a formal distinction in most cases) in the urban–rural continuum. The results indicate that internal migration pattern in Russia corresponds to the urbanisation stage of the urban development model and is observed across all age groups. Net migration across all age groups is higher in more densely populated MFs. Migration to more densely populated territories peaks in the 15–19 age group and seems to have no viable alternative directions. Besides the analysis of internal migration role in the urban development patterns in Russia, the paper also contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between age-specific migration and urban development in the Russian context.
... Therefore, this index is more sensitive to temporal shifts and spatial variations in migration flows (Stillwell et al. 2003). The MEI measures the efficiency or effectiveness in redistributing population and is a function of the magnitude of migration rather than population size (Plane and Rogerson 1994;Manson and Groop 2000;Galle and Williams 1972;Plane 1984;McHugh and Gober 1992;Gober 1993;Kontuly et al. 1997). The MEI is a useful index that helps to explain the anomalies in the directionality of inter-migration flow. ...
Article
Full-text available
The dynamic nature of internal migration flows has altered population redistribution and changed composition in the United States for more than a century. Socioeconomic push and pull factors have influenced people’s migration decisions during various internal migration waves in the United States. The main objective of this paper is to identify how effective internal migration flows have been in transforming the population distribution of the United States since the mid-1990s. We also examine the characteristics of the counties that gained or lost population during the last two decades. We analyze migration data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from 1994–95 to 2006–07 to achieve these objectives. The results show that migration was very effective in redistributing population from rural to urban areas. Although suburbanization was a major characteristic of urban growth, our study indicates that suburbanization was not as effective as rural-to-urban migration. The South continued to be the major population magnet in the United States. Counties with large black and Hispanic populations had a negative migration effect. During the last two decades, increase in the Hispanic population and economic inequality in American neighborhoods have also influenced migration patterns in the United States.
... Throughout its existence, 4.7 million Easterners moved to the FRG, although the Wall virtually stopped the flow between 1961 and1988. 23 Between 1989 and 1998, net migration from the Democratic Republic of Germany (DRG) to the FRG was 1.2 million, or about 7 percent of the 1989 population of the DRG. ...
... Post-unification suburbanisation was partly pent-up demand, as the GDR had not experienced population suburbanisation (Kontuly et al., 1997), because of administrative restrictions on residential moves and the explicit policy of promoting residency close to the workplace . Nevertheless, beyond 'catch-up', suburbanisation in the east was incentivised by specific circumstances (Kemper, 2008), such as tax subsidies for owner-occupier property construction and work commutes, and partly even involuntary (Dittrich-Wesbuer et al., 2008), driven by the poor state of urban housing (Haase et al., 2010). ...
Article
A popular notion asserts that closing the last primary school marks a community's demographic death. No young parents will remain, much less new ones move in. This notion is frequently voiced but rarely verified. Are school closures a cause or consequence of local decline? This study reviews existing research on school locations and peripheral population decline to show that expectations of a dramatic impact of school closures on out-migration are theoretically ill-founded. I proceed to discuss specific methodological challenges in the empirical analysis of this relationship, and conduct a statistical analysis for the province of Saxony in East Germany for the period 1994–2007. In contrast to the prevailing discourse, there is little evidence of an appreciable effect of primary school closures on local population decline. This negative finding is discussed in light of local contextual factors and general insights from population geography. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Thesis
En France, la décroissance urbaine souffre encore d’une reconnaissance balbutiante à l’échelle nationale. Spatialement circonscrite, cette dynamique est toujours analysée comme un dysfonctionnement temporaire qui s’autorégulera. Que ce soit dans les documents d’urbanisme ou par les mécanismes des finances publiques, la décroissance est un impensé qui handicape durement des villes comme le Havre. Or les instruments structurent la façon de poser un problème et les moyens d’y répondre. Les fondements d’organisation des villes s’appuient ainsi sur une injonction à la construction conduisant à un phénomène d’évitement des friches. Ce parti-pris coûteux conduit à surspécialiser le marché immobilier et paradoxalement à créer de la vacance, notamment de logements. Selon le champ scientifique portant sur les villes en décroissance, l’Allemagne est une pionnière. La thèse propose d’examiner la mise en place d’autres stratégies quant au foncier et espaces vacants dans des villes de l’Est de l’Allemagne. À travers les cas de Berlin, Leipzig et Halle, l’analyse porte plus précisément sur les Zwischennutzungen (ZN), les utilisations intermédiaires ou temporaires, qui sont érigées au rang d’instrument dans le code de la construction. Ce travail met en lumière les limites d’un « modèle allemand » quant à la décroissance urbaine. Il interroge les mécanismes de circulation et d’édification de modèles urbains dans les villes en décroissance en fonction de différentes catégories d’acteurs ; institutionnels, scientifiques et fondateurs de ZN. Cette expérience, voire expérimentation allemande permet toutefois de mettre à distance certains automatismes havrais, voire de poser des éléments d’une reconfiguration de la politique foncière et immobilière de la Ville. Les quartiers sud sont ici pris en exemple d’une hybridation possible entre les éléments allemands et les dynamiques havraises.
