Birth rate declining in Turkey: Report

ISTANBUL

A recent report by Turkey’s statistical authority has revealed a trend of declining birth rates in the country.

Nearly 1.12 million new births were registered in 2020, down from 1.18 million the year before, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) announced on May 18.

According to TÜİK, 51.3 percent of babies born last year were boys, while 48.7 percent were girls.

The birth rate in 2019 was 1.88 percent, but it was 1.76 percent last year, indicating that the ratio remained below the population’s replacement level of 2.10 percent, according to TÜİK.

The birth rate was 2.38 percent in 2001 and steadily decreased to 1.76 percent in 2020, the data showed.

However, the country’s overall birth rate was stated higher than that of 27 EU member countries.

The highest overall birth rate in 2019 was 1.86 percent in France, while the lowest was 1.14 percent in Malta.

According to the data, women’s peak fertility ages of 20-24 in 2001 migrated to an older age group of 25-29 in 2020.

This meant that the peak years of women’s fertility were held to an older age.

The average age of women giving birth was 29 last year, up from 28.9 the previous year.

Şanlıurfa had the highest overall birth rate in 2020 at 3.71 percent, followed by Şırnak at 3.22 percent, Ağrı at 2.88 percent and Siirt at 2.88 percent – all provinces in Turkey’s east or southeast.

The province with the lowest overall birth rate was Karabük in the Black Sea region at 1.29 percent, followed by another Black Sea province of Zonguldak and the western province of Kütahya, with each at 1.31 percent.