Turkey's population is getting older and experts are warning that the country must prepare to meet this upcoming challenge.A decline in fertility, improved longevity and regression in the population growth rate... Turkey is facing the risk of having an aged population in the decades to come.Figures released in late January by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) revealed that Turkey's population reached almost 77.7 million in 2014, an increase of over 1 million compared to 2013.However, the annual rate of increase in the population regressed to 1.33 percent in 2014, down from 1.37 percent in 2013, the country's statistics authority said."There have been worries about the ageing population in Turkey in recent years," said Umut Çınar, the head of the World Association of Old Age."Like most developing countries, Turkey's population is ageing due to increasing longevity, a decline in fertility rates plus urbanization," he claimed.When asked if Turkey is prepared for such a shift in demographics, Çınar said: "Neither Turkey nor the rest of the world is ready for an aged population."TÜİK said that Turkey's elderly population constituted 7.7 percent of the nation's total in 2013.The ageing proportion of the population in Turkey is expected by the U.N. to rapidly increase to 10.2 percent in 2023, 20.8 percent in 2050 and 27.7 percent in 2075, according to population projections, placing it among the group of countries with a population considered by the U.N. to be "too old" by 2023.The U.N. considers a country at or under the threshold of 7 percent of a population at 65 or older as "aging."Professor İsmail Tufan, who has been carrying out a 23-year project named The Gerontology Atlas of Turkey since 2000, wrote in the First Gerontology Report of Turkey that all policies specifically targeting the aged also concern the rest of the population.According to Çınar, an aged population means a shrinking number of working age individuals, later retirement ages and pressure on the retirement system. "A young population is an economic power and an old population means new policies regarding the healthcare systems and the pension regime," he said.In Turkey, the most significant problem of the aged population is economics, with many older people having financial difficulties."The number of aged people who are deprived of social insurance exceeded 2 million in Turkey, which is 33 percent of the aged population," Tufan said."However, population figures are very significant for future policy making. We can only design healthier policies by determining current population trends and predicting the future population structure," Çınar pointed out.He added: "President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is right in his evaluation because Turkey could be late in its efforts to boost the fertility rate."Erdoğan regularly calls for families to have at least three children. "Three children helps restore the population, which is at risk of aging," Erdoğan said in 2013.Pointing to Japan as the best example of an old-age country, Çınar said: "Imagine that 25 percent of the total population is over 65, and that the other 50 percent is the working-age population. Then what would happen to all those old people? Who would take care of them?""We should keep a close watch on Japan, as Turkish society in the near future could face the problem of an ageing population as has been witnessed there," Çınar said.Japan, which has the oldest population in the world, turned into an "aged" nation from an "aging" one between 1970 and 1995 in just a quarter century. Its declining population is a direct result of the low fertility rate, now at 1.4 percent, which is far below the 2.1 percent needed to simply replace the existing population.The consequences of a falling population are already being felt throughout the country. The declining number of workers supporting older people on social security, for example, was the primary reason for the decision to increase the national sales tax to 8 percent, with most proceeds going to support social security, sending Japan into recession.House building and automobile sales, a traditional indicator of a healthy economy, are also increasingly being hit by aging. In many rural areas of Japan the problem is not the need to build new houses, but what to do with vacant ones.The problem of an ageing population seems to be just as dramatic in some European countries as in Japan.The U.N. rankings of ageing populations places Turkey 91st, relatively low compared to the top three: Japan with 24.4 percent, Germany with 21.1 percent and Italy with 20.8 percent.According to the U.N., the total fertility rate of 19 European countries for the 2005 to 2010 period is not more than 1.5, which is "too low." Seventeen of these 19 countries want to increase fertility. But Turkey is determined to tackle this looming problem by adopting reforms that include incentives to increase the fertility rate."To protect the population dynamics is not an ethical but a strategic aim for us," Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said, adding that the government would do its best to inspire families to have more children.