Point of View
Why Germany Needs a National Strategy for Social Cohesion
Our Diversity Barometer 2025 Focus Report reveals: People with and without a migration background in Germany differ in their openness to diversity characteristics such as ethnic origin, religion, or sexual orientation. These differences should not be seen as dividing lines – but as an impetus to strengthen the foundations of togetherness, argues our migration expert Raphaela Schweiger.
We are at a turning point in how we deal with social diversity – and the data from the 2025 Diversity Barometer show how narrow the line between openness and uncertainty has become. Diversity – measured across dimensions such as age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic weakness, ethnic origin, and religion – remains broadly accepted.
Yet approval is declining: In 2019, diversity acceptance stood at 68 (from 100) points; today it is 63. Curiosity about other ways of life is also shrinking. While 78 percent said in 2019 that encounters with people from other countries were enriching, today only 54 percent agree.
This is not a sign of fundamental rejection. Rather, many people experience a social climate they perceive as tense, moralizing, and not open to dialogue. This is highlighted by our Focus Report of the Diversity Barometer 2025 on participation and belonging in Germany’s immigration society.
Fifty-nine percent of respondents feel they are “labeled as racist for every little thing”; around half feel they can no longer express their opinions freely. These are symptoms of a public sphere where uncertainty quickly turns into caution – and caution into silence.
Diversity Barometer 2025 Focus Report
Participation and Belonging in Germany's Immigration Society
Downloadn the Publication (PDF)Germany is an immigration country and therefore shaped by ethnic and religious diversity. However, acceptance of different ethnic origins and religions has declined sharply in recent years, as shown by the Diversity Barometer 2025. Under these circumstances, how can participation and belonging be made possible for as many people as possible? How do people living in Germany – those without and those with a migration background – view different aspects of diversity? And what are the foundations of togetherness? Answers to these questions are provided in the publication Participation and Belonging in Germany's Immigration Society, a Focus Report of our study “Diversity Barometer 2025”.
Differences Should Not Become Dividing Lines
This is precisely why it is important not to instrumentalize differences between people with and without a migration background as fault lines. They primarily reflect different life experiences: What has your family gone through? How much contact do you have with people of other cultures and religions? How diverse are your family, friends, or workplace?
Our Diversity Barometer 2025 Focus Report shows: People with a migration background tend to be more open to ethnic and religious diversity; those without a migration background are more open to diversity in sexual orientation. These are not opposites, but facets of a country that has learned to live with difference – and is still grappling with how to interpret it.
What the data shows most clearly is the understanding of belonging in Germany. For the vast majority, it does not depend on a passport or origin, but on everyday behavior: respecting laws (91 percent), speaking German (86 percent), working (78 percent), getting involved (53 percent). Germany has long developed an open, civic understanding of “belonging”. This is an enormous potential for an immigration society – if we use it politically and socially.
“The Diversity Barometer shows that the center of society thinks in a more nuanced way than the heated debates suggest.”
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At the same time, the feeling of being overlooked remains strong: 43 percent of all respondents say they feel like second-class citizens. Many experience that their needs count less than those of other groups.
Added to this are concerns about the economic situation and the impression that political processes are too slow or too distant. This mix of insecurity, loss of control, and low representation is dangerous.
What Needs to Happen Now
Germany now needs a national strategy for social cohesion. It must clearly address how participation can be improved, how discrimination can be tackled more consistently, and how we can strengthen inclusion. Municipalities need better resources – because it is at the local level where diversity is experienced as either an opportunity or an overload. And we need a political culture that does not immediately moralize conflicts, but creates spaces for questions, doubts, and learning.
The Diversity Barometer shows that the center of society thinks more nuanced than heated debates suggest. People want neither polarization nor glossing over – they want orientation: rules that make sense; procedures that work; institutions that act fairly; and a public discourse where different perspectives are not played off against each other.
Cultural and religious diversity is not the challenge – how we deal with it is. Germany has a strong social foundation for togetherness. But this potential will only unfold if clear rules, fair participation, and strong institutions are reliably guaranteed. Cohesion in a diverse society emerges where orientation, trust, and encounter are possible. If we succeed in creating these conditions, Germany will not only cope with diversity – it will draw strength from it.
