Turkey leads Europe in youth population but aging concerns linger

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.<...