Turkey’s ageing population 'set to increase'

ANKARA

Turkey's population, like that of most developing countries, is ageing as a result of increasing life expectancy.

The elderly population of Turkey constitutes 7.7 percent of the nation's total population in 2013, whereas it was 7.5 percent in 2012, according to statistics released by the Turkish Statistics Institute on Wednesday.

Turkey ranked 91st in the world among the countries with the highest proportion of elderly in 2012.  

The three countries with the highest levels were Japan with 24.4 percent, Germany with 21.1 percent and Italy with 20.8 percent. 

The institute said: "It is expected that this proportion will rise to 10.2 percent in 2023, 20.8 percent in 2050 and 27.7 percent in 2075 according to population projections."

- 'Too old'

The U.N. classes as "old" a population with a proportion of elderly being between 8 percent and 10 percent, while those countries with populations over 10 percent are classified as "too old." 

According to the population projections, Turkey will be among the countries which have a "too old" population by 2023.

Turkey's elderly population has a higher growth rate than those of other age groups.

While the growth rate of the total population in Turkey was 1.37 percent in 2013, the rate was almost triple that figure at 3.62 percent for the elderly.

The number of elderly people who were needed to be taken care of per 100 working people was 11 in the last year, but is expected to be 19 by 2030.

The old age dependency ratio is the number of elderly persons per 100 working people.

- Important income

Turkey's median age in 2013 was 30.4, the median age for the world's population was 29.4 in the same year.

The first three countries in the world that had the highest median age were Monaco with 50.5, Japan with 45.8 and Germany with 45.7, respectively.

The most important income source of the elderly was "social transfers."

While the proportion of people who benefit from social transfers was 74.7 percent in 2011, this proportion was 76.6 percent in 2012. This proportion was 71.8 percent for elderly men and 86.3 percent for elderly women.

The proportion of elderly population that benefits from old-age and widow-orphan pensions was 75.5 percent.

While the proportion of elderly men who benefit from old-age and widow-orphan pensions was 70.7 percent, this proportion was 85 percent for elderly women.

- Source of happiness

The important source of happiness for elderly women and men was their families.

The second source was their children -- at 22.3 percent for elderly women and 9.4 percent for elderly men.

Separately, the Turkish Statistics Institute said on January 2014 that the country's population increased in 2013 by 1,040,480 people, reaching 76,667,864 -- an increase of 1.37 percent on the previous year.

Males made up 50.2 percent (38,473,360) of the total population, while 49.8 percent (38,194,504) were female. 

There are 51,926,356 people in Turkey between the ages of 15 and 64 -- 67.6 percent of the total population.

The population between the ages of 0 and 14 totaled 18,849,814 while people aged 60 and older make up 7.7 percent, or 5,891,694 people.

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