{"id":17459,"date":"2026-10-08T09:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T09:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=17459"},"modified":"2026-10-07T03:52:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T03:52:57","slug":"european-population-crisis-worse-and-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=17459","title":{"rendered":"European population crisis &#8211; worse and worse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The story is about a Greek school which will close after this school year. When you have no children &#8211; who said &#8220;Demographics is Destiny&#8221;?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"738\" height=\"369\" src=\"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/population-collapse.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17460\" style=\"width:214px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/population-collapse.jpg 738w, https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/population-collapse-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 738px) 100vw, 738px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/greece-europe-islands-eemographics-decline-74ab56fd7ad3943b6aabd5f0918ef654?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/greece-europe-islands-eemographics-decline-74ab56fd7ad3943b6aabd5f0918ef654?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us\">It\u2019s a situation playing out across Europe and beyond. The region has 16 of the world\u2019s top 20 oldest nations, particularly in Southern Europe, according to the independent World Population Review.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When they head to middle school on Greece\u2019s mainland next year, her school will be mothballed. Toys and picture books still sit on shelves in the nearby kindergarten since it was shuttered three years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Falling enrollment across Greece this year prompted authorities to close 75 schools and suspend or extend suspension of classes at more than 400 others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">*************************************<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And its remote communities act as an early warning system: Mountain villages and small islands are among the first places where schools and services disappear in a deepening cycle of population decline. Some 17 million people live on more than 4,000 islands across the European Union; Greece has about 200 of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cClosing schools leads to young people not staying and to them leaving,\u201d said Byron Kotzamanis, co-founder of the Institute of Demographic Research in Athens. \u201cLeaving means fewer and fewer people \u2014 fewer and fewer births. It means depopulation and dead settlements that will become nursing homes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The story is about a Greek school which will close after this school year. When you have no children &#8211; who said &#8220;Demographics is Destiny&#8221;? It\u2019s a situation playing out across Europe and beyond. The region has 16 of the world\u2019s top 20 oldest nations, particularly in Southern Europe, according to the independent World Population &#8230; <a title=\"European population crisis &#8211; worse and worse\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=17459\" aria-label=\"Read more about European population crisis &#8211; worse and worse\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,23,18,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-and-politics","category-health-and-fitness","category-international-stuff","category-science-and-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17461,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17459\/revisions\/17461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}