«In our country, the downward trend in births began in the 1980s and continues - albeit with fluctuations - while the upward trend in deaths began much earlier, at the beginning of the first post-war decade.».
These are some of the data and conclusions reported in the latest issue of the «Flash News» series, a digital bulletin created in the framework of the ELIDEK-funded Research Project «Demographic Trends in Research and Practice in Greece», which is being implemented at the University of Thessaly. The author of this article, the professor and scientific officer of the above-mentioned project, Byron Kotsamanis, referring to deaths, stresses that «in our country, while in 1951-60 580 thousand deaths were recorded, in 1991-2000 we had 980 thousand, In 2011-20 1.2 million (120 thousand per year on average), while in 2021 and 2022 they exceeded 141 thousand due to the mockery. Deaths, he says, have been steadily increasing since 1950, even though mortality has been reduced, for one reason only: the 65 years and over have increased rapidly, as from 520 thousand deaths per year in 2011-20, the number of deaths has risen to 1.2 million. from 520 million at the beginning of the 1950s to 2.4 million today (i.e. multiplied by 4.6 while the total population is multiplied by only 1.4). On the other hand, the number of births after 1980 has been falling. Births, he notes, are of course affected transiently - like deaths - and by adverse circumstances (those of 2022, for example, were also affected by the recent pandemic, as 2/3 came from arrests made in the previous year, hence their large decline of 10% compared to 2021), but their continued decline is not due to the circumstance. Their number each year, it says, ’depends on the final number of children that couples have each year, the age at which they conceive, and, finally, the number of women of childbearing age.« These three factors are examined by Mr. Kotsamanis to explain their downward trend.
In Greece, he says, changes in fertility, i.e. the number of children and the age at which they were born, had a decisive impact on the number of births, which fell from 1.54 million in 1951-60 to 1.02 million in 1991-2000 and 920 thousand in 2011-20. These births, in majority, are from women born after the mid-1950s. Women of these generations limited the number of children while having them at an increasingly older age: 2.0 children at 25.8 years for those born in 1955, 1.65 at 27.3 years for those born in 1965, 1.56 children at 30.2 years for those born in 1975, and, just 1.5 children at 31.5 years for those born in 1985. It should be noted, however, that, over the last 15 years, the fact that the number of women of childbearing age has decreased (approximately 450,000 between 2008 and 2022) has also had a negative impact.
The author of the article, however, raises - and answers - the question of whether it is feasible, in the coming decades, for births and deaths to stabilise at pre-pandemic levels. As far as deaths are concerned, stabilising them, according to him, at the already relatively high levels of 2015-19 (121.2 thousand per year), is unfeasible. Those aged 65 and over will increase by 700-750 thousand by 2050 (the number can be estimated with relative accuracy as it concerns people already alive and is little affected by migration) and, even if the probability of dying decreases, deaths are likely to rise over the next 27 years to an average of 128 thousand per year (3.5 million in 2023-2050).
As far as births are concerned, his answer is also negative. Their stabilisation - in the absence of a positive migration balance - at pre-pandemic low levels (88.5 thousand per year in 2015-2019) is impossible as: i) the number of people of childbearing age will continue to fall, and (ii) even if the trend of having fewer and fewer children in the younger generations slows down and then reverses, these generations will have to increase the number of their children significantly (from 1.5 to 1.9-2.0) and then stabilise it at these levels, while slowing down the trend of increasing average age at childbearing; and (iii) even if the trend of having fewer and fewer children in the younger generations slows down and then reverses, these generations will have to increase the number of their children significantly (from 1.5 to 1.9-2.0) and then stabilise it at these levels, while slowing down the trend of increasing average age at childbearing. But even in this highly optimistic - and somewhat likely - scenario, which, according to him, presupposes a radical reversal of the not particularly favourable environment for having children, births over the next 27 years are not expected to exceed 85 thousand per year on average (2.3 million). In the opposite case, in a scenario with slow and limited fertility growth and only a slight slowdown in the average age of childbearing, births would only exceed 2.0 million (2.2 million in 2024-2050), resulting in a negative natural balance of 1.15 million in this period. (From the foregoing, the author of the article notes, it is clear that the migration balance of the next few decades will largely determine the scale of the irreversible population decline up to 2050, a decline that will result from a much more rapid shrinkage of the young and middle-aged population than the increase in the 65 and over age group. Speaking to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, Professor of Demography and Scientific Director of the Research Project «Demographic Proposals in Research and Practice in Greece», Mr. Kotzamanis states that «from a demographic point of view, a significant excess of inflows over outflows in the coming decades (feasible provided that the outflow of our young people is stopped, a part of them will soon return and at the same time we will have the entry and integration of new foreigners) will simply limit the decline of our population. The influx of young foreigners in particular will limit the negative natural balances as they, due to their youth and relatively higher fertility, will slow the decline in the number of people of reproductive age, increase the fertility of the new generations a little, and, most importantly, stimulate births thus slowing the expected decline in the under 20s (yesterday's births give us tomorrow's young people). But they will also limit the expected decline in the working age population (20-64 years) and slow down demographic ageing (the increase in the specific weight of the 65 and over in the total population).
