How tolerant is Germany really? The 2025 Diversity Barometer is here with sobering results 

Germany, the land of Poets and Thinkers, has long prided itself on being a bastion of diversity, fairness and tolerance. The largest country in the EU in terms of population, it’s also home to the most foreign-born nationals, over 12 million according to the EU, and 7% of the world’s refugees, approximately 2 million according to the 2024 World Migration Report by the International Organization of Migration. With this in mind, the 2025 Vielfaltsbarometer (Diversity Barometer) set out to quantify just how diverse Germany is—and how tolerant and accepting it is as well.

Commissioned by the Robert Bosch Foundation, the Diversity Barometer first appeared in 2019 and is the only large, representative study of the acceptance of diversity in Germany. Both in 2019 and 2025, the study has been led by a team of psychologists and social scientists, including Regina Arant, Georgi Dragolov and Klaus Boehnke from Constructor University, as well as Ferdinand Mirbach from the Robert Bosch Stiftung. We spoke to professor Boehnke after last week’s release to get his opinion and additional context on the report’s findings, underlying trends and how the topic of diversity in Germany is poised to develop from here.

Professor Boehnke, compared to the 2019 Diversity Barometer, the overall acceptance of diversity decreased from 68 to 63 points on a scale of 100. How does this trajectory compare with international trends — are we seeing similar declines elsewhere in Europe or beyond?

The Diversity Barometer studies (2019 and 2025) have, up to now, only been conducted in Germany. It is, thus, difficult to say whether a similar trend is witnessed elsewhere in Europe. The increasing shares of citizens voting for right-wing parties in many countries across Europe may, however, be seen as a sign that this is indeed the case.

By 2025, the acceptance has declined more so in many Western federal states, so that the gap between East and West has decreased. The East still generally has lower acceptance values, but the East/West difference has become smaller. Does that indicate the Western states have reached their maximum acceptance? 

It instead seems the case that there is a kind of spill-over effect. The fact that all types of media (traditional and social) fuel antipathies against religious sentiments, particularly against Islam, is bearing “fruit.”  

Regional dynamics and an urban paradox 

Western German federal states, once more open, have lost ground in comparison to Eastern ones, narrowing the East–West diversity acceptance gap. What does this tell us about changing regional identities and how Germany fits into global patterns of urban vs. rural, center vs. periphery divides? 

Although further research is needed, it is evident that urban centers are more accepting of religious ‘otherness’, even though they are not at all centers of religiosity. Bremen, for example, is one of the frontrunners in accepting religious diversity without exhibiting high levels of religiosity in its population. 

Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen — often seen as cosmopolitan hubs — experienced some of the steepest drops. How do you explain this, and do you see parallels with other international cities facing backlash against diversity? 

The three city-states indeed experienced an eight-point drop in acceptance of diversity, where the average drop in all of Germany was five points. This appears to be a consequence of how new arrivals to Germany are distributed across the country. New arrivals to Germany tend to find more people of their ethnic group in large cities and move there as soon as they are allowed to, making their presence most visible in these cities. In consequence, non-acceptance of diversity concerning ethnicity dropped by 17 points. 

High vs. low performers  

North Rhine-Westphalia remains among the most accepting, while Thuringia and Saxony are at the bottom. How do regional differences within Germany compare to divides we see in other countries, like North vs. South in the U.S. or urban vs. provincial divides in France? 

Here, we can speculate that the classical contact hypothesis comes into play. North-Rhine Westphalia has been a melting pot of labor migration for centuries, where newcomers were desperately needed to exploit the riches of the country (coal, for a long time).  How this compares to other countries is once again very difficult to say. Deep, persistent divides within countries often cause wars, as is currently the case in Ukraine, where the fact that international borders do not coincide with language borders has been one of the sparks of the Russian attack on Ukraine: In violation of international law, Russia captured the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine. 

A troubling trend and a reason for optimism? 

The study identifies diversity supporters vs. skeptics, with significant political correlations, including links to the AfD. How does this polarization in Germany mirror or differ from polarization over diversity in other democracies? 

The crux is that seeing diversity as an asset of a community, federal state, or country is no longer a relative-majority position in Germany. Instead, it has become the position of a minority of the German public, even though research has repeatedly shown that diversity is a building block of innovation. We just need to look at cuisine. The influx of foreign workers into West Germany beginning in the 1960s has brought lots of new tastes to German cuisine, previously dominated by potatoes and cabbage with, at best, salt and pepper as spices. 

Acceptance of gender and age diversity has actually improved. What makes these categories more resilient, and is this trend visible globally? 

Well, we will have to wait and see. There is at least some ground for optimism here. The increasing workforce participation of women around the world, plus women’s lib, seems to have brought about an irreversible trend toward gender equality. Similarly, acceptance of age diversity is likely to be influenced by increasing workforce participation of the elderly. Increasing proportions of the older population remain active in the workforce, at least in the white-collar and the service sector of the economy. 

Socio-economic factors and looking ahead

Acceptance of people with a weaker socio-economic status remains low. How much is this about Germany specifically, and how much does it reflect a broader international struggle with inequality shaping openness to others?

Psychologists know the just-world fallacy to explain this bias. The just-world fallacy stands for a worldview that everyone gets what they deserve. Concerning the poor, this leads to the assumption that poor people lack competence; they are just not good enough at things expected of them. This leads to the conviction that poverty is solely the fault of those who are poor. 

The report calls for dialogue, education, and careful public rhetoric. Looking beyond Germany, which international approaches to strengthening acceptance and reducing polarization seem most promising?

A comprehensive response to this question could take at least another hour. To pick out just one point: Education for all is obviously a strong tool to improve things. PISA, the OECD Program for International Student Assessment, has made it crystal clear: An untracked school system (as one finds it, for example, in Finland) leads to better education for all. Investment in education for all is the best safeguard against intra-societal rifts. Not polarization is the evil—why not have different ideas about the future—but social inequality.By 2025, the acceptance has declined more so in many Western federal states, so that the gap between East and West has decreased. The East still generally has lower acceptance values, but the East/West difference has become smaller. Does that indicate the Western states have reached their maximum acceptance?