Greece's population is shrinking by about 450,000 a decade, which means that in 30 years there will be 1.5 million fewer people, according to the latest estimates based on data released by the country's statistical agency, ELSTAT, last week. , writes Kathimerini.
This trend is based on data on young people, whose numbers are declining at an alarming rate due to declining birth rates and increasing life expectancy. It is significant that in 1951 people under the age of 14 represented 29% of the population, compared to today's 14%.
The population of Greece in 2001 was estimated at 10.836 million and increased to 11.123 million in 2011, mainly due to migration during this decade. In 2021, it fell to 10.679 million.
In breakdown, the percentage of the population over 65 in 2001 was 14.5%. By 2011, this percentage will increase to 19.3% of the population, and in 2021 it will reach 22.6%.
This is not surprising, as the gap between deaths and births has been widening since 1998. In particular, 84,767 births and 130,669 deaths were registered in 2021, despite the expectation that the conditions created by the pandemic would lead to an increase in births. The birth rate in Greece is 1.38 births per woman, one of the lowest in the European Union.
"By 2050, the number of people over the age of 65 will be over 800,000. In the meantime, we currently have about 350,000 people over the age of 85, and by 2050, this age group will include another 150,000 to 200,000." said Vironas Kotsamanis, a professor of demography at the University of Thessaly, in a comment to Kathimerini.
He also noted that this means that a significant percentage of the population will not have close relatives to support them.
Kotsamanis added that there are solutions that could yield results in the coming years and beyond in the future, such as "reducing unemployment, ie increasing the percentage of people who are of productive age and actually produce," he said. "Currently, 65 out of 100 people in Greece are of productive age, while in Sweden [that number] is 95."
Increasing the percentage of employees would support the economy and the financing of the welfare state, while at the same time providing appropriate conditions for young people to have children, he stressed.
For comparison, according to the census in 2001 Bulgaria has 7,932,984 citizens, in 2011 there were already 7,364,570 people, and according to preliminary data for the census in 2021, our country is already inhabited by 6.5 million people - a loss 1.4 million in 20 years - between one-fifth and one-sixth of the total.
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