The Quiet Exodus
Not many are leaving. But those who leave are the ones most urgently needed.
“Ubi bene, ibi patria.” – Where I am well, there is my fatherland.
Latin proverb, after Cicero
I. The Old Proverb
In the 19th century, millions of Germans emigrated to America. They did not leave because they did not love their country, but because it offered them no livelihood. The Latin proverb, that where one is well, there is one’s fatherland, sounds cold. Yet it only describes what people have done in every age when they were young, capable and found no place for it at home.
On 3 October 2026 the German newspaper “Die Welt” published a piece by its chief economist Dorothea Siems under the headline “Now the mass exodus begins”. The social security systems, she wrote, were facing collapse, the young were going abroad, and fewer skilled workers were coming. We wanted to know how much of this is true.
II. The Numbers
In 2025, 97,000 more Germans left the country than returned. A year earlier it was 81,000, two years earlier 74,000. The most popular destinations are Switzerland, Austria and Spain. With 83 million inhabitants, that is just over one per thousand a year. A mass exodus looks different.
And yet the figure is not harmless, because what matters is who leaves. In the large emigration study of the Federal Institute for Population Research, 72 out of a hundred German emigrants held a university degree. Among the population that stays, it is 26 out of a hundred. So not many are leaving, but disproportionately many of those an economy needs most: young, well educated, at the start of their working lives.
III. Why They Leave
The obvious assumption is: because of taxes and contributions. The emigrants themselves see it differently. In the emigration study, 57 out of a hundred named professional reasons as important, 45 the wish for a different life, for sunshine or new experiences. Financial reasons were named by 26, dissatisfaction with Germany by only 17. Three quarters intended to stay away only for a while. These surveys, however, date from 2018 to 2022, before the most recent rise in contributions.
Newer figures point to a shifting mood. In the study “Youth in Germany 2026”, 21 out of a hundred young people aged 14 to 29 said they were making concrete plans to go abroad. 41 out of a hundred can imagine it. As reasons they name a lack of security in work, housing and money. Such surveys should not be overrated. Whoever says he plans to emigrate has not yet packed a suitcase. But they show where people’s thoughts are.
IV. The Rowing Boat
Social insurance works like a rowing boat. Some row, others sit in it as passengers because they are old, ill or out of work. As long as many row and few ride along, the boat moves easily. In the next ten years the baby-boom generation retires. Rowers become passengers, and fewer young rowers follow. Everyone who rows must therefore pull harder.
In 2026, 42.7 percent of gross wages go to social insurance, employer and employee shares combined. The IGES Institute, commissioned by the health insurer DAK, expects around 50 percent in 2035 without countermeasures, 54 in the unfavourable case. The German Council of Economic Experts describes the same direction.
And here lies the real danger that the word “mass exodus” obscures. The strongest rowers can change boats. Whoever is young, well trained and has no family holding him finds a boat in Zurich, Vienna or Copenhagen in which he has to pull less or gets more for it. Everyone who switches makes the load heavier for the others, and with every heavier load switching becomes more tempting. That is not a collapse. It is a slow cycle, and precisely for that reason it goes unnoticed for so long.
V. Who Comes
That leaves the second claim: fewer skilled workers are coming. Net immigration almost halved in 2025, to 235,000 people. That is the lowest figure since 2010, pandemic years excepted. The German Economic Institute speaks of a “triple migration reversal”. First, far fewer asylum seekers came, mainly because of the upheaval in Syria. Second, more people are now returning to Eastern Europe than coming from there, because wages there are catching up and populations are shrinking. Third, more Germans are leaving.
But targeted immigration of skilled workers from outside the EU has not fallen. The number of work permits rose by 13.6 percent from the end of 2023 to the end of 2025. So the claim is only half true. What is falling away are the workers who used to come almost by themselves, from Poland, Romania or Bulgaria. Whoever is to come now must be recruited, recognised and retained.
VI. What Money Does Not Explain
Contributions are only part of the calculation. A young person also weighs how quickly he finds a flat, how long he waits for an appointment at a public office, and whether he is judged by his ability or by his paperwork. In “The Ignorance and Inefficiency of the German Caste System” we described how a doctor from Damascus waits almost two years for her degree to be recognised. A young German engineer does not wait. She can leave, and the countries courting her know it.
That the baby-boom generation would retire in these years has been known for decades. It could be read off any population pyramid. In “The Unheard and Forgotten Voices in the Wilderness” we described how such warnings are first considered exaggerated and then, when the consequences become visible, too late. The pension question is a textbook case.
VII. How This Essay Could Be Refuted
The first objection: the numbers are small, and many come back. Whoever has worked for some years in Zurich or Copenhagen brings back experience, contacts and sometimes capital. Experts then speak not of emigration but of a circulation of talent. That is right, as long as the return actually happens. Many who meant to leave only for a while buy a house, start a family and stay.
The second objection: emigrants do not name contributions as the main reason at all. That too is true for the surveys so far. Our argument is not that contributions drive people away, but that every year they shift the calculation a little further in favour of leaving.
The essay would be refuted if in the coming years as many well-educated Germans returned as leave, and contributions remained stable despite the wave of retirements.
VIII. Where One Is Well
The old proverb can also be turned around. If the fatherland is where one is well, then a country can itself make sure it remains a fatherland. Not with appeals to love of home, but with flats people can afford, with offices that work, with recognition that asks about ability, and with a boat in which rowing still pays off.
What must a country offer so that its young people not only stay, but want to come back?