ATHENS:
Greece on Thursday outlined measures aimed at boosting its lagging birth rate, ranging from childcare checks and benefits to tax breaks for new parents, although experts questioned the plan’s effectiveness.
Greece has one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe, a catastrophic demographic situation caused by a decade-long economic crisis, emigration and a change in attitudes among young people. The Prime Minister called it a national threat and a “time bomb” for pensions.
It currently spends around one billion euros per year on measures for children. Yet it recorded its lowest number of births ever in 2022.
The measures presented Thursday by the ministries of Family, Interior, Finance and Health include tax breaks for new parents, daycare vouchers, an increase in the minimum wage from 2025, increases in pensions and reductions in social security contributions.
But demographic experts and even government officials acknowledge the long road ahead.
“It goes without saying that the demographic problem… cannot be solved simply by social benefits and cash incentives,” Deputy Finance Minister Thanos Petralias told reporters on Thursday.
Petralias said that solving the problem also requires improving education and health systems, increasing incomes and improving conditions for work-life balance.
Falling birth rates are a problem for governments across Europe, where countries like France, Italy, Norway and Spain have spent billions of euros on measures for children, without great result.
The measures are part of a broader plan to reverse the downward trend in Greece’s birth rate, which officials had told Reuters would be unveiled in May but which was pushed back to the end of this year .
The plan includes affordable housing for young people, financial incentives for assisted reproduction and the integration of migrants into the workforce.
“These measures will not have a dramatic impact on births,” said Byron Kotzamanis, a leading expert on demography in Greece.
“We need a different policy to tackle the problem at the grassroots,” he said, adding that this involves encouraging young people to stay in Greece and attracting those who have left back home.