The two faces of Sunday life

Sundays in Germany are no longer what they used to be. For one in seven Germans (15%), Sunday is "just another day," for one in five (19%) it's simply "the day before Monday," and for more than two million (5%) it's just a normal "workday." This is one of the findings of a new representative survey of 2,000 Germans conducted by the BAT Leisure Research Institute.

The German Sunday: „Beautiful and peaceful…“

On Sundays, Germans primarily think of themselves. They want to relax (41%) and enjoy what they consider "the best day of the week" (38%). Only one in four Germans (23%) also sees Sunday as a day for socializing, spending time with family and friends. At least as important is a harmonious atmosphere (23%) – what the average German Sunday soul calls "cozy": sleeping in,
A leisurely breakfast and relaxing. Every Sunday a "mini-vacation" – that's how Germans envision their ideal Sunday, according to Prof. Dr. Horst W. Opaschowski, head of the BAT Institute.

The German Sunday: „…also boring and lonely“

But Sunday has two faces: The quietest day of the week also includes empty hours. The peace behind the windows and facades can be deceptive. One in eleven Germans (9) openly admits: "Sunday is the most boring day of the week." Young people (22) and the unemployed (23) complain about this the most.

Sundays offer a significantly lower quality of life, especially for people living alone. Of the 9.4 million people living alone in Germany, 15 percent find Sundays lonely. The number of people living alone has increased by two million in the last ten years. The vast majority of this population group now lives in large cities; here, almost half of all households are single-person households. Opaschowski: "Being alone on Sundays among couples and families, or walking past closed shops, can be depressing." It's therefore no wonder that people living alone also perceive Sundays as depressing (5 %) or cruel (4 %).

Technical data of the survey

Number of respondents: 2,000 people

Representation: Federal territory and West Berlin, population aged 14 and over

Survey period: February 2nd to 13th, 1989