Berlin Institute for Population and Development
Encyclopedia
The Berlin Institute for Population and Development is an independent scientific research institute that aims to improve the way in which international demographic
Demography
Demography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...

 change is perceived and dealt with in the context of sustainable development
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...

. To reach this goal, the institute publishes studies and discussion papers. It also offers an online handbook on demography and publishes a newsletter
Newsletter
A newsletter is a regularly distributed publication generally about one main topic that is of interest to its subscribers. Newspapers and leaflets are types of newsletters. Additionally, newsletters delivered electronically via email have gained rapid acceptance for the same reasons email in...

. The institute is financed by contributions, project funds, earnings from the foundation’s endowment, and contributions to the endowment. The institute is headed by Reiner Klingholz, who studied chemistry, earning a PhD in molecular biology. Earlier in his career, Reiner Klingholz worked as a journalist for the German weekly Die Zeit and the bi-annual magazine Geo Wissen.

History

The Berlin Institute for Population and Development was founded in 2000 by Marlene von Reichenbach and has since been recognised as a foundation (non-profit organisation). The institute has no political or religious
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

 affiliations.

During the initial years of its existence, the institute received general support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Today it has a broad range of sponsors, which are listed on the institute’s website. Among the more prominent are the Robert Bosch Foundation, the Erste Foundation, and the Software AG Foundation.

Publications

The Demographic State of the Nation – How Sustainable Are Germany’s Regions? (2006) describes demographic change in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and its expected impact on Germany’s 439 German region
Region
Region is most commonly found as a term used in terrestrial and astrophysics sciences also an area, notably among the different sub-disciplines of geography, studied by regional geographers. Regions consist of subregions that contain clusters of like areas that are distinctive by their uniformity...

s and municipalities
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

. Based on a set of 22 demographic, economic
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

, social, and education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

al indicators, the authors of the study come up with an assessment of the sustainability of each of the 439 units covered. Aside from identifying general trends such as an ageing
Ageing
Ageing or aging is the accumulation of changes in a person over time. Ageing in humans refers to a multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social change. Some dimensions of ageing grow and expand over time, while others decline...

 and dwindling population, the study sheds light on some important patterns of internal migration
Human migration
Human migration is physical movement by humans from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. Historically this movement was nomadic, often causing significant conflict with the indigenous population and their displacement or cultural assimilation. Only a few nomadic...

 in Germany. The urban regions surrounding big cities like Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 and Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, alongside other economically prosperous regions, turn out to be prime destinations for internal migrants.

Male Emergency (2007) analyses the causes and consequences of young women leaving the states of eastern Germany: the regions are becoming poorer – socially, economically and demographically. A portion of the men who have stayed behind now constitute a new underclass
Underclass
The term underclass refers to a segment of the population that occupies the lowest possible position in a class hierarchy, below the core body of the working class. The general idea that a class system includes a population under the working class has a long tradition in the social sciences...

. The authors of the study Male Emergency see educational advancement as the main reason for the disproportionate outward migration of young women. They strongly recommend setting up programmes aimed at boosting the motivation and educational qualifications of young males who have fallen behind.

Unintentionally Childless (2007) looks into the question of how reproductive medicine
Reproductive medicine
Reproductive medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with prevention, diagnosis and management of reproductive problems; goals include improving or maintaining reproductive health and allowing people to have children at a time of their choosing...

 can contribute to mitigating the demographic crisis in Germany. The study concludes that aside from modern family policies and increased efforts to combat the causes of biological-medical infertility, medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

 could help couples, whose wish for children has gone unfulfilled, thus contributing, to a certain extent, to raising birth rates.

Talents, Technology and Tolerance (2007) examines, on the basis of Richard Florida
Richard Florida
Richard Florida is an American urban studies theorist.Richard Florida's focus is on social and economic theory. He is currently a professor and head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management, at the University of Toronto. He also heads a private consulting firm, the...

’s theory of the creative class
Creative class
The Creative Class is a socioeconomic class that economist and social scientist Richard Florida, a professor and head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, identifies as a key driving force for economic development of post-industrial...

, the prospects of Germany’s regions in a future knowledge-based society. The theory postulates that a successful economy requires a society in which talent, technology and tolerance can all flourish equally. Measured according to the TTT criteria, Berlin possesses the greatest creative potential among the German states, followed by Hamburg and Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...

. By comparison, the eastern German states of Brandenburg
Brandenburg
Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...

, Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

, Saxony-Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...

 and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is a federal state in northern Germany. The capital city is Schwerin...

 lag far behind.

Emancipation or child benefits? (2008) compares the social conditions for different fertility rates in the nations of western Europe based on an array of socioeconomic indicators. It shows clearly that the traditionally negative correlation between wealth and social development on the one hand and fertility on the other no longer holds once a society has reached a certain level of development. Today more children are born in the countries with the most advanced social systems in regard to gender equality
Gender equality
Gender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.- Concept :...

. Based on this result, we propose to discuss the problem of low-fertility countries from a different point of view. Neither child benefits nor other sources of financial aid appear to motivate people in modern industrial societies to have more children. What is far more crucial is equality of men and women in society.

Europe’s Demographic Future (2008) is the institute’s first major study that has been translated fully into English. The study compares and assesses the various regions of the EU-27 countries as well as Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

, as well as a number of selected eastern European countries on the basis of 24 demographic, economic, social, and environment
Environment (biophysical)
The biophysical environment is the combined modeling of the physical environment and the biological life forms within the environment, and includes all variables, parameters as well as conditions and modes inside the Earth's biosphere. The biophysical environment can be divided into two categories:...

al indicators. The study shows the very different ways in which individual countries are affected by and deal with demographic challenges. The authors of the study map out the ways in which mutual learning can help European countries in dealing with concrete challenges facing them.

Unutilised Potentials – On the Current State of Integration in Germany (2009) is dedicated to the 15 million persons in Germany that have a migration background. In order to assess the integration performance of eight different immigrant groups, the institute has developed an Integration Measurement Index (IMI), which is based on 20 indicators for assimilation, education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

, working life, and social security
Social security
Social security is primarily a social insurance program providing social protection or protection against socially recognized conditions, including poverty, old age, disability, unemployment and others. Social security may refer to:...

. The results of the study show that the roughly two million persons stemming from other EU-25 countries (without southern Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

) are best integrated. On the other hand, migrants from Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 in particular tend to show massive integration deficits. Looked at in regional terms, integration tends generally to work out better in places where there is demand in the labour market for large numbers of highly qualified workers.

External links

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