This trend is also reflected in the renewed fall in the number of people employed in agriculture and in an increased concentration of land-holding as small and less competitive farmers have sold up and moved to the cities. In physical appearance West Germany therefore presents a modern and successfully modernized industrial society. Western patterns of economic behavior motivate the West German population, and it cannot be emphasized too strongly how much the 1960s and 1970s, with its political upheavals and Liberal-Labor rule, accelerated this change. There are many manifestations of this in daily life. Interest in higher educational qualifications has never been greater.
German bureaucrats are no longer what they are reputed to be.
Nor is the Federal Republic, for all its inequalities, an ungenerous society. The hospitals are modern and medical provision is adequate, owing tot he Krankenkassen system which covers about 90 per cent of the population, with the rest having private insurance. There have been constant improvements in the support of families and working mothers. However, there are also the poor and the underprivileged. In 1975, there were some 2 million people whose monthly income was less than 600 marks.