Diverse Demographic Realities Across Space and the Challenge of Territorial Cohesion

Slot 1 · Fri 27 Nov · 11:30–13:00

1. 1.Geographical dimensions of fertility in Greece during the inter-war period

   Vasilis Gavalas

   • University of the Aegean
   Abstract

   The 1920s are often described by demographers as a period of "population depression” across Europe. By the end of the decade, many Western and Northern European countries were approaching or had already fallen below replacement level fertility for the first time in recorded history with Total Fertility Rate (TFR) close or below 2.1 children per woman. Greece provides a fascinating and distinct contrast to the Western European trend. While the rest of Europe saw a steady decline in the 1920s, Greece recorded volatile but generally ascending fertility rates. This rise in fertility indexes is often attributed to the arrival of over 1.2 million Greek refugees from Asia Minor following the military defeat in Anatolia It has long been hypothesized that refugees exhibited more prolific reproductive behaviour than the native population. This paper re-examines the reproductive behavior of the Greek population by Geographical Department and ethnic group (refugees and natives) employing established methods of historical demography to derive fertility indexes indirectly, as these cannot be calculated straightforwardly due to data limitations. The findings reveal that the observed rise in fertility was not primarily driven by an increase in marital fecundity, but rather by a shift in nuptiality: women were marrying more frequently and at younger ages. This shift in marriage patterns bolstered the TFRs while leaving the TMFRs only marginally affected. Furthermore, significant regional variations underscore that interwar Greece was a mosaic of populations with distinct cultural, social, and historical identities, particularly within territories that had only recently been annexed into the modern Greek state.

2. 2.The Evolution of Marriage, Divorce, and Fertility in Southern Europe: Demographic and Social Approaches

   Georgios Kontogiannis¹, Kostas Rontos², Luca Salvati³, Dimitrios Antonoglou²

   • ¹University of Thessaly, Volos and Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini, Greece
   • ²University of the Aegean, Mytilene Greece
   • ³Department of Methods and Models for Economics, Territory and Finance (MEMOTEF), Faculty of Economics, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
   Abstract

   Abstract: Since the 1970s, significant changes in marriage and divorce patterns have been observed across Southern Europe, following—albeit with a temporal delay—trends that had already emerged in Northern and Western Europe. The present study examines the long-term evolution of primonuptiality, fertility, and divorce patterns in Greece, in comparison with Italy, Spain, and France, emphasising the role of values, religion, gender roles, and institutional transformations. The analysis is based on data derived from national statistical authorities, EUROSTAT, and the European Demographic Observatory. Methods associated with the Classical French School of Demography are employed, including indicators of primo-nuptiality, fertility, and divorce intensity. In addition, logistic regression analysis is used to investigate the influence of age, gender, and educational attainment on the likelihood of entering marriage or a registered partnership in Greece. The findings indicate that transformations in family-related behaviours emerged earlier in France, followed by Spain and Italy, while Greece experienced these developments with a more pronounced delay. The postponement of marriage, rising childlessness, and increasing divorce rates are associated with the spread of individualistic values, improvements in women’s educational and occupational status, the diffusion of effective contraception, secularisation processes, and the weakening of social stigma surrounding unmarried, childless, and/or divorced women. Nevertheless, in Greece, strong family ties and traditional attitudes continue to exert substantial influence, resulting in a slower transition toward new family patterns compared to other European countries. Keywords: primo-nuptiality, fertility, divorce, demographic analysis, Southern Europe

3. 3.Mapping urban restructuring in the EU: Visualizing the underperformance of southern cities

   Ioannis Chorianopoulos, Ermioni-Eirini Papadopoulou, Flora Tsapala, Stavros Proestakis

   • University of the Aegean
   Abstract

   This paper investigates macro-trends in uneven urban development, focusing on urban restructuring dynamics across the EU. We approach cities comparatively, exploring three key urban restructuring indicators: GDP growth, employment traits and population shifts across the metropolitan area, linking socio-economic performance with urbanization trends. Divergent urban dynamics in the EU, we argue, and the resultant economic disparities they create and reproduce, shape the urbanization trajectories of cities and are reflected on their morphology. Comparative urban analysis was advanced with the use of web mapping techniques and visualization methods. A cartographic web application named «EU - SET» was designed, using proportional symbols and multivariate visual encoding, enabling the simultaneous depiction of magnitude and direction of change across urban indicators. «EU - SET» consists of three dashboards, each one tracking and visualizing the aforementioned key socio-economic and morphological dimensions of post-industrial urban adaptation and competitiveness in 75 cities in the 2001-2020 period. The analytical and cartographic attention is aimed at the urban south (Portugal, southern Italy, Greece, and Spain), an area with macroregional characteristics that exhibits sustained divergence and declining investment dynamics. Our examination marks the deviating development paths noted in northern and southern urban Europe and discusses the conditions in which socio-economic restructuring processes took place in lagging southern cities. The distance of southern cities from the emergent cross-border urban hubs that coordinate the European economy, we argue, reflects a new phase of peripheralization in the area with noticeable path-dependent traits, currently defined by the dynamics of EU integration, enhanced competitiveness and austerity preoccupations. The use of geoinfomatics and web mapping methods is a key resource for monitoring spatial disparities, particularly so in the diverse EU urban setting, the absence of which in EU policy making is commented upon.

4. 4.Living in Athens: a study of mortality inequalities by cause of death

   Charalampos Dantis, Konstantinos Zafeiris

   • Democritus University of Thrace
   Abstract

   The literature studying the losses of life expectancy at birth by cause of death is extensive. However, studies investigating the gender, age, and spatial variation of longevity loss in Greece are rare. Rarer are those that focus on Attica. The main goal of this paper is to examine whether there is a variation in longevity losses by cause of death, by gender, by age group, and by the Regional Unit of Attica from 2014 to 2019. Analysis of microdata from the Hellenic Statistical Authority and data from the Eurostat Database showed a spatial dimension in some causes of death, such as circulatory system diseases, neoplasms, and external causes of mortality and morbidity. Additionally, the results show that for specific categories of diseases, the loss of life expectancy also has a gender and an age dimension. Finally, it is worth noting that, overall, Greece exhibits significantly lower life expectancy losses at birth across most categories of causes of death, for both men and women.