The decline in births in recent decades is a fact. Nationally, we will find that they fell by 37% between 1979-1983 and 2014-19, and are expected to fall by a further 13% in the 2020-25 six-year period. This decline is inevitably reflected in the youth population, starting first with that of the pre-school age group and then moving through all levels of the education system.

Thus, a few days ago, decisions by regional directors announced the suspension of the operation of numerous primary schools and kindergartens, many of which had been closed for years. The reasons cited were the small or zero number of pupils and in some cases the unsuitability of the building infrastructure. This recent decision brought back into the public eye once again, the “underfertility”, that is, the decline in births in our country that began five decades ago, a direct result of the decline in fertility in successive generations (from 2.1-2.0 children per woman born between 1940 and 1960 to less than 1.5 children in those born after 1985). These are some of the early findings reported in a recent digital bulletin from the Institute for Demographic Research and Studies (IDEM) entitled “One in three of the 1,035 Municipalities in our country have fewer than 10 births per year, a paradox?” The authors of this study are Prof. Byron Kotsamanis and Vassilis Pappas, founding members of the Institute of Demographic Research and Studies (IDEM).

At the national level, a recorded drop in births after 1980, according to the two researchers, does not occur at the same speed in all regions of our country, and this is not only due to the differential fertility of couples (i.e. the fact that women in some of them have slightly more children than in others). It is also directly related to the change in the total population of each region over time, a change that has also been significantly influenced by migration (internal and external), with consequences for the number of people of childbearing age (20-49 years old).

But how many, and which, are those regions where an extremely limited number of births is recorded after 2014, a number that is already – and will be more strongly reflected in the near future – in the 0-14 year old population? To answer the question they posed, they relied on the data on births per Municipal Unit (MU) provided by ELSTAT for two six-year periods (2014-19 and 2020-25) and mapped the results. Their analysis shows that the number of Municipal Units with an extremely limited number of births (up to 60 births per six-year period) is significant and increasing as it concerns 29.8% of the MUs in the first six-year period and 35.5% in the second six-year period. One in two, has a population of 1000-3600 and one in 10 has less than 250. A very small number of them have not/will not have births, and only 8% of them will have births in the range of 41-60 per six years (i.e. 7-10 per year).

What are the key common characteristics? The analyses of the Institute for Demographic Studies and Research (IDEM), the two researchers report, allow a first answer to be given. The Units with an extremely limited number of births are all underpopulated and are characterised at the same time, by a rapidly declining population, high rates of 60 years and over, shrinking youth and low rates of 20-49 years, much lower births than deaths and absence of foreigners, while in many of them, a balanced ratio between the two sexes is missing in the ages of family formation – having children.

And in concluding their short article they point out that the existence today of more than 1/3 of the 1,035 D.E. with an extremely limited and declining number of births – a fact that inevitably affects/will affect the pre-school and school-age population – cannot be attributed solely, as is usually the case, to the contraction of fertility (i.e. the reduction in the number of children brought into the world by the post-1960 generations). It is also due to the extremely unequal distribution of the population in the area: 10% of the D.E. has concentrated 62% of the population, while one in two of the country’s inhabitants would reside in 2021, in only 75 Local Communities covering only 2% of the territory (out of 6,138 in total), the result of the intense internal migration of the 50 years 1950-2000 (and, secondarily, of the flight of young people abroad in the last 15 years).

This imbalance, according to them, a direct result of the post-war development model and the absence of spatial planning, is of little concern to those concerned with “demography” and is usually absent from the public debate that has been opened on this issue. It is accompanied not only by the unequal distribution of the workforce, economic activities and the wealth produced, but also by significantly different demographic developments that have already caused the population collapse of many regions, a fact that is also reflected in the birth rates of the last six years.

Speaking to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, the director of the Institute of Demographic Research and Studies, Captain Byron Kotsamanis, stresses that “the unilateral focus on “under-birth rate” in terms of demography is problematic as the components that determine the size of a population, its distribution in space and in large age groups, having multiple effects in a number of areas, are more than one. Mortality and migration play a crucial role, should not be underestimated and should be taken into account in a “National Demographic Action Plan”.