German regions with shrinking populations are currently facing major challenges, according to a report by the German government on the equality of living conditions.
However, the Equivalence Report 2024, which was approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday, also shows that the differences between the regions have decreased in the majority of the economic, social and other indicators analysed in recent years.
The government coalition emphasized that these questions have not been investigated in this comprehensive form to date.
According to the information provided, 27 of a total of 38 equivalence indicators are levelling out across regions.
These include municipal tax revenue, the unemployment rate, the number of criminal offences, the birth rate and life expectancy, the accessibility of the nearest supermarket and the proportion of forest area in the total area of the 400 districts and independent towns.
In contrast, the regions have grown further apart in terms of the proportion of skilled labour and experts in the workforce who earn enough to make social insurance contributions.
Differences also grew in the density of residential buildings, the ratio of children to daycare places, the proportion of single-person households and the old-age dependency ratio.
There was no statistically relevant change in the differences in pay between men and women, or the gender pay gap, population growth, premature mortality and the density of doctors.
