Greeks are considering moving from the city back to regional villages, says the results of a survey commissioned by the Agricultural Development Ministry that were made public Tuesday.
The survey, conducted by polling firm Kapa Research on a sample of 1,286 people in Athens and Thessaloniki, showed that seven out of ten people have considered leaving the city for a new life in the provinces.
One in five said they had already made the initial move to relocate with 70 per cent saying they would take a pay cut for a better quality of life.
Of the three-quarters of the people surveyed who expressed a desire to move back to the village were aged under 44. Half of those said they were intereseted in moving into the farming sector, with most draw to cultivating olives or producing olive oil, with some saying they would like to find work in the processing or distrubution of agricultural goods. Under 20 per cent said they would like to work in the tourism or culture sectors.
Two-thirds of the people surveyed have been to college with a quarter of the respondents holding a postgraduate degree.
Presenting the findings, Minister Costas Skandalidis spoke of a “deep shift in Greek society and lifestyles, the extent of which we have yet to grasp”.
He noted that educated young Greeks were increasingly rejecting the idea of an affluent life in the northern suburbs of Athens or climbing the career ladder and were focusing on improving the quality of their lives and personal relationships as well as enjoying a lower cost of living.
Skandalidis said that 60 million euros in state funding had been set aside for a program offering plots of land at cheap rates to would-be farmers.
An initiative launched by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, which is renting out small parcels of farmland for a nominal fee to cash-strapped Greeks who want to grow their own fruit and vegetables, has already received some 4,000 applications, Skai reported earlier this month.
Source: Kathimerini