Greece is at the moment grappling with a quickly declining inhabitants, leaving officers “scrambling for options”, in keeping with new stories.
The nation’s inhabitants may lower by as much as 25 % by 2070, considerably greater than the EU common of 4 %, in keeping with Euronews, who described Greek villages as “empty”.
In 2022, Greece registered its lowest variety of births in almost a century, fewer than 77,000 births. In flip, deaths virtually doubled that quantity the identical 12 months, reaching 140,000.
With no indicators of this development reversing, considerations are mounting concerning the long-term penalties for the nation’s social and financial stability.
“The demographic collapse is actually turning into an existential problem for our future,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis mentioned.
The 2021 inhabitants census revealed a 3.1 % decline in Greece’s inhabitants during the last decade, leaving the nation with lower than 10.5 million residents.
The drop largely coincides with Greece’s latest financial turmoil, which noticed about half one million Greeks, notably younger and educated residents, to migrate in the hunt for higher alternatives overseas.
Those that remained nonetheless face a difficult financial panorama, marked by excessive unemployment charges and low wages, making it tough to ascertain careers and households. This harsh actuality has pushed many to hunt alternatives elsewhere.
“If you need to work 10 to 12 hours a day and never earn as a lot cash as you need to, how are you going to purchase a home? And how are you going to increase a household? You possibly can’t,” Mary and her accomplice Nikos, each Greek nationals who left Greece for the USA two years in the past and solely return for holidays, defined.
The nation’s fertility fee is alarmingly low at simply 1.32 births per lady, whereas life expectancy continues to rise, resulting in an ageing and shrinking inhabitants. This shift will not be solely a social concern but additionally an financial one.
“The principle downside is that you will have a smaller variety of people who find themselves working. And now these folks, they should help a big inhabitants of older folks,” Greek economist Nikos Vettas defined.
Vettas additionally urged potential options to alleviate the affect, together with boosting productiveness, adopting new applied sciences, and inspiring the immigration of staff in high-skill, high-productivity sectors.
Recognising the gravity of the state of affairs, the Greek authorities established its first-ever ministry devoted to demographic points in 2023.
Sofia Zacharaki, who bears the official title of “Minister of Social Cohesion and Household of Greece”, has applied measures like tax incentives and elevated state allowances for newborns to advertise greater beginning charges, which she believes are essential first steps. Measures have been even launched as early as final Thursday.
She known as Greece’s demographic decline “the largest menace that Greece is confronted with,” and reiterated the necessity for continued efforts to deal with the looming disaster.