National and demographic continuity

All of the studies on the evolution of Greece's population numbers agree on one thing: The country is on course for a significant demographic decline. Even though the birth rate has been dropping steadily for several decades, the influx of a large number of migrants in the 1990s helped restore the balance and even bring about a small rise, so that births in 2008 were the highest that they had been since 1985. The economic crisis, however, put a stop to that upward trend.

Greece was dealt a triple blow: Many migrants returned to their countries, many Greeks moved abroad, and those that stayed had fewer children. Birth rates plummeted. It is indicative that the number of children who were born in 2008 and went to first grade in 2014-15 came to 111,300, while just three years later, in the 2017-18 academic year, the number of first-graders had dropped to 102,000. According to a...