4-year-old Vasiliki Vourgou and her trainer Maria Kokkinopliti of their kindergarten class within the village of Thanos on the Greek island of Lemnos on Sept. 29, 2025.
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Households within the U.S. and all over the world are having fewer youngsters as folks make profoundly completely different choices about their lives. NPR’s sequence Population Shift: How Smaller Families Are Changing the World explores the causes and implications of this pattern.
The varsity day is simply getting began, and four-year-old Vasiliki Vourgou, a bit of lady with darkish eyes and hair pulled again in a shiny ponytail with a scorching pink scrunchie, is alone.
Most days, there are two pupils on this small classroom on the Greek island of Lemnos, with large home windows and a view of the college’s entrance courtyard. However one scholar is sick, so at present it is simply Vasiliki, going via the morning routine together with her trainer.
The sky is grey, however Vasiliki’s trainer says when the climate is good, she tries to get the ladies exterior, to work together with the older youngsters, throughout their breaks.
“They await the children from the first college to get out they usually be a part of them additionally, to allow them to be extra social,” the trainer, Maria Kokkinopliti, mentioned via an interpreter.
Lemnos, within the northern Aegean, is residence to roughly 16,000 folks unfold throughout just a few dozen small villages. Vasiliki’s college, within the small village of Thanos, is one in all many in Greece that is dealing with declining scholar numbers, as youthful folks transfer away, and those that keep have fewer youngsters.
Vasiliki’s father, Stelios Vourgos, works lengthy hours as a shepherd, however he cannot think about elevating Vasiliki and her child brother anyplace else.
“Right here, I fell in love with my spouse; right here is my job,” Vourgos mentioned via an interpreter. “For the children, it is a paradise to be raised on an island, as a result of large cities are like a jungle.”
Kids play on the playground of a major college on the Greek island of Lemnos on Sept. 29, 2025.
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The solitary jacket of four-year-old Vasiliki hangs on the garments rack in her kindergarten within the Greek village of Thanos on Sept. 29, 2025.
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However the lifestyle right here faces rising challenges. The first college within the village the place his spouse grew up was shuttered many years in the past, he mentioned.
He attended the identical college in Thanos the place Vasiliki is now a scholar, as did his father. However now he worries it will likely be shut down. With out a thriving college, he mentioned, there will not be a lot left right here.
“There is a chain response after [a school closes], so folks transfer into completely different locations, after which simply the outdated individuals are left there, and also you see villages disappearing,” Vourgos mentioned.
Throughout a lot of the world, individuals are having far fewer youngsters than their dad and mom and grandparents did. Greece’s birthrate is about 1.3 births per girl — properly under the two.1 degree wanted to keep up the inhabitants.
Vasiliki’s father, Stelios Vourgos, works lengthy hours as a shepherd, however he cannot think about elevating Vasiliki and her child brother anyplace else.
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The low birthrate is very seen in rural communities like Thanos and on Greek islands like Lemnos, the place lots of of faculties are slicing packages or closing. Nationwide, Greece’s schooling ministry introduced greater than 700 schools would close this yr alone, or about 5% of the nation’s colleges.
Lemnos, within the northern Aegean Sea, is residence to roughly 16-thousand folks unfold throughout just a few dozen small villages.
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“The island’s infrastructure and accessible companies are additionally affected, plus restricted employment alternatives,” Konstantinos Maditinos, president of the first schooling lecturers’ affiliation on Lemnos, mentioned. “This implies younger {couples} have little incentive to remain on the island and depart, even when they’re initially from right here.”
For many who keep, healthcare companies may be restricted. Vourgos mentioned he and his spouse spent hundreds of euros to journey for medical take care of every of her two pregnancies.
The island’s small public hospital has no neonatal ICU companies, so many pregnant ladies make that alternative, mentioned Dr. Olga Katira. She has been working as a pediatrician on Lemnos for greater than a decade. Katira mentioned she’s seen the delivery charge shift in her personal workplace.
Dr. Olga Katira in her workplace in Lemnos, Greece on Sept. 29, 2025. She has been working as a pediatrician on Lemnos for greater than a decade.
