“If the course of births and deaths nationally as well as its effects, immediate and remotehave caused intense reflection and “low birth rate” dominates the public debate in the last decade, little has been examined to date – and obviously very little has troubled us – the significant differences that are hidden under the average national conditions”. Among other things, the retired Demography professor of the Univ. of Thessaly and director of the Institute of Demographic Research and Studies (IDEM) Byron Kotzamanis, who examines in IDEM’s latest digital bulletin, the evolution of physical balances in Greece at the national and regional level from 1980 until today. These differences, according to Mr. Kotzamanis, “are now reflected in all demographic indicators, and, obviously, also in natural balances (births-deaths). Cumulatively, he tells us, “these are mortgaging, among others, social and economic development and territorial cohesion, as they affect the dynamism of many of our regions in which we have had negative natural balances and high rates of population decline and aging for a number of years, leading them to their demographic collapse”.
In his introduction to this bulletin (IDEM, Focus 2, 2025) o Mr. Kotzamanis, first examining the natural balances (FB) at the national level over the last 45 years states that “from 1951 to 2010 in our country, if we exclude a short period (1998–2003) in which births were slightly less than deaths, the FB remained positive although decreasing (98 thousand more births in 1951, from 1.0 -minimum- to 10.5 thousand -maximum- more in 2004-2010). However, since the beginning of the 2010s, deaths have been consistently higher than births (+4.3 thousand in 2011, +58.5 thousand in 2024) and our natural balances will remain negative in the next few decades, even if the downward trend of births is halted. The negative figures after 2010 (a total of 510,000 more deaths than births in the period 2011-2024) also contributed to the reduction of the total population of our country, an overall significant reduction (-715,000 based on ELSTAT’s estimates). According to him, the change in the sign of the Natural balances, from positive to permanently negative, is due to two reasons: 1) the increase in deaths, since, although we gained almost 17 years of life between 1951 and 2024, their number has more than doubled between 1951 and 2024 due to aging (that is, the increase in the number of people aged 65 and over who 520 thousand 1951 are now close to 2.5 million-) and 2) in the reduction of births (148 thousand in 1980, 68.5 thousand in 2024 and even fewer in 2025) as women born between 1955 and 1985 from whom almost all births after 1980 originate are having fewer and fewer children and at an increasingly older age age: around 2 on average for those born between 1940 and 1960, but less than 1.5 children born around 1985.
If these developments are now known at the national level, says Mr. Kotzamanis, the question arises whether they are also common at lower national levels. He gives the answer to this question by examining for the first time the natural balances (births-deaths) in our 51 prefectures from 1980 to 2024. The results of his analysis are extremely interesting as they show that behind the average national conditions there are significant differences. In particular, the author of the article states, “while at the national level more deaths from births are recorded in 20 of the 45 examined years, at the regional level we have at one end 15 prefectures in which we have more deaths from births for 41 or even more than the 45 examined years (!!!) and at the other extreme only three prefectures (Rethymnon, Dodecanese and Heraklion) that recorded negative results in the same period balances for minimum years (1, 2 and 4 years. respectively)’. Five prefectures have negative F.I. for 15-25 years not significantly differentiated by country (more deaths than births for 20 years), while in another 19 deaths prevail for 30 to 39 years. The difference between the extreme cases is shocking, the article states, as in 6 prefectures (Arcadia, Laconia, Lefkada, Messinia, Phocis and Lesbos) more deaths than births are recorded for 45 consecutive years, while in Rethymno only for one year.
In response to the question “where are these highly differentiated trends due?”, Mr. Kotzamanis gives a first answer by referring to the differentiated post-war internal and external migration as well as the differentiated fertility of the generations that had their children after 1980. Differentiated mobility and fertility have also progressively led according to him to a clearly differentiated distribution of the population by age with counties thus gathering much more old people than young people -and vice versa-, with result in negative natural balances for a long series of years in the former, and, for a small number in the latter.