Whether living together in different lifestyles and households, the diversity of family life, different educational and employment biographies or different immigration histories: Diversity is part of North Rhine-Westphalia.
North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous federal state in Germany. At the end of 2024, 18.03 million people lived in the state: the average age of the population was 44.2 years. Children and young people up to the age of 18 made up 18.0 percent. 22.0 percent of people were aged 65 or over.
Social change is also bringing about changes in family life: in addition to two-parent families, single-parent families, patchwork and rainbow families have also become commonplace. Many families are also multilingual.
Household types differ according to how many people live in a household, whether children and young people under the age of 18 are part of the household, and if so, how many and which parents they live with.
Based on the 2023 census, people living alone make up the majority of the 8.72 million private households at 3.5 million. Around a third of private households (33.9 percent) have two people living in them, 11.9 percent have three people and 9.9 percent have four people. Private households in North Rhine-Westphalia with five or more people are rare (4.4%).
Children and young people are shaped, among other things, by whether they grow up with siblings or as an only child, with one or more parents.
Almost half (48 percent) of households have one child under 18, 38 percent have two children in the household and 14 percent have two or more siblings. The statistics do not differentiate between biological, adopted and stepchildren.
Parents and children live together in different family constellations.
The compatibility of family and career is an important issue for many mothers and fathers. The last few decades have seen a change in the division of responsibilities within families. More and more fathers are taking parental leave and want to play an active role in the upbringing and care of their children afterwards. Mothers, on the other hand, are returning to work more quickly. Nevertheless, mothers still often take on the majority of care and support tasks in families.
Reliable childcare is particularly important for a good work-life balance. In 2024, 90 percent of children between the ages of three and six attended a daycare center. Children under the age of three are less likely to attend daycare (32.2%).
Diversity is an integral part of everyday school life. In the 2023/2024 school year, around 152,600 pupils were identified as having special educational needs, with just under half of them attending a mainstream school and the other half a special school. In addition, in the 2024/2025 school year, almost half of the pupils had a migrant background (44.3%).
The qualification with which pupils leave general school has a significant influence on their future educational and career opportunities. In the 2023/2024 school year, around a third (37.3 percent) left school with an Abitur and another third (35.4 percent) with a Fachoberschulreife. 15.6 percent left school with an (extended) first school-leaving certificate and 7.4 percent without a first school-leaving certificate.
Since industrialization, people from many different countries and regions of the world have found a new home in North Rhine-Westphalia. Current political developments are also reflected in the citizenship of the citizens of NRW: 15 percent had Turkish citizenship in 2024, 8.8 percent had Syrian citizenship and eight percent had Ukrainian citizenship
The cultural diversity is also reflected in the language. Around half of people with a migrant background speak one or more languages in addition to German at home, such as Turkish, Russian, Arabic or Polish.
In 2024 and 2025, a total of ten municipalities were awarded the North Rhine-Westphalian state prize "Family Municipality".
