Turkish families get smaller, figures show

SİİRT - Hürriyet Daily News

A group of students at a school in the eastern province of Kars celebrate the start of the mid-term holiday after receiving their reports. DHA photo

The average size of Turkish families is getting smaller as the shrinkage is accompanied by a fall in unemployment, according to a regional official of TÜİK, the state-run statistics body.

The size of a Turkish family fell to 3.8 people in 2011 from 4.5 in 2000, said Yavuz Uyar, the regional director of TÜİK in an area covering Siirt, Batman, Şırnak and Mardin. Uyar said the size in his region had dropped to 6.9 in 2011 from 7.7 in 2000.

These are among Turkey’s least developed and poorest provinces.
The statements come amid the government’s renewed pushes to increase the number of children that couples have.

During a wedding ceremony in the southeastern province of Gaziantep on Jan. 20, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told citizens to have more than three children for economic growth.

“One child means bankruptcy for the country, two means skidding. Three children are okay, but we need four to five to carry the country forward,” the prime minister said.

There is a sharp narrowing in the size of families in the given region even it is limited in Şırnak, Uyar told Anatolia news agency.

The general outlook on families in the country usually consists of parents and one child, while the number of children increases to around four in this region, Uyar added.

Unemployment falls
Unemployment in this specific region dropped to 11.8 percent in 2010 from 14 percent in 2009, he said, noting that the regional figures for 2011 had not been made public yet.