Young population in Turkey accounts for over quarter of total

(MENAFN) According to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the young population in Turkey has experienced a slight decrease, standing at 22.6 million, which still constitutes a significant proportion of the country's overall population of 85.3 million. In comparison to the previous year's data, the number of young people in Türkiye was 22.7 million, making up 26.5 percent of the total population. Out of this young population, 51.3 percent were male and 48.7 percent were female.

In the coming years, TurkStat predicts that the young population in Turkey will continue to decrease, with figures projected to fall to 25.6 percent in 2030, 23.3 percent in 2040, 20.4 percent in 2060, and 19.0% in 2080. This decline is a continuation of a trend that has been ongoing since 1970 when under-18s made up almost half (48.5 percent) of the country's population. Since then, the proportion has fallen to 41.8 percent in 1990 and 35.2 percent in 2000.

Despite this downward trend, Turkey’s young population still constitutes a higher percentage of the country's overall population than that of the EU member states, which was at 18.1% in 2022. Among EU countries, Ireland has the highest youth population with 23.6 percent, followed by France with 21.3 percent, and Sweden with 21.0 percent. On the other hand, the lowest youth populations were observed in Malta with 15.9 percent, Portugal with 15.8 percent, and Italy with 15.6 percent.

Additionally, TurkStat's data reveals that Turkey’s child dependency ratio was 32.3 percent at the end of last year. The child dependency ratio is calculated by dividing the number of children aged 14 and under by the number of people aged 15-64. Finally, the data shows that the primary school graduation rate was 98.4%, lower secondary education graduation rate was 96.4 percent, and upper secondary education graduation rate was 77.9 percent in Turkey last year.

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