Greece’s population has been dramatically declined in the last years. Experts’ forecasts are griming: the country’s population of 10,456,431 will most likely shrink by one million in 20 years.
Professor of demography Vyron Kotzamanis, of the Department of Planning, Urban Planning and Regional Development of the University of Thessaly, has warned that the greatest challenge is not the population decline as such but the reasons for this decline.
In an interview with the radio of state news agency amna, Kotzamanis pointed out that the most worrying thing is that the country’s population decline is due to two factors.
On the one hand, as the professor pointed out, we have “an increase in the elderly” and on the other there is a decline in the number of young people combined with a gradual decline in the intermediate population groups, i.e. “the population under 15, but also the Greeks aged 15-64.”
“Today 21 pct of Greeks are over 65. Twenty years from now, one in three, or 30 percent, will be over 65 and young people, that are today at roughly 15 pct, will drop to about 11 pct, so the structure of our population is radically changing,” noted Kotzamanis.
This, he stressed, will have a significant impact on the population of Greece in many sectors “that we can’t imagine today, such as health, education, the insurance system and others.”
“We need to have people in working age, young people with high productivity to produce our wealth,” the professor said.
He added that two measures can be taken to limit the phenomenon and these are linked ot incentives.
One measure is to restrict the number of people leaving the country, that is to combat the so-called “brain drain” with incentives. the second measure is to create a more favorable environment for having children and that is also to offer several incentives.
Greece is currently experiencing a declining birthrate, with hospitals reporting 10% fewer births in the past 4 years. Officials say that families simply can’t afford to have children. The number of live births in the country has fallen nearly 15% and it’s been unparalleled in Europe, highlighting the true impact of cost-cutting measures in the country that is at the heart of the Eurozone’s financial problems.
According to the report by the Greek Statistics Authority ELSTAT last week, the demographic problem further exacerbated in 2018, as deaths outnumber births by a significant margin.
2018 data: Births amounted to 86,440, while the recorded deaths were 120,297
The country’s population declined further by 33,857 people.
And what about migration into Greece, no? Have we given up on this option?
10% of this already declining 10 million are migrants!
8% of Germany’s total population (and largest of all migrants there) are Turkish as a reference!
Greece is increasingly becoming a protected tourist attraction with the greatest of the world’s historic achievements as its exodus of today’s great minds fuels other nations and those who remain at the mercy of an EU who’s nonreciprocating stinginess already robbed starved and crippled Greece 70 years ago.
Coming from a Greek background whats crippling was that a lot of Greek families neglecting and abusing their next of kins, which are now millennial generation and they are the most to have depression and a low fertility rate then the spoiled baby boomers of the time. People from certain families do not understand that right now in every part of the world its not going to be how it was for them, life is much harder without family support and services and a lot of Greeks that are from older generation’s that have settled down comfortably because they migrated at the right time and decided they do not want to support their next of kin. Thus i see a fragile generation in our times, The times we are going through is worse then ever before so the support and understanding should be expected. I know its part of the neglect and abuse which i know why many greek millennial’s left greece from. The generation is damaged from the previous which is another reason why we are no longer having stabled relationships with lack of support. Im pretty sure a lot of people in Greece understand where the brain drain came from. By the way i have no family left and im like last of kin of my family tree no siblings my father died early in this time and im actually too mentally damaged to have a relationship, from both family sides of my mother and father their parents they did not help them and they came from same island of greece, yet they where spoiled in their generation came to Australia, abused what they earned and left us poor which where my parents. I live in Australia and i am poor, my dad was also homeless and he died. There is a mental problem going on with many Greeks coming from islands such as Samos and their neighbors and they haven’t yet sorted their issues out, which they should because expect the next generation of Greeks to become extinct by the mental trauma and damage 2 generation’s before have done to some of us. Because times are tougher for some of us we are not given the incentives that a lot of greeks had back in the 1960’s and earlier. We cant buy a house without a loan, we cant get easy jobs, cant find an easy relationship and we cant get a good visa. So yeah was it wise to actually make both of my parents homeless, not really…they both got desperate and did not get a great education or life, it was just wasted as my grandparents sat on their ass and gossiped and barely contributed because back then everything was easy they got it all on a silver platter and yet boasted about it. So if you want to know my grandparents had an easier life then my parents and they took it for granted. Expect having a no next of kin cause im actually grateful its coming to an end and that im the last. If you expect respect and don’t treat your next of kin any respect or kindness how will you gain respect? Respect does not come free and some elders think just because they poped a baby means its for free. No its how you treat your family. If you treat them horribly their life and birth rate to be lower. Both of my parents where innocent and they got mentally and physically abused by my grandparents on both their sides for 20+ years, from what i found out my grandmother was conditioned and brainwashed back in her times that she did something wrong and she should be punished of it so she did the same to my family. The mentality was twisted because they don’t know what is really right from wrong, whats good or bad. They think they know what love is but they don’t if they believe physical abuse is love. Its not…i saw both my family on their lowest and how it effected them. They got more harsher mental abuse then the actual grandparents. Military behavior is a dictator form of abuse, they are still legally taught in Greece to act military tricks to ” straighten their children out ” which is not the answer. I really hope this dies out because then families can be more stabled and use better strategies to strengthen their family relationship with communication then just physical action.