Children make up 28 percent of Turkey’s population

ANKARA

New data shows children, ages 0-17, made up 28 percent of Turkey’s population in 2018.

About 22.9 million of the country’s total population of 82 million were children at the end of 2018, according to the Address Based Population Registration System (ABPRS) released by Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) on April 18.

While that percentage is high compared with other European countries, Turkey follows the European trend of children declining as a proportion of the overall population.

Children constituted 48.5 percent of the total population in 1970, decreased to 41.8 percent in 1990 and was down to 28 percent in 2018.

The child population is projected to be 23.3 percent in 2040, 20.4 percent in 2060 and 19 percent in 2080.

Şanlıurfa province tops in child population rate

The southeastern Turkish province of Şanlıurfa had the highest proportion of children in 2018 at 46.3 percent, followed by another southeastern province of Şırnak with 43.9 percent and eastern province of Ağrı with 42.5 percent.

The three provinces with the lowest proportion of children were the eastern province of Tunceli with 16.7 percent, the northwestern provinces of Edirne with 18.1 percent and Kırklareli with 18.7 percent.

According to the results of national education statistics, the net schooling ratio at primary school level was 91.5 percent in the 2017-18 education year. When the net schooling ratio was compared by gender, there was no significant difference in school attendance between sexes.

The proportion of legal child marriages for girls declined

Cost of education was cited as the most frequent problem in Turkish education, according to the results of a life satisfaction survey.

About 44.2 percent of people in public schools and 60.4 percent in private schools identified cost as problematic for them.

The percentage of marriages involving girls ages 16-18 that were approved by the court or permitted by parents declined from 5.8 percent of all marriages in 2014 to 3.8 percent in 2018.

The labor force participation rate was 21.1 percent

More teenagers, ages 15-17, participated in the labor force in 2018. The rate was 21.1 percent compared with 20.3 percent in 2017, according to the household labor force survey.

When the labor force participation rate was analyzed by gender, the rate was 30 percent for boys and 11.8 percent for girls in 2018. In 2017, the rate was 28.5 percent for boys and 11.8 percent for girls.