Germany and Spain scramble to reverse the flight of youth

“You have had a lot of out-migration from places that were less economically successful and a clustering of younger people … in more successful regions of Europe. And so that is going to exacerbate social divides and it’s going to show up politically,” said John Springford, from the Centre for European Reform, who co-authored the The Big European Sort?, a 2019 report.

He singled out eastern Germany as an archetype, saying the demographic shift driven by the exodus of younger people was playing into the hands of rightwing populists such as Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

“Because a constituency in the eastern Länder in Germany, for example … is going to tend to be older, more socially conservative and less educated, that means that that constituency is more likely to be willing to vote for the AfD,” Springford said.