Greece’s Population Could Drop Below 9 Million. Births Already at 68,000
Greece recorded just 68,467 births in 2024 while deaths reached 126,916, nearly double the number of newborns born that year. Those are official figures from the Hellenic Statistical Authority, and demographers say the gap is only going to widen. According to Professor Byron Kotzamanis, a founding member of the Institute of Demographic Research and Studies (IDEM), annual births will likely fall below 65,000 within the next decade and show no sign of recovering to previous levels.
The crisis hits hardest on the islands. On Ithaca, there were 3.5 deaths for every single birth in the most recent reporting year, meaning 33 more people died than were born. Kotzamanis says that if this trend continues for another 30 years, the island will lose 1,000 residents and half its remaining population will be over 65. In the North Aegean region, deaths outnumbered births by more than 1,000 in 2024. In the Ionian Islands, 2,666 people died against just 1,531 births.
35.5 percent of Greek municipalities recorded fewer than 60 total births across the entire five-year period from 2020 to 2024.
The root cause goes back decades. Between 2007 and 2025, the number of women aged 25 to 44, the group responsible for nearly 9 in 10 births in Greece, fell by 27%. IDEM attributes this to the collapse in birth rates that began after 1980, compounded by the mass emigration of young Greeks following the 2010 financial crisis.
Projections point toward a population falling below 9 million before 2050, with a sharply older age structure. IDEM's analysis of municipal-level data found that 35.5 percent of Greek municipalities recorded fewer than 60 total births across the five-year period from 2020 to 2024. In 8 percent of those municipalities, annual births averaged between 7 and 10 per year.
Experts say even optimistic fertility scenarios would not restore births to the roughly 90,000 per year recorded the previous decade. The challenge, as Kotzamanis frames it, is keeping young people on the islands in the first place and attracting those who have already left to come back.
