Turkey’s elderly population rises to over 7M in 2018

ANKARA

Turkey's elderly population reached nearly 7.2 million as of end of 2018, the country’s statistical authority said on Monday.

TurkStat said the figure grew by 16 percent over the past five years, up from around 6.2 million in 2014.

"While the proportion of the elderly population in the total population was 8 percent in 2014, it increased to 8.8 percent in 2018.

"44.1 percent of elderly population was males and 55.9 percent was females in 2018," the institute said.

The proportion of elderly population in Turkey is expected to be 12.9 percent in 2030, 16.3 percent in 2040, 22.6 percent in 2060 and 25.6 percent in 2080.

The official figures revealed that the number of centenarians which constituted 0.1 percent of elderly population was 5,202 in 2018.

TurkStat said the elderly dependency ratio was 12.9 percent last year, up from 11.8 percent in 2014.

"Elderly dependency ratio means that the number of elderly persons per hundred persons in working age," it said.

This ratio is expected to be 19.6 percent in 2030, 25.3 percent in 2040, 37.5 percent in 2060 and 43.6 percent in 2080.

TurkStat also noted that 9.1 percent of the world population was elderly population last year.

"The three countries that had highest proportion of elderly population were Monaco with 33.2 percent, Japan with 28.4 percent and Germany with 22.4 percent, respectively.

"Turkey was in the 66th rank among 167 countries," it added.