THE AFRICAN COURIER. Reporting Africa and its Diaspora! The African Courier is an international magazine published in Germany to report on Africa and the Diaspora African experience. The first issue of the bimonthly magazine appeared on the newsstands on 15 February 1998. The African Courier is a communication forum for European-African political, economic and cultural exchanges, and a voice for Africa in Europe.
Marrying across nations and cultures is a growing trend in Germany as new official figures show that the number of bi-national couples in the country has doubled since 1996.
As reported by the Federal Statistical Office on Friday (21 September), 1.5 million bi-national couples, where one partner has German and the other a foreign nationality, are currently living together in Germany.
Bi-national couples thus account for seven percent of all couples in the country, according to the official figures.
Couples of whom both are foreigners (1.7 million) account for eight percent while the largest share is represented by German-German couples at 85 percent (17.5 million).
Almost 1.4 million German-foreign couples lived in Germany in 2008 while there were only 723,000 bi-national couples in 1996. Thus, the number has doubled in the past around 20 years, according to the Federal Statistical Office.
Only marriages or partnerships that are mixed-sex and who live together in a household were considered for the statistical survey. Persons with both German and foreign nationality were considered as Germans.
Vivian Asamoah with agency reports
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