Children make up 26.9% of Turkiye's population

Children made up 26.9 per cent of Turkiye’s population in 2021, down from 27.2 per cent in 2019, official figures showed today.

There were 22.74 million children in Turkiye in 2021, of an overall population of 84.7 million, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.

“According to population projections, the proportion of child population was expected to be 26.6% in 2025, 25.6% in 2030, 23.3% in 2040, 20.4% in 2060 and 19% in 2080,” it added.

The ratio was 48.5 per ent in 1970, 41.8 per cent in 1990 and 35.2 per cent in 2000.

“The EU average proportion of child population was 18.2% in 2021,” TurkStat said.

The EU country with the highest proportion of children was Ireland with 23.9 per cent, and the lowest was Italy with 15.8 per cent.

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The child dependency ratio — the number of children in the 0-14 age group per 100 persons in the 15-64 age group – was recorded at 33 per cent in Turkiye as of the end of last year.

Last year, the completion rate for primary education was 93.2 per cent, for lower secondary education 88.9 per cent, and for upper secondary education 87.9 per cent.

The proportion of legal child marriages for girls and boys aged 16 and 17 within the total legal marriages were 2.1 per cent and 0.1 per cent, respectively.

While the labour force participation rate in the 15-17 cohort was 16.4 per cent in 2021, this ratio was 22.8 per cent for boys and 9.5 per cent for girls.