Turkey's fertility rate falling, top statistical authority reveals

Duvar English

The Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) revealed that the country's fertility rate, defined as the average number of kids per each woman who can have children, has decreased.

Defined as the average number of kids a woman between 15 and 49 could have, the fertility rate has dropped to 1.88 kids per woman, a number that was 2.38 in 2001.

The fertility rates of Turkey's provinces ranged from 3.89 kids per woman in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, to 1.33 kids per woman in the northern province of Gümüşhane.

However, Turkey's fertility rate remains above the average in Europe, as France rates the highest with 1.88 kids per woman, while the island of Malta ranks at the bottom with 1.23 kids per woman.

Some 1,183,652 babies were born alive in Turkey in 2019, 48.7 percent of which were female, and 51.3 of which were male.

The number of live births per 1000 persons was 14.3 in 2019, a number that was 20.3 in 2001.

The average number of births per 1,000 persons in Turkey was still higher than the average of the European Union, where the country with the highest number was Ireland with 12.5 births per 1,000 persons.

The average age of becoming a mother increased in Turkey in 2019, when the giving birth were an average 28.9 years old.

The rate of pregnancies among adolescents aged 15 to 19 fell to 1.7 percent in 2019, a number that was much higher at 4.9 percent in 2001.

European Union members states' adolescent pregnancy rates range from 3.9 percent in Bulgaria to .02 percent in Denmark.