Editorial: Storks

14:58 1/11/2019 - Πηγή: Τα Νεα

All studies indicate that Greece's population is aging and shrinking.

All the experts underline that the demographic problem is a time-bomb tha will explode if one does not craft a national strategy to reverse the trend and its ominous consequences.

Yet, the problem is glaringly absent in public discourse as if no one cares to deal with it or as if the phenomenon

cannot be reversed.

An article published today in Ta Nea adopts the opposite view and rejects both indifference and fatalism.

The study indicates that it is economic hardship and not new mores that leads young couples not to have children.

It also states that a whopping 89.7 percent would have a child if the state covered the medical costs of delivery, while 86.3 percent would do the same if they were guaranteed as subsidy for child care centres.

In other word, low birth rates have a specific cause. The storks are not coming due to the economic situation of young people and the absence of state assistance.

International experience including the case of France has shown that state aid has had remarkable results in increasing birth rates and remedying a problem which acording to experts will ineluctably lead the nation to extinction.