Schools close and island life is under threat as Greece reckons with low birth rates

toggle caption Ayman Oghanna for NPR

Families in the U.S. and around the world are having fewer children as people make profoundly different decisions about their lives. NPR's series Population Shift: How Smaller Families Are Changing the World explores the causes and implications of this trend.

The school day is just getting started, and four-year-old Vasiliki Vourgou, a little girl with dark eyes and hair pulled back in a shiny ponytail with a hot pink scrunchie, is alone.

Most days, there are two pupils in this small classroom on the Greek island of Lemnos, with big windows and a view of the school's front courtyard. But one student is sick, so today it's just Vasiliki, going through the morning routine with her teacher.

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The sky is gray, but Vasiliki's teacher says when the weather is nice, she tries to get the girls outside, to interact with the older children, during their breaks.

"They wait for the kids from the primary school to get out and they join them also, so they can be more social," the teacher, Maria Kokkinopliti, said through an interpreter.

Lemnos, in the northern Aegean, is home to roughly 16,000 people spread across a few dozen small villages. Vasiliki's school, in the small village of Thanos, is one of many in Greece that's facing declining student numbers, as younger people move away, and those who stay have fewer children.

Vasiliki's father, Stelios Vourgos, works long hours as a shepherd, but he can't imagine raising Vasiliki and her baby brother anywhere else.

"Here, I fell in love with my wife; here is my job," Vourgos said through an interpreter.