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“We used to have six, seven newborns per 30 days, and now we have now three,” she mentioned. “That could be a decline that we are able to see.”
Whereas the issue is extra pronounced in Greece’s small cities and island communities, Katira worries about the way forward for the nation as an entire.
“We’re a small nation, if it continues declining it will likely be very, very tough,” she mentioned.
As households have had fewer youngsters or left the island, the inhabitants of Lemnos has plummeted by greater than a 3rd because the early Fifties, from a peak of greater than 27,000 folks to about 16,000 in the newest Census.
The mayor of Lemnos, Eleonora Georga, mentioned shuttered colleges across the island are probably the most apparent indicators of the decline.
Switching forwards and backwards between English and Greek, Georga mentioned the general inhabitants right here is getting smaller, and older.
A girl relaxes on the seaside in Lemnos, within the northern Aegean Sea on Sept. 29, 2025. The Greek island is residence to roughly 16,000 folks unfold throughout just a few dozen small villages.
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Eleonora Georga, the mayor of Lemnos in her workplace on Sept. 29, 2025. Georga mentioned the general inhabitants on Lemnos is getting smaller, and older.
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“It is the modern way of life of the folks these days. They don’t seem to be selecting to create households anymore,” she mentioned via an interpreter.
In September, the Greek authorities introduced new tax incentives designed to handle the delivery charge decline. Georga mentioned she additionally would love the European Union to intervene.
Requested if she thinks extra immigration to Greek islands like Lemnos is also an answer, she hesitated.
“It relies on who,” she mentioned.
Lately, Greece has seen a sharp increase within the variety of migrants touring from jap Europe, Africa and the Center East — as Europe has seen waves of anti-immigrant protests.
Georga mentioned she’d reasonably see Greeks who’ve left the nation transfer again.
These worries are shared by Angelos Vlapas, the principal of one other native major college on Lemnos, who mentioned he is involved about what immigration means for Greek id.
Angelos Vlapas, headmaster of the Kontopouleio major college on the island of Lemnos on Sept. 29, 2025.
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“We’re not criticizing the individuals who got here right here to make a dwelling,” Vlapas mentioned via an interpreter. “Quite the opposite, those that have remained…have grow to be invaluable members of the area people.”
“Nevertheless, that does not change the truth that they belong to a distinct nationality.”
Alexandra Tragaki, a professor of financial demography at Harokopion College of Athens, mentioned trendy ladies are having fewer youngsters partly as a result of they’ve taken on obligations within the office with out having conventional, home obligations proportionately diminished.
“Girls modified roles, however nobody else did,” Tragaki mentioned. “Neither the society, nor males, so a part of the roles that was lined by ladies had been left uncovered. And when that occurs, clearly it is the scale of the household that’s affected…So clearly, when you will have each issues to do, parenting and dealing, what you narrow down is the variety of youngsters you mum or dad.”
An aged girl on the streets of Fourni, Greece on Oct. 1, 2025.
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Tragaki mentioned many younger Greeks — who grew up at a time when the nation was struggling below a catastrophic financial downturn — fear about their very own future.
“They’ve been introduced up in consecutive crises,” Tragaki mentioned. “They had been born in disaster. They had been introduced up in monetary disaster, in power disaster, in pandemic disaster. So what they’ve realized is that they should anticipate the surprising.”
The concept the tradition round household life is shifting in a profound manner additionally resonates with longtime residents of one other smaller island, Fourni. The island, almost 200 miles southeast of Lemnos throughout the Aegean Sea, is residence to roughly a thousand folks, relying on the time of yr.
On a sunny, clear morning, a gaggle of aged males sit exterior a small native market, below the flawless blue sky.
92-year-old Parthenios Flytzanis, left, and Nikolaos Amorgianos, 86, middle, on the Greek island of Fourni on Oct. 1, 2025.
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Parthenios Flytzanis, 92, and Nikolaos Amorgianos, 86, are reminiscing in regards to the previous, and thru an interpreter, say they fear in regards to the nation’s future.
“In 10 years, Greece will probably be a rustic of outdated folks,” Amorgianos mentioned.