Conference Paper
Before unification, internal migration systems in East and West Germany were different. Whereas the East had been characterized by urbanization, in the West intra- as well as interregional deconcentration had been important migration trends. At the time of the 'Wende' (political turn), these trends were upset by dominating East-West flows. This paper explores whether spatial migration patterns in both parts of Germany show convergent developments during the 1990s and whether earlier patterns of deconcentration in the old states again come to the fore. Important contexts for internal migrations are represented by developments of regional labour markets and housing markets, which are outlined for eastern and western Germany. It is shown that instances of convergence can be found for East-West and West-East migration and for suburbanization. This is followed by renewed divergence at the end of the decade. However, the position of rural regions in the migration patterns is still very different. Whereas the spatial gradient of disparities in the new states corresponds to a gradient from agglomerations to rural areas, with low economic and social status in the rural periphery, in western Germany many rural regions are in a favourable position.
Article
This article examines the significance of labor mobility for capitalism and analyzes the visa regimes of the European Union (EU) and Turkey. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, labor mobility originating from Eastern Europe has been redirected to the West, taking the form of circular migrations and replacing the previous rotation system. While the new forms of circular mobility created insecure employment conditions for many people, it also required a visa regime to classify people when they arrive at the borders. Both nation-states and supranational organizations such as the EU continue to build regulatory capacities. The second half of the article examines the Schengen agreement and the ways in which French German sensitivities were "communitized." While other East European countries chose to be a part of the Schengen agreement's restrictive visa policies, this option was not possible for Turkey, which established a fully liberal regime.
Article
Two American geographers analyze German interstate migration patterns during the period following unification of former West and East Germany (1990-2003). A specific focus of the analysis is the extent to which migration patterns established immediately following unification have changed over the ensuing years. The paper presents a variety of complementary analyses to establish the temporal and geographic patterns of German domestic migration and discusses possible reasons for the seemingly surprising stability of migration patterns throughout the period. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: J61, O15, R23. 1 figure, 9 tables, 35 references, 3 appendices.
Article
The populations of the large cities of the former Federal Republic of Germany (cities with at least 100 000 inhabitants) have been characterised by a continuing downward trend since the beginning of the 1980s. The number of inhabitants, which had already been decreasing during the 1970s, had registered a loss of 3.6 per cent by 1987. Subsequently, however, the trend reversed and, from 1988 to 1994, the population of the large cities in West Germany increased by about 6 per cent. Does this reversal indicate the beginning of a process of reurbanisation and, in cyclic terms, has the urban development changed to more traditional patterns of population redistribution? The increase in population in the large cities around 1990 was rather different from former urbanisation processes. The concentration was a temporary phenomenon and affected predominantly persons of foreign nationality, whereas the German population was still going through a deconcentration process. There are several contributing factors, including the political upheavals in eastern Europe, the accelerated economic restructuring in the 1980s and improvements in communication and transport technology. Globalisation with its worldwide expansion of communication networks also played a role, allocating gateway functions to larger centres in favourable locations. The paper analyses the effects of urban economy and city size on the balances of migration movements of the large cities in West Germany since 1980, especially on the different distribution patterns of the German and foreign populations.
