Press release No. 330 of 4 August 2022

• Labour market will lose many economically active people when baby boomers retire.

• Labour force participation of women was markedly lower than that of men in all age groups in 2021 again.

WIESBADEN – The baby boomer generation plays a major role as regards the development of labour supply in Germany. The largest cohorts, born between 1957 and 1969, will retire within the next 15 years. Based on the 2021 microcensus, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that 12.9 million economically active people will have surpassed retirement age by 2036. This is just under 30% of the economically active population available to the labour market in reference year 2021.

Younger age groups will not replace older ones in numbers

Examining the population aged between 15 and 79 years in 5-year age groups shows that all older age groups comprise more economically active people than the younger ones. The labour force participation of 63.6% among the 60 to 64 year olds show that this age group is already in the phase of transition to retirement. A 86% majority of the 50 to 59 year olds (11.3 million economically active people) were still active in the labour market. The two age groups between 40 and 49 years, which in 2021 had the highest labour force participation rates of all age groups (89% each), comprised a total of just 8.9 million economically active people in 2021. Also, the group of the 30 to 34 year olds, which is still relatively large, comprises much fewer economically active people than the older baby boomer age groups.

The two youngest age groups of the under 25 year olds are in part still in the phase of being set up. Apprentices in the dual system, and also students who have a job on the side, are considered as persons in employment here. 29% of the 15 to 19 year olds were economically active, and 67% were only undergoing education or training in 2021. 71% of the 20 to 24 year olds were already available to the labour market, while 21% were only in education/training. Even if all people in these two age groups could be activated for the labour market after finishing their education/training, this would have been be a total of just 8.4 million economically active people in 2021.

Labour force participation of women still markedly lower than that of men

The labour force participation of women was markedly lower than that of men across all age groups in 2021. Regarding the population between 30 and 39 years, the labour force participation rate of women was by roughly 11 percentage points lower than that of men. Regarding the age groups between 40 and under 65 years, the difference averaged just over 8 percentage points. Larger labour market participation of women thus could contribute to activating a higher overall labour force potential.

Methodological notes:

In accordance with the definition of the International Labour Organization, the economically active population consists of persons in employment and unemployed persons. The unemployment rate, which measures the proportion of unemployed in the economically active population between 15 and 79 years, was 3.6% in 2021.

The data are based on first results of the microcensus for 2021. The microcensus was redesigned both in technical and in methodological terms; the new approach was introduced at the beginning of 2020. Detailed information is available on a special page (only in german) of the Federal Statistical Office’s website.

More information:

Data on the labour force participation by age groups are available from the GENESIS-Online database (table 12211-0001).