Quality of life in the two Germanies
Alexandrina Guran, PhD
The former GDR, also called the East, is generally considered poorer than the rest of the country, the West. But how does this translate to quality of life for the people living there? To answer this, let us consider the relevant differences in infrastructure, particularly in healthcare.
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The East of Germany (aside from Berlin and other urban hubs such as Leipzig/Halle and Dresden) is predominantly rural, and rural areas generally have less developed infrastructure and fewer healthcare opportunities.
This is a map of Germany generated from calculations of the BBSR, the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs, and Spatial Development .​​
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Orange-hued counties are urban, green ones are rural. Immediately, the East appears predominantly dark green. This trend is so pronounced that the former border between East and West Germany can be traced by the dark green coloured counties. In the whole Republic, only 58 counties fall into cluster six (the most rural), 8 of which are in the West. The remaining 50 (or more than 85% of all counties in cluster 6) can be found in the East. Counties in cluster 6 are described as “abgehängt”, which translates to “left behind” . Not only are the majority of these counties found in the East, but two thirds (50/75, 66.6%) of counties in the East are “left behind”, as compared to only 2.5% in the West!
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What does left behind mean here? It refers to a comparatively low quality of life as assessed by a number of key metrics, including median income, percentage of population that receives social support (financial, state provided), and the number of pupils that drop out of school. Briefly, regions of cluster 6 are characterized by high school drop-out rates, low income, high levels of unemployment and a shortened lifespan. Being “left behind” is not limited to rural counties. If we take a closer look at the urban counties in the East, we see a majority of cluster 3 cities, which are also characterized by high unemployment, low income, and even shorter life expectancy.
However, one thing seems to be working better than expected in the East:
This map shows the number of General Practitioners per 100,000 persons. Counties in the East do not differ much from the rest of the Republic. It rather seems that parts of the West have a worse ratio. This could be partly due to the very high population density in many western areas (especially around the valley of the Ruhr in North-Rhine Westphalia, where roughly 5 million people (roughly 1/16th of the German population) live . But we should not celebrate too early: the rural East is very sparsely populated, meaning that while the per capita presence of doctors is not low , the nearest doctor may be very far away, which can have dire consequences if an individual´s mobility is low (due to sickness, or the lack of a vehicle). Additionally, many of the doctors in rural areas, and in the East in particular, are very close to their pension. This represents a serious problem for the near future: replacements are hard to find, because most young health care professionals prefer leaving the countryside in favour of the cities.
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But how do people perceive their lives in different parts of Germany, and how may this influence their voting behavior?
Sources
1: Source of the first map: https://www.bpb.de/themen/stadt-land/laendliche-raeume/334146/laendliche-raeume-in-deutschland-ein-ueberblick/ which is taken from
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2: Sixtus F, Slupina M, Sütterlin S, Amberger J, Klingholz R. Teilhabeatlas Deutschland. Berlin-Institut f. Bevölkerung u. Entwicklung, Berlin. 2019. https://www.berlin-institut.org/fileadmin/Redaktion/Publikationen/PDF/BI_TeilhabeatlasDeutschland_2019.pdf
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3: These are some of my own calculations based on the map and information from Statista. https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1129872/umfrage/landkreise-und-kreisfreie-staedte-bundeslaender-deutschland/. I excluded city-states (Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen).
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4: See https://statistikportal.ruhr/#fl%C3%A4chennutzung-bauen-und-wohnen for data on the Valley of the Ruhr.