Dependency ratio

Greece is aging. It is a realization that keeps being mentioned more and more urgently and imperatively. Recently, ratings agency Moody's predicted a demographic "crash" for the country in 2035, by measuring the elderly dependency ratio.

Moody's warned on Tuesday that worsening demographics and the increase in the dependency ration of the elderly constitute a serious fiscal challenge as well as a cause of downgrades of states' ratings. Greece, as it states, is expected within the next decade to have the fifth highest dependency ratio among all developed economies internationally.

Greece is the only country among 81 states that is expected to have reduced spending on its aging population by 2060, which shows that the social security reform during the fiscal streamlining decade will bear fruit in the long run. On its own, however, it is not enough.

Greece has the second highest proportion of over-65-year-olds in the European Union according to data released on Tuesday by Eurostat. The figures show that last year the ratio of over-65s to the population aged between 15 and 64 years exceeded one in three.  Only Italy had a greater rate than Greece's, while Luxembourg had the lowest rate in the bloc.

Aging populations are an expensive business and suppress growth, the European Central Bank has warned, while recommending that countries delay the age of retirement as the best solution to the problem.