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Türkiye’s total fertility rate has been falling without interruption for 11 years and has dropped well below the level needed to replace the population, prompting officials and academics to warn that the country is rapidly becoming an ageing society and may soon face an irreversible demographic crisis.
According to research by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the country’s total fertility rate—the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime—stood at 2.38 children in 2001.
From 2014 onward, this indicator began to fall every year. It slipped from 2.19 in 2014 to just 2.0 in 2018 and then stayed below two children per woman.
TurkStat data show that the rate declined to 1.89 in 2019 and continued to go down to 1.77 in 2020, 1.71 in 2021, 1.63 in 2022, 1.51 in 2023 and finally 1.48 in 2024.
This means fertility in Türkiye has remained below the “renewal level” of 2.1 children per woman, a threshold that is described in the data as the level needed for the population to replace itself in the long term.
Experts cited in the report warn that if this pattern continues, the country’s fertility could even fall below the European Union average.
TurkStat Vice President Furkan Metin told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the fall in fertility has already changed the country’s demographic profile. He said Türkiye was a very young country in the 1990s and compared it to “a 20-year-old” at that time.
Metin noted that Türkiye has now entered the group of “very old countries” in demographic terms, adding that if the decline in births continues at the current pace, the country’s median age could rise above 45 within about 40 years. He warned that “the energy of a 45-year-old Türkiye will not be the same as that of Türkiye in the 1990s, when it was in its early twenties.”
He argued that the country is already in the middle of a serious population crisis and cautioned that if the drop in fertility continues for another decade, Türkiye could move onto a path from which there is no way back.
As the share of older people increases, he said, the proportion of the population over 65 could exceed 25% over the next 25 years, which would put heavy pressure on the social security system and make it difficult for the system to continue in its current form.
Metin also pointed to social and medical factors that he believes make it harder for families to have more children.
He said Türkiye has one of the highest cesarean section birth rates in the world and argued that people are marrying later and often having children via cesarean, which makes it difficult for many couples to go beyond two or three children even if they would like to.
He warned that people who remain single or have only one child may face a high risk of loneliness in later life. Drawing on recent fieldwork, Metin said that “when we knock on doors today, in one out of every five households a single person is living alone,” and that around 35% of these single residents are women over 55.
Metin said the importance of the family becomes more visible at older ages, yet any regret about not having children at that stage no longer changes outcomes. He underlined that Türkiye is now approaching the same kind of aging-related challenges that many European countries have experienced.
Cemalettin Sahin, Dean of the Naval Academy at the National Defence University (MSU), told Anadolu Agency that the current demographic problems did not emerge overnight but have been building up over at least two decades.
The 1930 Public Hygiene Law, a public health law, included a provision granting medals and financial support to mothers with six or more children and banning voluntary abortions. Sahin said these measures brought some success in raising the population.
Sahin noted that by the late 1950s, the direction of policy had shifted. He said newspapers led campaigns calling for a population reduction, and outside foundations and associations also became involved in programs to “plan” Türkiye’s population.
According to Sahin’s account, a report on population was prepared for the Ministry of Health in 1963, and two years later the Population Planning Law was adopted. He stated that “all available means” were then used to reduce the pace of population growth.
Sahin argued that the long-term effects of these policies, combined with more recent social changes, contribute to the ageing trend that the country is now confronting.
Looking at today’s policy options, Sahin called for new regulations in population planning. He argued that housing design should be reconsidered, saying that small one-bedroom and two-bedroom flats—known locally as 1+1 and 2+1 apartments—have become “almost like prisons for children” and that the country’s housing culture needs to change.
He also said that the length of education should be re-examined and that the education system as a whole needs to be reviewed.
In his view, it is not accurate to say that people have fewer children only because of economic concerns.
He pointed out that if this were the only reason, “countries such as Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom and Germany would see their populations grow,” yet many wealthy countries are also struggling with low birth rates.
Sahin described the issue as a matter of culture rather than purely economics and stressed that he is not calling for unlimited population growth. At the same time, he said that Türkiye is “gradually becoming an ageing country” and claimed that the country already lacks enough workers to harvest its own hazelnuts, cotton and tea.
“Today, Türkiye is unfortunately deprived of the workforce to harvest its own hazelnuts, cotton and tea. Therefore the future does not look very good; a mobilization is needed,” he said.
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