Germany To Grow to 100 Million Residents by 2020?

Taking into account the growing influx of refugees and the recent statements about Afghans, Iraqis and West Africans who want to make their way to Germany as well, the country could soon have 100 million residents, journalist Marco Maier wrote in Contra Magazin.

The steady influx of migrants to Germany is leading to a significant population growth.  Officially, there are about 82-83 million residents living in the country, but according to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees there are at least 290,000 newcomers who are residing in Germany, but are not officially registered.

According to a confidential report by the German authorities, around 1.5 million people are expected to arrive in Germany by the end of the year, potentially increasing the number of newcomers to around 1.8 million people, Maier wrote.

However, if one assumes that at least a half of the migrants (80% of whom are men) would apply for the reunification with their families and 4 family members would join each applicant on average, the number of newcomers would increase to 4.7 million.

According to Maier, if the situation repeats next year again, there will be about 4.7 million people more, resulting in a total inflow of about 10 million migrants by the end of 2016.

Even if the flow of refugees would decrease in the following years, some of asylum seekers would be sent home and some of them would move to other EU countries, there is quite possible that the German population will still increase by 20 million people by 2020 and exceed 100 million people, Maier wrote.