Gender equality can boost fertility rates, research says

Middle-class women can provide the solution to Greece’s acute demographic problem if they are offered the right support by the state, said Dionysis Balourdos, research director at the National Center for Social Research (EKKE).

“Targeting this category of women is the only effective solution,” he said in a speech at a recent meeting organized by the diaNEOsis nonprofit think tank and EKKE on policies to support families.

According to research conducted by diaNEOsis and EKKE, Greece needs to take measures to promote gender equality, the reconciliation of family and working life and a family policy to support all kinds of households.

Balourdos said it is wrong to assume that gender inequality leads to higher fertility rates and pointed to United Nations research which showed that countries with the highest fertility rates in Europe, such as France, Sweden, Denmark and Ireland, had the lowest gender inequality.