Turkey’s revised average rate of births shows that as of 2019 the fertility rate dropped sharply from 2.069 babies per woman to 1.88, Guven Sak, a columnist at Hurriyet Daily News has noted.

He wrote: “Sixty years ago, Turkey’s fertility rate was about three times higher than that of Sweden. Yes, in 1960, the fertility rate was 2.17 in Sweden and 6.41 in Turkey. This meant that Turkey’s fertility rate was above the world average of five children per woman. At that time, only about 30 percent of Turks were living in urban areas.

“As of last year, the Turkish fertility rate is very close to the Swedish rate of 1.76 and is lower than the world average today. The fertility rate in the EU-27 was 1.55 in 2018, which means that Turkey is not too far off from the bloc as a whole either.”

In the last 60 years, observed Sak, Turkey has turned into an industrial country and its urbanisation rate is now higher than 75%. “Turkey’s economic transformation has meant that people chose to have fewer children, but wanted more opportunity for the ones they did have,” he added.

In 2002, when the ruling party AKP first came to power, Turkey’s fertility rate was already 2.4 and below the world average, said Sak. “That downward trend continued seamlessly in the last 18 years, despite frequent calls by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to have at least three kids (a mantra he repeats at every wedding he presides over). Turkey’s population is still changing with internal and recently international migration. When families move from Sanlıurfa, a province where the fertility rate is still 3.89, to Istanbul, their average birth rates decline drastically,” he also noted.

Sak concluded: “The Turkish demographic convergence with Europe continues despite political calls for larger families. When it comes to what’s happening on the ground, economic reality continues to cut across the political soundtrack. Conservatives who want larger families are in a tough spot. They could either manage the economy well, which would mean that people naturally don’t want as many children, or they could manage it badly, and people won’t be able to afford as many children. Either way, Turkey converges with Europe on some of the most basic social indicators.”