How has the number of persons seeking protection in Germany changed over time?

A stacked area chart using {ggplot2}

Overview

In Germany, as of 31 December 204, according to the Central Register of Foreigners, more than 14 million people of the 83.6 Million residents are foreigners.

It is important to note, that about 3.3 Million arrived to the country seeking protection. This figure is about 78% larger than the reported in 2020, and 343% more than 10 years ago.

An effective tool to analyze these data is through stacked area charts that allow to visualize the evolution of the variable of interest, persons seeking protection in this case, disaggregating it by categories. In this post, I will create a stacked area chart of this information using {ggplot2} in R.

About the data

Data are produced by the Central Register of Foreigners and are presented by Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis) in their website in Table Persons seeking protection, by protection status, 2007 to 2024. I downloaded this information and saved it in an Excel file named persons-seeking-protection-germany.xlsx.

Set-up

First, I load the packages to be used:

library(tidyverse) 
library(kableExtra) 
library(readxl)
library(ggplot2) 
library(ggtext) 
library(ggrepel)
library(showtext) 
library(scales)

Loading data

I downloaded Table Persons seeking protection, by protection status, 2007 to 2024 and saved it in an Excel file named persons-seeking-protection-germany.xlsx.

seeking_protection <- read_excel("persons-seeking-protection-germany.xlsx")

The table looks like this:

seeking_protection |>
  kbl(
    caption = "Persons seeking protection, by protection status, 2007 to 2024"
    ) |>
  kable_paper("hover", full_width = F)

Persons seeking protection, by protection status, 2007 to 2024

Reference date	Population	Foreign population	Persons seeking protection	unsettled	recognised	temporary	permanent	refused
31 December 2007	82217837	6744880	457430	20145	301995	164350	137650	135290
31 December 2008	82002356	6727620	456050	18930	330365	150795	179570	106755
31 December 2009	81802257	6694775	477595	24620	361775	158735	203040	91195
31 December 2010	81751602	6753620	503470	35835	382325	168205	214115	85310
31 December 2011	80327900	6930895	505925	47130	373875	151045	222825	84920
31 December 2012	80523746	7213710	549825	65920	399050	165610	233440	84860
31 December 2013	80767463	7633630	613925	110335	410570	174110	236460	93020
31 December 2014	81197537	8152970	746320	177900	460140	208460	251675	108280
31 December 2015	82175684	9107895	1036235	349810	547935	285805	262130	138495
31 December 2016	82521653	10039080	1597570	574945	867500	599235	268265	155120
31 December 2017	82792351	10623940	1680700	348640	1154365	888355	266010	177700
31 December 2018	83019214	10915455	1781750	306095	1283225	1017760	265465	192430
31 December 2019	83166711	11228300	1839115	266470	1360070	1090475	269590	212575
31 December 2020	83155031	11432460	1856785	215960	1397685	1116970	280715	243140
31 December 2021	83237124	11817790	1936350	238945	1451375	1133545	317835	246030
31 December 2022	83118501	13383910	3078650	570060	2253875	1916630	337245	254710
31 December 2023	83456045	13895865	3173135	454795	2528935	2188665	340275	189405
31 December 2024	83577140	14061640	3304705	427415	2706320	2377115	329205	170970

Designing the stacked area chart

Before plotting, I reshape the data and rename some of their columns for easiness of working with them in the {ggplot2} context.

seeking_protection <- seeking_protection |>
  # I use year() to extract the information of the year
  mutate(year = year(dmy(`Reference date`))) |>
  # Only the subset of variables to use
  select(year, unsettled, temporary, permanent, refused) |>
  # Lengthening the data
  pivot_longer(!year, 
              names_to = "status", 
              values_to = "persons")

First, I set a theme for the chart and the font to “Josefin Sans” using the showtext package. More options can be found at https://fonts.google.com/.

font_add_google("Josefin Sans", "Josefin Sans")

showtext_auto()

theme_stacked_chart <- function() {
  theme_minimal(
    base_family = "Josefin Sans" 
  ) +
    # Custom settings
    theme(

      # Title settings
      plot.title.position = "plot", 
      plot.title = element_textbox(
        color = "#800000",
        face = "bold",
        size = 20,
        margin = margin(5, 0, 15, 0), # top, right, bottom, left
        hjust = 0,
        halign = 0      ),

      plot.subtitle = element_textbox(
      color = "#767676",
      #face = "bold",
      size = 18,
      margin = margin(5, 0, 35, 0),
      hjust = 0,
      halign = 0
      ),

      # Axis settings
      axis.line = element_line(
        size = 1.1, 
        colour = "#800000"
        ),

      axis.title.y = element_text(
        color = "#800000",
        face = "bold",
        size = 16
      ),
      axis.text.y = element_text(
        color = "#800000",
        face = "bold",
        size = 13
      ),
      axis.title.x = element_blank(),
      axis.text.x = element_text(
        color = "#800000",
        face = "bold",
        size = 13
      ),

      # Legend settings
      legend.position.inside = c(0.15, 0.80),
      legend.title = element_text(
        color = "#800000",
        face = "bold",
        size = 14
      ),
      legend.text = element_text(
        color = "#800000",
        size = 13
      ),

      # Caption settings
      plot.caption = element_text(
        color = "#800000",
        face = "italic",
        size = 14,
        hjust = 0,
        margin = margin(20, 0, 5, 0), # top, right, bottom, left
        ),

      plot.background = element_rect(
        color = "#D6D6CE",
        fill = "#D6D6CE"
      ),
      plot.margin = margin(40, 40, 40, 40) # top, right, bottom, left
    )
}

The plot is created with the following code:

seeking_protection <- seeking_protection |>
  mutate(status = str_to_title(status))

ggplot(seeking_protection,
  aes(
      x = year,
      y = persons,
      fill = status,
      color = status
      )
    ) +
  geom_area() +
  guides(fill = guide_legend(title = "Protection status", 
                             position = "inside"),
         color = guide_legend(title = "Protection status", 
                             position = "inside")
                             ) +
  scale_fill_manual(
    values = c("Unsettled"= "#767676",
               "Temporary"= "#CC8214", 
               "Refused" = "#8A9045",
               "Permanent" = "#155F83"
               )
  ) + 
  scale_color_manual(
    values = c("Unsettled"= "#767676",
               "Temporary"= "#CC8214", 
               "Refused" = "#8A9045",
               "Permanent" = "#155F83"
               )
  ) + 
  scale_y_continuous(
    labels = label_number(
      scale = 1e-6
      )
    ) +
  scale_x_continuous(
    expand = c(0, 0),
    limits = c(2006.5, 2024.5), 
    breaks = seq(2007, 2024, by = 1)
  ) +
  labs(
    title = "Persons seeking protection in Germany by status | 2007-2024",
    y = "Number of persons \n(in Millions)",
    caption = "Source: Central Register of Foreigners. \nDesign: Juan Torres Munguía."
    ) + 
  theme_stacked_chart() 

showtext_opts(dpi = 320) 
ggsave(
  "stacked-area-germany-seeking-protection.png",
  dpi = 320,
  width = 12,
  height = 9,
  units = "in"
)
showtext_auto(FALSE) # Turn off the showtext functionality