The COVID-19 pandemic has affected economies, labor markets, health care, education and tourism around the globe in unprecedented ways. However, little research has yet been devoted to the impact that the pandemic might have had on internal migration. This study aims to address this gap by determining how the intensity and spatial patterns of internal migration changed between 2019 and 2020 in Germany. We draw on data from the population register on annual flows between 401 counties. We find that the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with a 5% drop in the intensity of inter-county migration in 2020 compared to the previous year, with significant variation across age. The pandemic was also associated with an upsurge in net migration losses for the largest cities, driven by fewer inflows of young adults and continuing outflows of families.

中文翻译：

---

COVID-19 大流行对德国内部移民的影响：描述性分析

COVID-19 大流行以前所未有的方式影响了全球经济、劳动力市场、医疗保健、教育和旅游业。然而，很少有研究专门研究这种流行病可能对国内移民产生的影响。本研究旨在通过确定 2019 年至 2020 年间德国内部迁移的强度和空间模式如何变化来解决这一差距。我们利用人口登记册中关于 401 个县之间年度流动的数据。我们发现，与上一年相比，2020 年 COVID-19 大流行与县际迁移强度下降 5% 相关，并且在不同年龄层之间存在显着差异。大流行还与最大城市的净移民损失激增有关，这是由于年轻人流入减少和家庭持续流出所致。