In 2025, Greece recorded 68,467 live births, according to official data from a Hellenic org. This marked a 4.2% decline from 71,455 live births in 2024, continuing a long-term downward trend in the country’s birth numbers amid an aging population, low fertility rates (around 1.26 children per woman in 2025), and other demographic pressures.
For abortions, Greece does not maintain a comprehensive national registry of procedures, as reporting is not mandatory for all cases. This leads to reliance on modeled estimates from international sources rather than exact counts.
The most reliable and widely cited recent estimate comes from the Guttmacher Institute, which models approximately 34,600 induced abortions annually in Greece based on data for the period 2015–2019. This figure has remained fairly stable in subsequent references, with no major shifts reported in more recent global compilations (e.g., from sources like Johnston’s Archive or Wikipedia aggregates drawing on similar models).
Some sources, including Johnston’s Archive, suggest a lower reported figure around 21,600 in recent years, but this likely reflects underreported official data rather than the full incidence.Thus, in 2025:
- Live births: 68,467
- Estimated abortions: ~34,600 (Guttmacher-modeled; stable from 2015–2019 period)
This means abortions were roughly half the number of live births (about 51 abortions per 100 live births, based on the estimate). The abortion rate stands at around 15.0 per 1,000 women aged 15–49, placing Greece in the moderate range globally and in Europe—not among the highest, as older claims sometimes suggested.
These numbers highlight Greece’s ongoing demographic challenges: births have fallen sharply over decades (from over 100,000 in the early 2000s to under 70,000 now), while unintended pregnancies (often resolved via abortion) reflect gaps in contraception access and family planning. Improved education and modern contraceptive use could help narrow the gap further, as seen in other European countries.