Quality of life comparison

compared to

If you lived in Germany instead of Belgium, you would:

Economy

be 44.6% less likely to be unemployed

In Belgium, 5.5% of adults are unemployed as of 2023. In Germany, that number is 3.0% as of 2023.

pay a 11.5% lower top tax rate

Belgium has a top tax rate of 53.7% as of 2016. In Germany, the top tax rate is 47.5% as of 2016.

be 20.3% more likely to live below the poverty line

In Belgium, 12.3% live below the poverty line as of 2022. In Germany, however, that number is 14.8% as of 2021.

Life

be 20.0% less likely to die during childbirth

In Belgium, approximately 5.0 women per 100,000 births die during labor as of 2020. In Germany, 4.0 women do as of 2020.

have 17.6% fewer children

In Belgium, there are approximately 10.8 babies per 1,000 people as of 2024. In Germany, there are 8.9 babies per 1,000 people as of 2024.

Expenditures

spend 29.9% less on education

Belgium spends 6.7% of its total GDP on education as of 2020. Germany spends 4.7% of total GDP on education as of 2020.

spend 15.3% more on healthcare

Belgium spends 11.1% of its total GDP on healthcare as of 2020. In Germany, that number is 12.8% of GDP as of 2020.

Geography

see 35.9 times more coastline

Belgium has a total of 66 km of coastline. In Germany, that number is 2,389 km.

The statistics above were calculated using the following data sources: Service Public Fédéral Finances, The World Factbook, Federal Central Tax Office (BZSt).

Germany: At a glance

Germany is a sovereign country in Europe, with a total land area of approximately 348,672 sq km. As Europe's largest economy and second most populous nation (after Russia), Germany is a key member of the continent's economic, political, and defense organizations. European power struggles immersed Germany in two devastating World Wars in the first half of the 20th century and left the country occupied by the victorious Allied powers of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945. With the advent of the Cold War, two German states were formed in 1949: the western Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic (GDR). The democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic and security organizations, the EC, which became the EU, and NATO, while the communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The decline of the USSR and the end of the Cold War allowed for German unification in 1990. Since then, Germany has expended considerable funds to bring Eastern productivity and wages up to Western standards. In January 1999, Germany and 10 other EU countries introduced a common European exchange currency, the euro.
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How big is Germany compared to Belgium? See an in-depth size comparison.

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