When Katerina Papadimitriou saw her widowed mother’s health deteriorate, she considered placing her in a private nursing home. But the cost, estimated at around €1,300 per month for a facility offering quality services, quickly discouraged the sixty-year-old.
With a pension of just 900 euros a month, her mother can’t afford it. Katerina Papadimitriou, an only child, herself only has one small pension of 800 euros per month, with which she must support herself in Athens and help her two children. I ended up hiring a home help, a woman from an Eastern European country, who lives with my mother and watches over her 24/7. This is the most common solution in Greece at the moment, as there is little state aid and public retirement homes.”she says.
Katerina also explains that she preferred to leave her mother in her environment and not disrupt her habits by moving her into an establishment: “These structures do not have a good reputation.” In Greece, only 2.5% of people over 80 live in retirement homes, compared to 15% in France, estimates Byron Kotzamanis, professor of demography at the University of Thessaly. There are around 300 mainly private structures in the country, which remains very insufficient to meet the needs.
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Scattered families
Greece is facing a serious demographic crisis. It is the sixth country with the oldest population in the world: 23% are over 65, according to Eurostat data. A level that will reach 34% in 2050. According to the last census in 2021, the Greek population has decreased by 3.5% since 2011 (10.4 million inhabitants) and the number of births per woman (1.45) remains very insufficient for the renewal of the population.
Byron Kotzamanis points out that “Until now, it was families who took care of the elderly, but this will not last because society is changing.” In addition to the fact that families are becoming more dispersed across the country, and that many children left for abroad during the economic crisis of the 2010s, a quarter of women born in 1985 have not had children. When they are older, there will no longer be a family structure, but this has not yet been understood by society or by leaders, who do not have a public policy to support the aging of the population. Around 2040, the results will be noticeable, with very restricted family circles and very isolated elderly people,” notes the researcher.
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