Now we know what happens to a society where the girls have left and the boys are left to their own resources: the boys start behaving like Nazis:
...according to a new study released by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, there is another problem that accompanies the migration. Since 1991, more than two-thirds of all those who have left Eastern Germany have been women. The result is that in many towns in the region, there are simply not enough to go around -- some places are missing up to 25 percent of their young women. Even worse, the young men who stay behind are often poorly educated, unemployed and frustrated -- perfect fodder for neo-Nazi groups looking for members
"The lack of women in former East Germany has no equal anywhere in Europe," the study says. "Even Polar regions in northern Sweden and Finland, where young women have for years been leaving in droves, don't come close to the problem in Eastern Germany."
Why would these young men prefer to stay behind, shave their heads, beat up foreigners and march around in goose-step rather than follow the girls to new opportunities elsewhere? That's a mystery.
So, if lack of women leads to right-wing extremism, does it follow that an influx of women would lead to a resurgent leftism? Could be - for the first time the Left Party has had some stunning electoral success in western Germany.
The German Left Party rose to its highest level of voter support in nine months, a poll showed, suggesting that the Left has become the biggest opposition force just as the two main ruling parties are losing backing.
Support for the Left Party, which opposes Germany's military involvement in Afghanistan and campaigns against the June 6-8 Group of Eight leading industrial nations summit in Germany, rose 2 percentage points to 12 percent, a level it last reached on Aug. 30 last year, according to the weekly survey by Forsa for Stern magazine and RTL television. At the national election in September 2005, the party scored 8.7 percent.
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