Greece is facing a demographic crisis that sees the productive segment of its population shrinking and the numbers of the aged and, mostly, retired swelling.
An analysis by the Center for Planning and Economic Research (KEPE) shows Greece’s population has declined by over 720,000 (8.5% of the total) since 2008. The greatest decline, in the 30-44 age bracket (683,000), reflects the fact that population loss was not mainly a result of fewer births and more deaths, but the result of an exodus of highly qualified professionals seeking jobs abroad at the time of the financial crisis in the 2010s, which saw the unemployment rate spike to over 27%.
Between 2008 and 2025 there has also been a significant drop in people aged 25-29 (almost 30%), while the 15-19 bracket has, somewhat surprisingly, increased. The number of people aged 65 and over has risen by 405,000, along with life expectancy.
Economists say that in order for a social security system to pay for itself, the ratio of the economically active to pensioners must be 4 to 1. In Greece, it is already 1.7 to 1 and further declining.
Another measure used, the age dependency ratio, is not evolving any more favorably. The European Commission forecasts that this ratio will rise to 46% in 2030, versus an EU average of 42%. This means that for every 100 employed persons (almost always in the 15-64 age bracket), there will be 46 retired, financially dependent ones, almost all 65 and above. Greece is expected to have 6.5 million aged 15-64 in 2030 versus about 3 million aged 65 and over. This means that the actively employed must support the retired ones’ pensions, health needs and welfare provisions. Especially in a country where the social security system and its once notoriously early retirement ages was pay-as-you-go.
The KEPE research shows that births kept rising until the late 2000s, and since then the trend has dramatically reversed. In 2023, births had declined 40% compared to 2000 in Greece, whereas they had declined 21.5% in the EU.
Despite the big wave of migrating professionals, inward migration exceeds the outward one. But that, in turn, has caused a backlash as it has had in other countries.