Amorgianos believes youthful generations are selecting to have fewer youngsters as a result of their values have modified.
“Now the younger folks, they solely care in regards to the bars, about going out, they usually’ve deserted the mountains, they’ve deserted the countryside,” he mentioned.
Flytzanis agreed. He believes ladies particularly have modified.
“Girls again then had 5, 6, 7 youngsters,” he mentioned. “They usually nonetheless took care of the goats, and the backyard.”
“The chickens,” Amorgianos added.
Amorgianos remembers his mom making her personal bread, however now he believes youthful folks need all the things to be handy.
“So sure, life has grow to be simpler, and other people have gotten lazier,” he mentioned.
Girls at present have extra decisions, however for individuals who select to lift youngsters on a distant island, that alternative comes with its personal difficulties.
Katerina Vrana in Thymaina, Greece on Oct. 1, 2025.
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Katerina Vrana lives on a fair smaller island neighboring Fourni, Thymaina, together with her husband and their three youngsters. Via an interpreter, Vrana says she and her husband had been each born and raised on the island. He is a fisherman, and she or he owns a restaurant.
For her first two pregnancies, Vrana mentioned she paid hundreds of euros to journey off the island to see medical doctors and ship her infants. She wished one other youngster, she mentioned, however hesitated due to the price.
Then, she discovered about HOPEgenesis, an Athens-based nonprofit that pays for medical care and transportation for pregnant ladies from small islands and villages. It is funded largely with company and philanthropic assist. Via an interpreter, Vrana mentioned this system allowed her to make her “dream” of a 3rd youngster “actuality.”
HOPEgenesis began by working with ladies in Fourni a decade in the past and has since expanded companies to some 500 small villages and island communities, in an effort to assist reverse the declining birthrate.
“Once they felt safe, once they felt they’d monetary assist, ladies began having infants once more,” challenge supervisor with HOPEgenesis Eva Papadaki mentioned.
The port of the tiny Greek island of Thymaina on Oct. 1, 2025.
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A lady carries a bundle from the ferry between the Greek islands of Fourni and Thymaina on Oct. 1, 2025. Within the distant fishing village of Thymaina the place a declining inhabitants is making colleges shrink and shut, provides should be taken in by ferry.
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However even with that monetary assist to have youngsters, elevating them on small islands is difficult. The first college on Thymaina is down to only two grade-school college students. There is not any college for Vrana’s two older youngsters, who journey to Fourni for secondary college by ferry.
This yr, Vrana mentioned her youngest son would have been the one youngster in Thymaina’s kindergarten, so she’s determined to ship him by boat to Fourni, to the kindergarten that serves all of that island’s youngsters, so he will not be alone.
Many days, Vrana and her son experience the ferry to Fourni for college, alongside along with his older siblings and some others. One of many secondary college students, 16-year-old Georgia Gramatikou, mentioned generally within the winter the climate is simply too harmful for her and her twin brother to make the crossing and go to highschool.
Whereas Georgia enjoys her island residence, she would not suppose she’ll keep right here.
“It’s totally good right here, and it is peaceable, however I do not see myself dwelling right here sooner or later as a result of there aren’t many alternatives,” she mentioned via an interpreter.
Persons are slowly leaving the island, she mentioned, and the outlets are closing.
Kids in Kindergarten class on the Greek island of Fourni on Oct. 1, 2025.
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Again on Fourni, Dimitris Markakis, a neighborhood enterprise proprietor and metropolis official, says household life has at all times been vital in Greece, however it was as soon as seen as important. Many households had been poor, he says, however they noticed having youngsters as a supply of happiness, “because the that means of the life.”
Markakis is in his mid-40s, with two youngsters. He left the island to check overseas earlier than returning to start out his household.
He thinks the stresses of contemporary life are one purpose individuals are having fewer youngsters.
Nonetheless, Markakis mentioned, his individuals are robust, and he’s hopeful.
“Greek individuals are very laborious, they usually at all times face issues with duty,” he says. “I’m optimistic.”
Kleitia Kokalari and NPR’s Brian Mann contributed to this story.
