Greece’s population shrinking due to crisis

Greece’s population has decreased by around 355,000 people since the financial crisis started hitting hard in 2011, and if nothing is done to offset this downward trend, by 2050 Greek citizens will at most number 10 million, according to the country’s statistics agency (ELSTAT).

Even more worrisome is ELSTAT’s prediction that by 2080 the country’s population could drop to 7.2 million. The alarm was also raised in a study called “The Greek Population Under Siege,” authored by Ira-Emke Poulopoulos, a Paris University professor, member of the New York Academy of Sciences and vice-president of the Hellenic Society for Demographic Studies.

“The aim of the book is to prove that during the crisis large sections of the Greek population have been ‘persecuted,’ in that they are systematically subjected to discomforts that have led to or will end in the future with their departure from Greece, their family, their work, their friends, even life,” she told the state-run ANA-MPA news agency.