Sun, 27 May 2012
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With women in eastern Germany steadily migrating westward, some fear they leave declining birth rates and a context predisposed toward extremism in their wake.After the Berlin Wall fell, hundreds of thousands of people fled the former communist East for a better life in the West and an overwhelming number of them were young women.
The result, 20 years on, is one of the worst demographic imbalances in the whole of Europe that threatens the future of entire German regions, especially in the northeast.
Experts fear that the female exodus might indirectly fuel a rise of far-right extremism among bored young men, many of whom lack education and job prospects -- and a girlfriend.
Between 1991 and 2005, as many as 400,000 eastern German women under the age of 30 moved west across the former Iron Curtain, compared to 273,000 young men under 30.
This has led now to a situation in some northeastern villages in which there are just 45 women for every 100 men.
In 60 eastern German towns with more than 5,000 inhabitants, there are just 80 women for 100 men in the 18 to 29 age bracket said, Steffen Kroehnert of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development.
"The problem is worse in eastern Germany than even in areas of northern Finland or Sweden which have long seen an exodus of women," he added.
The problem is starkly evident in the small northeastern town of Wittstock, halfway between Berlin and Hamburg, which in two years up to 2008 saw 436 citizens aged between six and 26 leave out of a youth population of only 3,181.
Photos credit: lawmurray; Marc from Borft
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