Urban–rural migration in Germany: A decision in favour of ‘the rural’ or against ‘the urban’?

For many years, the debate on internal migration in Germany focused on rural out-migration. Since the early 2000s, large cities have had positive migration balances. Almost unnoticed, however, in the early 2010s the patterns of internal migration started to shift towards rural locations. It was only the COVID-19 pandemic that drew attention to these changing tendencies and the apparent new appreciation of rural living.

In this paper, we will first shed light on the changes in internal migration between 2000 and 2021. We divide this period into three phases and show that the overall pattern of population centralisation transformed into a process of decentralisation. This trend further intensified during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondly, based on a German-wide population survey, we present findings on the reasons why households moved from urban to rural areas between mid-2015 and mid-2020, with personal, employment-related and housing-related reasons being the most relevant. To better understand urban-rural migration (or ‘counterurbanisation’), we pay particular attention to how respondents experienced cities and urban housing markets and which residential characteristics they ascribed to the rural destination. We show that urban-rural migration is a multifaceted decision in which the structural impediments of urban housing markets lacking affordable housing play a relevant part. In conclusion, we argue that research on urban-rural migration needs to more systematically pursue the idea of a complex and contingent decision that is driven by both structural factors and personal preferences. Extending the long-standing counterurbanisation debate beyond a mere residential choice for ‘the rural’ is all the more important to adequately interpret future findings on post-pandemic patterns of internal migration.