ATHENS, –
In Greece, unlike in other European countries, the International Day for Older Persons is not celebrated properly even though population ageing is an important social issue, Byron Kotzamanis, Director of the Institute of Demographic Research and Studies (IDEM), emphasized to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA).
He noted that, whereas the total population has increased by just 39% between the beginning of the first post-war decade and the present day, those aged 65 or older have increased by 4.6 times (from 520 thousand to 2.4 million), while those aged 85 and over have multiplied 20-fold (600 thousand today compared to just 30 thousand in 1951).
In Greece, 23% of the population is aged 65 or over. At the same time, there are also strong regional differences, as the percentage of people aged 65 and over ranges from 12.6% (minimum, Mykonos Municipality) to 33.9% (maximum, Evrytania Municipality).
Greece is therefore heading, according to Kotzamanis, towards an explosive combination of “ageing” and “super-old age” in more than 1 in 4 prefectures of the country. This will result (before 2050) in a completely different reality, according to which one third of the population will be 65 years of age or older, while at the same time 1/4 of them will be “super-aged.”
Taking into account that in the post-1970 generations we have a decrease in marriage and an increase in both divorces and the percentage of those who will not have children, we will have an ever-increasing number of people who will find themselves after the age of 65 with very few people in their immediate family environment. The welfare state – and not the family – will therefore be increasingly called upon to cover the needs of these individuals, given that the costs will be impossible for them to cover by themselves.
[ANA-MPA]