Turkey’s elderly population on rise, figures show

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s elderly population has risen by 22.5 percent over the past five years, according to statistics released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) on March 18.

TÜİK stated that the population of people over the age of 65 in Turkey had risen to 7.95 million in 2020, up from 6.49 million in 2015.

The proportion of the elderly population in terms of the total population was 9.5 percent in 2020, up from 8.2 percent in 2015.

Some 44.2 percent of the elderly population was made up of men and 55.8 percent of women.

The elderly dependency ratio, made up of the number of elderly people per hundred people of working age, was 14.1 percent in 2020, up from 12.2 percent in 2015.

The province with the highest proportion of elderly people in 2020 was the Black Sea province of Sinop with 19.8 percent.

Sinop was followed by the northern province of Kastamonu with 18.6 percent and the Black Sea province of Artvin with 17.1 percent.

The province with the lowest proportion of elderly people was the southeastern province of Şırnak with 3.4 percent, followed by the southeastern province of Hakkâri with 3.6 percent and Şanlıurfa with 4.0 percent.

Meanwhile, in 2019 there were 5,780 centenarians in Turkey.

The top three provinces with the highest number of centenarians were Istanbul, with 800, the capital Ankara, with 267, and the Aegean province of İzmir, with 262.

The three provinces with the lowest number of centenarians were the northern province of Bayburt, with five, the northern province of Bartın, and the northeastern province of Ardahan, six each.

On average, for people aged 65 in Turkey, the average remaining life span is 18 years, 16.3 years for men, and 19.6 years for women.

In other words, women are expected to live 3.3 years longer than men on average.

The figures reveal that 1.47 million elderly people live alone in Turkey. According to the statistics, 75.3 percent of the elderly people living alone were women, and 24.7 percent were men.

According to the results of the life satisfaction survey, the proportion of individuals aged 18 and over who declared to be happy was 52.4 percent, compared to 58.6 percent for individuals aged 65 and over.

When the general happiness level of the elderly is examined by gender, 56.1 percent of men and 59.0 percent of women stated that they were happy.

According to the results announced by TÜİK, 64.7 percent of the employed elderly population is in agriculture, 28.1 percent in the services sector, 5.3 percent in the industry sector, and 1.9 percent in the construction sector.

The figures show that while the proportion of individuals in the 65-74 age group using the internet was 5.6 percent in 2015, this rate increased to 27.1 percent in 2020.