Chapter
In eastern Germany the sudden change of the political system produced patterns of spatial population development which were new for this part of the country and, in fact, for Germany as a whole. To cite an example from a wider perspective, the predominant north-south-migration in the old “Bundesrepublik” was overlaid by an east-west-drifting. 1 At the same time a rapidly falling birth rate increased the defi cit in natural population development. Together these components brought about a rapid reduction of population in eastern Germany which is still ongoing. On a regional scale a very dynamic suburban area migration was registered in the 1990s. 2 The phase of dissipation ended in the late 1990s. With the beginning of the new century some urban regions are showing signs of another change, this time towards re-urbanisation which is taking place under conditions of decreasing population. Since the end of the 1990s the numbers of inhabitants in several large cities are stabilising and in some cases even slightly growing. In contrast, they are declining in rural areas as well as in small and medium-sized towns and recently in suburban areas as well. These regional differences are embedded in an ongoing decrease of population whose complexity is discussed in politics and in the public as a demographic change. This article aims at working out some spatial manifestations of selected components of population development in eastern Germany and then asks what the resultant challenges are for a restructuring policy in eastern Germany (“Aufbau Ost” Policy).
Article
Full-text available
A nation's population is redistributed through migration flows and counterflows between its constituent subnational areas, resulting in a geographical pattern of net migration gains or losses which may change from one time period to another. Migration effectiveness is the indicator commonly used to measure net migration as a proportion of gross migration turnover for any territorial unit. This paper explores the effect of net migration in two different countries, Australia and the United Kingdom, using measures of migration effectiveness computed from period-age migration data sets for a system of city regions assembled for four consecutive five-year periods in each country. While the evidence suggests that the overall effectiveness of net migration has declined over the 20-year period in both countries, marked similarities and contrasts are apparent in the spatial patterning of migration that together provide useful analytical insights into the changing space economies of the two countries.
Article
Before unification, internal migration systems in East and West Germany were different. Whereas the East had been characterized by urbanization, in the West intra- as well as interregional deconcentration had been important migration trends. At the time of the 'Wende' (political turn), these trends were upset by dominating East-West flows. This paper explores whether spatial migration patterns in both parts of Germany show convergent developments during the 1990s and whether earlier patterns of deconcentration in the old states again come to the fore. Important contexts for internal migrations are represented by developments of regional labour markets and housing markets, which are outlined for eastern and western Germany. It is shown that instances of convergence can be found for East-West and West-East migration and for suburbanization. This is followed by renewed divergence at the end of the decade. However, the position of rural regions in the migration patterns is still very different. Whereas the spatial gradient of disparities in the new states corresponds to a gradient from agglomerations to rural areas, with low economic and social status in the rural periphery, in western Germany many rural regions are in a favourable position.
Article
PIP This paper reviews the general patterns of demographic change, historical population geography and migration and works that were published during 1995-96. The review includes works of geographers, demographers, historians, and others, where there are clear geographical implications. The aim of the review is to show that population geography thrives and indicates some of the challenges it faces in the light of developments both in related areas of geography and beyond the discipline in, for example, demography and history. The paper begins by examining recent methodological and substantive trends in economic, social and cultural geography. Then, it demonstrates the relevance of demographic phenomena to those fields where they are largely ignored.
Article
This paper tests the temporal characterisation of the differential urbanisation model in Western Germany. A time series of high–quality regional demographic data is available for the period 1939–2010; similar data are not available for Eastern Germany. The differential urbanisation model characterised regional population development tendencies as a sequence of evolutionary stages, for urban Western Germany as well as for the Rhine–Ruhr and the Rhine–Main–Neckar polycentric metropolitan regions. The progression from urbanisation to polarisation reversal and then to counter–urbanisation did not occur in lock step fashion, but was evident as a consistent tendency in a general direction. The model accommodated abrupt change by capturing the regional impacts of the Second World War and the reunification of Germany.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.