Greece is set to spend €20 billion in the next ten years in a bid to boost its falling birth rate.
In the face of a worsening demographic crisis, the Greek government has launched a raft of measures in the form of a National Action Plan.
The initiative includes tax breaks and cash benefits, and comes as Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis labelled the country’s demographic crisis a “ticking time bomb” for pensions and a “national threat.”
“The demographic collapse is literally becoming an existential challenge for our future,” Mitsotakis recently warned.
Whilst the county currently spends roughly €1 billion a year on pro-child measures, this has had little effect, with Greece recording its lowest-ever number of births in 2022. The fertility rate in the debt-ridden country is presently 1.3 births per woman on average, making it one of Europe’s lowest and well below the 2.1 required to ensure population replacement.
It is estimated that by 2070, Greece’s population could shrink by up to 25 per cent, with the country – with a population of ten million recording fewer than 77,000 births in 2022, the lowest in almost a century. Meanwhile, deaths were almost double the number of births, reaching 140,000, with no indication that the trend is set to change.
The country is grappling with an ageing population, with half of Greece’s population now over 46 years old, and more than 1 in five residents over 65, with 6 per cent aged over 80.
On Wednesday, the Cabinet met and presented its National Demographic Action Plan which includes measures such as tax relief for new parents, childcare vouchers, pension increases, a rise in the minimum wage from 2025, and reductions in social contribution.
The five point plan, presented by Sofia Zacharaki, Minister for Social Cohesion and Family, will start being implemented from 2025 onwards. According to national media, the plan will centre around creating a favourable environment for having a family; boosting employment; managing the longevity and well-being of citizens; promoting local development; and in raising awareness among citizens.
The five point plan includes:
“The statistics and forecasting models are ominous but we must all make an extra effort to overcome,” Minister Zacharaki said, previously adding: “The ultimate goal is to improve the standard of living.”
Minister for Family Zacharaki said the lan has 20 targets and involves more than 100 actions, designed to improve the country’s long-term competitiveness, strengthen social cohesion, and boost prosperity..
“Emphasis will be given to creating a favourable environment for having a family, boosting employment, managing the longevity and well-being of the citizens, promoting local development, as well as informing the citizens and raising awareness and mobilising society,” Greek newspaper Athens to Macedonia Newspaper (AMNA) reports.
Minister Zacharaki, presenting the plan to the Prime Minister and Cabinet, said it was the result of “many months” of effort to tackle a “demographic crisis” Greece had been experiencing since the start of the 1980s. She said that while the statistics and demographic forecasts were foreboding, citizens have a duty to come together to overcome challenges.
In Ilia in Western Greece, there were more than twice as many deaths as there were births in 2023. Last year, 1,979 people died, whilst only 855 children were born, with the region recording the lowest birth rate in Western Greece.
Many of the young are disillusioned, national media reports, with the country having the third highest average age of young people leaving home – at 30.6 years compared to the EU average of 26.3 years -according to Eurostat. Cost of living and low wages are also a problem, with approximately half of average household spending annually (€20,223) being spent on essentials such as food, rent and transport – with this amount increasing in 2023.
Economic forecasts predict that the Greek workforce will fall by as much as 50 per cent in the next 70 years, with its output tumbling by 31 per cent by over the same period.
Whilst most developed countries have recorded low fertility rates over the last number of years, including Ireland, the crisis facing Greece has been exacerbated by the mass emigration of its young people in the wake of the 2009 government debt crisis.
Some government officials, however, along with demography experts, have expressed skepticism about the plan’s ability to reverse the trend. Among them is Greece’s deputy finance minister, Thanos Petralias, who has voiced criticism of the new policy, stating that the problem “cannot simply be solved by benefits and cash incentives.”