The Minister of Family and Social Services, Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş, has warned about Turkey’s ageing population and the continuing decline in the birth rate, calling it a matter of “national survival”, while the latest data shows that half of the country’s families have no children.
As the minister was quoted by the daily Hürriyet as saying, “the demographic problem is a question related to the survival of our country. Today, 50% of households are childless. According to projections by the Turkish Statistical Institute, the number of children of primary school age will fall by 900,000 in the next five years. The weakening of the family institution is at the root of many of the problems we face today”.
Göktaş defended the government’s decision to declare 2025 as the ‘Year of the Family’ and criticised attempts to set the family against women’s rights, stressing that “those who praise one by undermining the other, actually weaken both. We completely reject the vision that tries to fit the family into ideological moulds,” she said in remarks made during a session of the Planning and Budget Committee of the Grand National Assembly (parliament), held to examine her ministry’s budget for 2026.
The minister also warned that the advance of individualism and growing social isolation are contributing to demographic decline, and said Turkey’s projected population decline cannot be explained by economic factors alone. “You cannot reduce this issue to income levels or employment rates,” she said. “All over the world, countries are taking measures to strengthen families,” she insisted.
“Women in this country will not return to the old days”
Göktaş also stressed that the government has in the last two decades removed barriers faced by women in areas such as education, healthcare, politics, academia or the arts. “The women of this country will not return to the old days of tutelage“, she assured, and recalled that the latest reforms of the Penal Code have toughened the crimes of violence, sexual harassment and sexual aggression, insisting that her Ministry will maintain a policy of “zero tolerance” towards these behaviours.
Although still at lower levels than neighbouring countries, especially in Western and Northern Europe, Turkey is facing an increasingly ageing population after the population over 65 exceeded 10% for the first time in its history. At the same time, while many Turkish families are choosing not to have children, the country’s divorce rate has soared to record levels after the pandemic, and the Turkish government is already considering measures such as psychological testing of couples before marriage to prevent future conflict leading to separation: it is estimated that 1 in 3 divorces in Turkey occur within the first 5 years of marriage.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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