New article of Centre for Strategic Studies at Başkent University Fellow Prof. Dr. Michael Tanchum in The Turkiye Analyst:
The Greatest Challenge to Turkey's Rise as a Eurasian Power
Background: Turkey is starting to witness patterns of demographic decline resembling those experienced in the European Union (EU), where the death rate exceeds the birth rate by 32 percent and among the northeast Asian nations such as Japan, whose population is decreasing by over half a million people per year. The issue is not only population decline but the rapidly aging profile of Turkey’s population. Since 2001 when its total fertility rate was 2.38 children – healthily exceeding the replacement level of 2.1, Turkey has seen an astounding plummet in its fertility rate, declining to 1.48 in 2024. For comparison, the average fertility rate across the EU, last calculated in 2023, was 1.38, with eight of the 27 EU member states exceeding Turkey’s fertility rate and 19 member states with a lower fertility rate.
Prof. Dr. Michaël Tanchum
University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy (AIES), Senior Fellow
Energy and Economics Program, Middle East Institute (MEI), Associate Fellow
NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Fellow
Centre for Strategic Studies at Başkent University, Ankara, Turkey (Başkent-SAM), Fellow
