Turkey leads Europe in youth population but aging concerns linger

ISTANBUL

Young people made up 15.4 percent of Turkey’s total population throughout 2020, the country’s statistical authority announced May 17, showing a slight decrease of 0.2 percentage points compared to the previous year.

Out of the total population of 83.61 million last year, 12.89 million people were aged between 15 and 24, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) said.

Stressing that this young population could drop in the coming decades, the institute estimated that the percent of young people could decrease to 14.3 percent in 2025, 14.0 percent in 2030, 13.4 percent in 2040 and 11.8 percent in 2060.

But the young population in Turkey is still higher than the young population of 27 member countries of the European Union.

The country with the highest youth population in 2020 was Greek Cyprus at 12.7 percent, while the country with the lowest youth population was Bulgaria at 8.8 percent, according to the young population rates in the 27 member states of the European Union.

Regarding the gender of the country’s youth population, the ratio of young men to young women was 51.3 percent to 48.7 percent in 2020, data showed.

The southeastern province of Hakkâri was the city with the highest youth population in 2020 at 23.4 percent, followed by another southeastern province of Şırnak at 22.5 percent and the eastern province of Siirt at 21.8 percent.

The provinces with the lowest youth population were the Aegean province of Muğla at 12.5 percent, the Black Sea province of Sinop at 12.8 percent and the Aegean province of Balıkesir at 12.8 percent, respectively.

When it came to working youth, the number showed that the unemployment rate among youth was 25.3 percent last year; 22.6 percent in men and 30.3 percent in women.

“When youth employment was analyzed by sectors, it was seen that 20.7 percent of young people were employed in the agriculture sector, 28.3 percent in the industrial sector and 51.0 percent of them were employed in the service sector,” TÜİK noted.

The statistics also highlighted the rate of happiness among the country’s young population.

Slightly less than half of the young people in Turkey (47.2 percent) said they were happy last year, down from 56.7 percent in 2019.

The institute added that health was the first value as a source of happiness for young people at 48.0 percent in 2020.

This was followed by success at 24.6 percent and love at 15.6 percent.

While 77.1 percent of young people were satisfied with their job, 59.5 percent of them said they were satisfied with the education they received.

Official figures also showed that 93 percent of the young population had internet access in 2020, up from 92.4 percent in 2019.