The population of women of reproductive age in Greece has entered a phase of contraction, a development that will continue and will be combined with the further reduction of the number of births. In addition, given that, regardless of the impact of the recent pandemic, the number of deaths is expected to increase in the coming years due to population aging, the birth-death balance will remain negative for the next two decades.
The conclusion that emerges is obvious: in the coming years, without an influx of foreigners, the rates of change of the population of our country will remain strongly negative.
These data are the results of research by Professor of Demography at Panteion University Christos Bagavos, and are presented in the latest digital issue of the series “FlashNews” created in the framework of the ELIDEK funded (and implemented by the ELKE of the University of Thessaly) Demographic Program Projects in Research and Practice in Greece “.
Mr. Bagavos distinguishes three time periods, in which the evolution of fertility and births follow different paths. The first concerns 1975-1980 where, while the fertility rate decreases by 4% (from 2.33 to 2.23 children / woman) the number of births increases by 4% (from 142 to 148 thousand). The second in the period 1990-1999 where while the fertility rate decreases by 12% (from 1.39 to 1.23 children / woman), the number of births remains relatively constant (100 – 102 thousand). The third period concerns 2013-2020, where the decrease in births by 11% is combined with a weak tendency to increase fertility, the level of which in 2020 is about 7% higher than in 2013. The decrease in the population of women of reproductive age has started before the financial crisis and has already had a declining effect on the evolution of the number of births to date. This decrease is a consequence on the one hand of the significant decrease of births in the 1980s (decrease of more than 30% between 1980 and 1990), and on the other hand of immigration (ie the departure of young people of reproductive age from our country in the last decade).
To put it another way, as the author states, the decrease in the number of births should not be attributed only to the decrease in fertility in the period that coincides with the economic crisis as well, even if this crisis did not exist (and if we assume even though the trend of increasing fertility rates in the period 2003-2008 continued in the next decade), the decrease in the number of births would not have been prevented, due to the shrinking population of women aged 15-49. In particular, according to Mr. Bagavos, the decrease in births between 2008 and 2020 is due to 77% reduction in the number of women aged 15-49 and only 23% to the decline in fertility rates.
What are the prospects for the evolution of the number of births in the coming years? The results of the EUROSTAT 2019 demographic projections, which were prepared before the recent pandemic but take into account the economic crisis, show that, even if we have a positive migration balance of 260 thousand in the period 2020-2040, then again population of women of reproductive age will decrease by more than 20% resulting in no change in fertility rates, a decrease in births by 13% between 2020 and 2030 and their stabilization (-1%) between 2030 and 2040.
If we do not adopt one of the scenarios of EUROSTAT projections for fertility (increase of its indicators in the twenty years 2020-2040 by 7%), says Mr. Bagavos, then this decrease in births will simply slow down without stopping (the births will decrease by 10% between 2020 and 2030 and increase by only 2% between 2030 and 2040).
The author in the same work also raises the question of whether in the coming years the further reduction of births can be avoided so that they remain around 85,000. To achieve this notes an increase in fertility rates is required from 1.4 children per woman in 2020 to 1.6 in 2040, an increase that is double the hypothesis adopted in the EUROSTAT 2019 projections (projections made before the pandemic) .
He estimates that this increase is very unlikely as the evolution of fertility indices in the decade we are going through will probably be affected by the pandemic and it is not excluded that fertility indices will move not upwards but even downwards, resulting in 2020-2040 to have even fewer births than we would have in the absence of a health crisis.
Commenting on these findings in APE-MPE, the professor of Demography and scientific manager of the aforementioned research program Mr. Byron Kotzamanis stated in APE-MPE that: Our country is not expected to grow in the next two decades even if these young people decide to have more children than their parents. Therefore, the decrease of our population due to the negative birth-death balance will be even greater in the next two decades compared to that of 2011-2020, as deaths will have an increasing tendency. And if the migration balance (inflows-outflows) continues to be negative (as in the previous decade) our population will decrease between 2021 and 2040 by more than 950 thousand which will be the expected cumulative superiority in this twenty years of deaths versus births … ».
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