Whether living together in different lifestyles and households, the diversity of family life, different educational and employment biographies or different immigration histories: Diversity is part of North Rhine-Westphalia's DNA.
North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous federal state in Germany. At the end of 2023, 18.19 million people lived in the state: the average age of the population was 44.2 years. Children and young people up to the age of 18 made up 18.2 percent. 21.7 percent of people were aged 65 or older.
Social change is also bringing about changes in family life: in addition to two-parent families, single-parent families, patchwork and rainbow families have also become commonplace. Many families are also multilingual.
Household types differ according to how many people live in a household, whether children and young people under the age of 18 are part of the household and, if so, how many and which parents they live with.
Based on the 2022 census, people living alone make up a large proportion (43.7%) of the 8.66 million private households. Two people live in around a third of private households (30.3 percent), three people in 12.1 percent and four people in 9 percent. Private households in North Rhine-Westphalia with five or more people are rare (4.8%).
Children and young people are shaped, among other things, by whether they grow up with siblings or as an only child, with one or more parents.
Almost half (47 percent) of households have one child under 18, four out of 10 children live with a sibling in the household and 14 percent have two or more siblings. The statistics do not differentiate between biological, adopted and stepchildren.
Parents and children live together in different family constellations.
The compatibility of family and career is an important issue for many mothers and fathers. The last few decades have seen a change in the division of responsibilities within families. More and more fathers are taking parental leave and want to play an active role in the upbringing and care of their children afterwards. Mothers, on the other hand, are returning to work more quickly. Nevertheless, mothers still often take on the majority of care and support tasks in families.
Reliable childcare is particularly important for a good work-life balance. In 2024, 90 percent of children between the ages of three and six attended a daycare center. Children under the age of three are less likely to attend daycare (32.3%).
Diversity is an integral part of everyday school life. In the 2022/2023 school year, around eight percent of pupils were identified as having special educational needs, with just under half of them attending a mainstream school and the other half a special school. In addition, almost half of the pupils in the same school year had a migrant background (41.8 percent).
The qualifications students leave general school with have a significant impact on their future educational and career opportunities. In the 2022/2023 school year, around a third (38.6%) left school with an Abitur and another third (35.5%) with a Fachoberschulreife. 15.5 percent left school with an (extended) first school-leaving certificate and 6.6 percent without a first school-leaving certificate.
Since industrialization, people from the most diverse countries and regions of the world have found a new home in North Rhine-Westphalia. And current political developments are also reflected in the citizenship of the citizens of NRW: 15 percent have Turkish citizenship, nine percent Syrian citizenship and eight percent Ukrainian citizenship.
The cultural diversity is also reflected in the language. Around half of people with a migrant background speak one or more languages in addition to German at home, such as Turkish, Russian, Arabic or Polish. Young people in particular have a history of immigration. 35 percent of people with a migrant background are younger than 25 and only eleven percent are older than 65.
"We live diversity": under this motto, six municipalities were awarded a Landespreis for their innovative and family-friendly offers for the first time in 2024. The cities of Gladbeck, Hamm and Brühl, the district of Düren with its 15 towns belonging to the district and the municipalities of Windeck and Dörentrup are the winning municipalities. Their offers range from family-oriented intergenerational projects to family-friendly town halls.
