There is very little difference between people living in eastern and western Germany or those in rural and urban areas when they assess their quality of life. This surprising result is one of the key findings of the Germany Monitor 2023 (Deutschland-Monitor 2023), a newly developed annual scientific study that provides a new perspective on the social and political attitudes and assessments of the German population. Researchers from Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany are involved in compiling the Germany Monitor.
The focus of the new Germany Monitor shows that individual characteristics, as well as housing and the living environment, are decisive for the development of political attitudes. People in eastern Germany are twice as likely to feel left behind than people in western Germany (19% to 8%). As a result, more people in eastern Germany have the impression that politicians are not sufficiently interested in their region and are not committed enough to its economic development. However, the differences between eastern and western Germany can be partly attributed to objective factors. People in structurally weak regions in east and west feel more left behind than people in structurally strong regions. The “feeling of being left behind” is particularly widespread in those eastern German and structurally weak regions that are more affected by an ageing population and emigration.
The Germany Monitor finds that there is a stable consensus regarding the welfare state: a broad majority are of the opinion that the state should assume responsibility for the general risks of life. At the same time, there is a growing openness towards a state that is able to act in the face of economic challenges and societal risks. “The differences between east and west are narrowing because the corresponding attitudes of western Germans are converging with those of eastern Germans,” says Reinhard Pollak, a sociologist at the GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Mannheim.
- Go to full press release [only in German]
- Ergebnisbericht zum Deutschland-Monitor 2023 (Themenschwerpunkt Stadt-Land) [only in German]
- Kurzfassung Ergebnisse des Deutschland-Monitors 2023 (Themenschwerpunkt Stadt-Land) [only in German]