Data from the GESIS-Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences, as reported by the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung”, indicates that an increasing number of men in Germany are choosing not to have children. The statistics show that roughly 34 percent of men over the age of 18 were childless in 1980, whereas this figure has since risen to 40 percent. The trend is most pronounced among younger adults; the proportion of men aged 30 to 34 without children jumped by almost 30 percentage points, from 42 percent to 69 percent. Similarly, among men aged 35 to 39, the percentage increased by over 30 percentage points, moving from 22 percent to 54 percent.
In parallel, the rate of men living with a committed partner has fallen sharply. A study conducted by the Federal Institute for Population Research in Wiesbaden found that while 93 percent of men were in a stable partnership in 1986, that figure had dropped to only 79 percent in 2024-a decrease of 14 percentage points in little over four decades.
Claudia Rahnfeld, a Professor of Applied Social Sciences at Gera-Eisenach University of Applied Sciences, studies the desire for children among men. She attributes this shift to structural challenges. According to Rahnfeld, men require financial security, professional establishment, and suitable housing to start a family. Since these milestones are increasingly delayed, their desire to become parents may remain unfulfilled. “When we line up the desire for children with the actual realization of that desire, we must say that the difficult structural framework conditions we face today are often the cause,” Rahnfeld states.
Furthermore, both sides of the dating pool are showing greater selectivity in partner choice. As women’s emancipation progresses, the incidence of involuntary childlessness among men is also rising-a pattern seen in Scandinavia. Rahnfeld notes that emancipated women are now choosing very deliberately whom they have children with.
