Dear reader, the time has come to meet the average German. Age, weight, salary, number of children. You’ve always been wondering. I know, I know. And even if not, here are all the deets anyway – courtesy of the Federal Statistical Office, or Statistisches Bundesamt, that has crunched all the latest data and come to the following conclusion.

The average full time working German human is 44.9 years old, 1.73 metres tall and has a monthly gross salary of 4,634 euros, which equals an average net income of 2,655 euros per month. The meticulous German statistics folk have, of course, also broken the data down in male and female averages. We therefore now know that, at the end of 2024, the average woman was 46.2 years old – a good two and a half years older than the average man, who was 43.5 years old. The statistics experts tell us that this has to do with the higher life expectancy of the ladies. Speaking of which, for German females born in 2024 the average life expectancy is 83.5 years, compared to 78.9 years for men.

As regards to height and weight, German men are on average 1.79 metres tall and weigh 85.8 kilograms, while women are 1.66 metres tall and weigh 69.2 kilograms. Another interesting figure: the average German person doesn’t leave their parents’ home before the age of 23.9 years – a phenomenon known in German as Hotel Mama. Women are younger on average (21.3 years) when they leave their childhood home behind, while men tend to reap the benefits of living at home for longer, until the average age of 24.6 years.

Women also start their own families earlier: the average age of a German first-time mother is 30.4 years, men wait for another almost three years, becoming fathers for the first time at the average age of 33.3. Something that applies to German men and women alike is that the first time becoming a parent seems to mostly be the last time too because the average person’s family consists of 3.4 members, provided that they live in a household as a parent with a child or vice versa. And if we look at the average German person irrespective of whether the they live in a family, parent-child constellation, or in another type of set-up, the statistics tell us that the average German household has only 2.0 members.

How do these, on average, small 21st century German household units live, you might ask yourself now. Well, from a UK perspective (and indeed that of many a country anywhere in the world), they certainly have quite a bit of space at hand: according to the Federal Statistical Office, which draws on 2022 census data here, the average German apartment has – hold your breath – 94.4 square metres of living space. That’s about 1,016 square feet.

Last but not least, should we have a look at the German gender pay gap? Let’s. Because the average salary of 4,634 euros gross per month (as of April 2024) for the average German person translate into 4,830 euros for men and 4,214 euros for women. And just to be complete and as these average figures may be distorted by very high salaries, here’s also the median amount of 3,978 euros gross for the average person, that is the middle value which provides a more accurate representation. For full-time female employees this median value is 3,777 euros gross or exactly 300 euros less than for men at 4,077 euros.

So, what’s missing now? We know how tall they are, what they weigh, how much they earn, how many children they have, how big their homes are … ah, yes, how many hours does the average German’s working week have. Important point, given that Chancellor Friedrich Merz has made it very clear in recent months that, in his view, Germans do not work enough. The statistics say that the average full-time working person clocks up 40.2 hours per week – 39.2 hours in the case of women and 40.7 hours for men. I leave it to you to decide whether you agree with the Chancellor of Germany or not. All I can say is that, solely based on the statistical data, I’m an un-average German on all counts – and at least when it comes to the living space available, I wouldn’t mind being a bit more typical German …

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Barbara Geier is a London-based freelance writer, translator and communications consultant. She is also the face behind www.germanyiswunderbar.com, a German travel and tourism guide and blog that was set up together with UK travel writer Andrew Eames in 2010.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Discover Germany, Switzerland & Austria.

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