Demographer and data analyst Stephen Shaw has said that ‘no society in history has been known to come out of’ the ‘spiral’ of population decline.
(LifeSiteNews) — Greece plans to spend 20 billion euros on economic incentives aimed at halting the country’s population decline, which Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has called a “national threat.”
The nation that has been referred to as the “cradle of civilization” now has a fertility rate of 1.3, one of the lowest in Europe, and far below the rate of 2.1 that is needed to maintain the population.
In fact, the country now has twice as many deaths as it has births. Last year, Mitsotakis shared during a demographics conference that Greece recorded one birth for every two deaths in 2022.
On September 30, a demographic plan to incentivize having children, totaling 20 billion euros, was presented to Greece’s government. The money will be spent on tax breaks, day care vouchers as well as the establishment of day care centers in workplaces, and cash benefits rewards for raising children. Families with three or more children will receive greater compensation.
Family and Social Cohesion Minister Sofia Zacharaki said on October 2 that “the ultimate goal” of the plan “is to improve the standard of living.”
She noted that, according to current forecasts, by 2070 the biggest population group will be people over 90 years old.
The country is one of many undergoing different phases of population decline headed toward collapse. Greece’s particularly low birth rate may be further exacerbated by the economic hardships plaguing the country, which in July had the second-highest unemployment rate in the EU.
Demography experts such as data analyst Stephen Shaw, the creator of the documentary “Birthgap,” are skeptical about whether economic incentives can reverse the trend of population decline. He has noted that even the Roman Empire, in its later stages, enacted policies aimed at increasing birth rates, including taxing the childless.
According to Shaw, “No society in history has been known to come out of” the “spiral” of population decline.
In his film “Birthgap,” he has documented how declining birth rates in the U.S. and around the world are being driven by an “explosion” in childlessness as opposed to smaller family sizes.
This trend of childlessness began to crop up in the 1970s. For example, in Japan in 1974, one in 20 women were childless. By 1977, the ratio was 1 in 4, and by 1990, it had reached 1 in 3, a statistic that held in 2020. Shaw has shared that most countries have likewise now become “childless nations,” where one-third or more people will become “childless for life.”
It is notable that the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) confirmed in December 2022 that the majority of childless women actually desire children. Delayed childbearing, and as Shaw commented in his film, failing to “find the right partner at the right time” are major factors contributing to the childlessness explosion.
Commentators such as Elon Musk have warned that if global birth rates continue to decline at their current projected rates, “human civilization will end.”
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