Cultural Demography
Germany's estimated total population is approximately 82 million - making it the most populous country in the European Union and in Western Europe, more generally.
The vast majority of the population is ethnic German; the primary language is also German. Near the border with Denmark, in the north, an ethnic Danish minority is resident. A small pocket of Eastern Germany is home to the Sorbs (not to be confused with the similarly spelled, but different "Serbs"), a small Slavic minority group. Turks make up the most sizable single minority group. Other resident ethnic groups include Spanish, Greeks, Italians, Russian, and Poles.
In terms of religious affiliation, approximately 38 percent of Germans are Protestant; about 34 percent are Roman Catholic. About two percent of the population is Muslim. The remaining 26 percent of the population are either unaffiliated with a specific religion or they belong to other unspecified religions.
For years, Germany has been an attractive destination for persons fleeing political persecution and/or seeking to improve their economic condition. Most recently, Germany has seen an influx of people fleeing the wars in the former Yugoslavia. The Germans, like much of the rest of Western Europe, have attempted to reduce the number of political and economic refugees by tightening their immigration and asylum laws.
Human Development
Germany is a wealthy country with a sophisticated socio-economic infrastructure and a high quality of life. According to year recent estimates, Germans have an average life expectancy at birth of 77.5 years of age (74 years for males, 81 years for females). The infant mortality rate is 4.65 deaths per 1,000 live births. The population has an estimated average literacy rate of 99 percent.
About 8.1 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures in this country; about of 4.5 percent GDP is spent on educational expenditures. Access to education, sanitation, water, and health is regarded to be very good.
One notable measure used to determine a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which has been compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In recent rankings of 169 countries, the HDI placed Germany in the very high human development category, at 10th place.
Editor's Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief,
www.countrywatch.com; see Bibliography for research sources.