Although the number has decreased since 2007, youth (people between the ages of 15 and 24) still made up 15.4% of Turkey’s total population in 2020, the country’s statistical authority announced on May 17. Despite the decline, the country continues to hold the title of being the youngest nation in Europe.
As of the end of 2020, 12.89 million of the total population of 83.61 million people fall into the youth category, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute's (TurkStat) statement
The youth population ratio, which was 16.1% at the end of 2017, has decreased each year since to the now current 15.4%.
According to population projections, the ratio of youth in the total population is expected to decrease to 14.3% in 2025, 14% in 2030, 13.4% in 2040, 11.8% in 2060 and 11.1% in 2080.
The countries with the highest youth populations among European Union member countries after Turkey are the Greek Cypriot administration and Ireland at 12.7% each, while the lowest are Bulgaria at 8.8% and the Czech Republic at 9%.
The ratio of young men to young women in Turkey was 51.3% to 48.7% in 2020, data showed.
The ratio of the youth population varies among Turkey's provinces. While the southeastern provinces hold the highest ratio, the coastal cities had the lowest. Twenty-three percent of the total population of Hakkari, a southeastern province, consists of young people. Two other southeastern cities, Şırnak and Siirt, follow with 22.5% and 21.8%, respectively.
The list ends in the Aegean province Muğla, located in southwestern Turkey, at 12.5%, narrowly edging out the northernmost city, Sinop, which has a youth population of 12.8%.
According to the research conducted between 2017-2019, life expectancy at birth was 78.6 years for Turkey on average, broken down into 75.9 years for men and 81.3 years for women.
The statement of TurkStat highlighted some significant differences between the two genders on legal marital status. As of 2020, 96.1% of the young male population had never married, 3.8% were married and 0.1% had already divorced. The marriage rate increased to 15.5% among the female youth population, while 84.1% were never married and 0.4% had already divorced.
The statistics also looked at the rate of happiness. Nearly half of the youth population of Turkey, 47.2%, said they were happy, a marked decrease from 56.7% in 2019.
The source of happiness among the youth came from three major factors, with 48% saying health was the primary factor for happiness, whereas 24.6% said success and 15.6% said love.
