Values shift from health to money among Turkish youth

ISTANBUL

An annual compilation of surveys among the Turkish youth has indicated a slight shift in values from health and success to money and love, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) said on May 17. 

As Turkey is prepared to mark the Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day on May 19, TÜİK released youth statistics compiled from censuses, surveys and administrative registers.

According to the results of the Address Based Population Registration System (ABPRS), the youth population in the age group of 15-24 was 12.97 million - 15.3 percent of the total population.

The results of a life satisfaction survey showed that the proportion of young people saying that they were happy was 44.5 percent in 2021, down from 47.2 percent in the previous year. This proportion was 38.2 percent for young men, while it was 51 percent for young women in 2021.

“Health ranked first with 45.1 percent among the values that were the source of happiness for young people in 2021,” TÜİK said. However, the proportion of young people pointing to “health” as the main source of happiness decreased by 2.9 percentage points from the previous year.

The proportion of young women prioritizing “health” for happiness dropped dramatically from 54.4 percent in 2020 to 47.4 percent last year.

Among both sexes, the rate of “success” as a value opening the doors to happiness decreased from 24.6 percent in the previous year to 22.9 percent in 2021.

From 15.6 percent in 2020, the weight of “love” rose to 16.9 percent last year.

Around 10.7 percent of young people chose “money” as the main source of happiness last year, compared to 7 percent in 2020. This rate rose from 3 to 7.7 percent among young women and 10.7 to 13.5 percent among young men year on year.

Nearly 76 percent of young people were satisfied with their jobs, but only 42.3 percent of them were satisfied with their income received from their jobs in 2021.

When the youth population was examined by legal marital status, it was seen that there was a significant difference between sexes. Slightly more than 96 percent of young men were never married, 3.8 percent of them were formally married and 0.1 percent of them were divorced. It was seen that 84.9 percent of young women were never married, 14.7 percent of them were formally married and 0.4 percent of them were divorced in 2021.

According to the population projections, the proportion of youth population was expected to decrease to 14.3 percent by 2025, 14.0 percent in 2030, 13.4 percent in 2040, 11.8 percent in 2060 and 11.1 percent in 2080.

The proportion of Turkey’s youth population at 15.3 percent was higher than that of 27 European Union (EU) member countries, average of 10.6 percent.

When the proportions of youth population across the 27 EU member countries were analyzed, the countries with the highest proportion of youth population were Ireland (12.6 percent), Greek Cyprus and Denmark (12.3 percent). The EU countries with the lowest proportion of youth population were Bulgaria and Czechia with 9.0 percent, then Latvia with 9.2 percent.