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Love in Germany: 1.5 million relationships are between a German and foreigner

The Local Germany
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Love in Germany: 1.5 million relationships are between a German and foreigner
Enjoying an afternoon at the beach. Photo: depositphotos/Kzenon

In Germany, the number of German-foreign partnerships has more than doubled within the past two decades.

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In 2017, there were 1.5 million couples living together in which one person was German and the other possessed a foreign passport. Of those,1.2 million were married.

As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Tuesday, this represents seven percent of all couples in Germany. In eight percent of cases, both partners had a foreign nationality (1.7 million couples).

Of the nearly 21 million couples in Germany, 85% were German-German couples (17.5 million), according to the survey.

The figures are based on the 2017 micro-census and refer to co-habiting heterosexual couples. People who have both German citizenship and a foreign passport are designated as Germans. Germans holding a foreign passport, as well, were designated just as Germans.

Homosexual partnerships were not taken into account but, according to the Federal Office, they would not have a major impact on the overall result.

According to the figures, four percent of German men and women each have a foreign partner. However, there are differences in the nationality of the partners. The wives of German men come most frequently from Turkey (14 percent), Poland (nine percent) and Russia (eight percent).

The foreign men married to a German woman come mainly from Turkey (19 percent), Italy (twelve percent) and Austria (seven percent).

The numbers have been steadily increasing over the years: in 1996, German-foreign couples made up two percent of partnerships in Germany.

SEE ALSO: Five reasons why you should date (or even fall in love with) a German

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