ISTANBUL 

Turkey's child population reached 22.9 million -- 28% percent of the total -- as of the end of 2018, the country’s statistical authority announced on Thursday.

Children under 17 constituted 48.5% of the total population in 1970 and 41.8% in 1990, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.

"According to the population projections, the proportion of the child population is foreseen to be 23.3% in 2040, 20.4% in 2060, and 19% in 2080," it added.

As of the end of 2018, this statistic was 18.7% in EU countries, while Ireland topped the bloc with 24.8%, followed by France and the U.K. which recorded a ratio of children of 21.2% and 21.1%, respectively.

"The countries having the lowest proportion of the child population were Italy with 16.2%, Germany with 16.4% and Malta with 16.6%, respectively," the report underlined.

91.5% net schooling ratio

The ratio child dependency -- the number of children in the 0-14 age group per 100 persons at the 15-64 age group – was recorded at 34.5% in Turkey as of the end of last year.

"It is foreseen that the child dependency ratio will decrease to 33.5% in 2023, 28.7% in 2050 and 26.7% in 2080," TurkStat said.

Stressing that the net schooling ratio at primary school level was 91.5% in the last year, the institute noted that there was no significant difference in the number of girls and boys.

The proportion of legal child marriages for girls aged between 16 and 17 within total legal marriages dropped to 3.8% in 2018, from 5.8% in 2014.

While the labor force participation rate in the 15-17 cohort was 21.1% in 2018, this ratio was 30% for boys and 11.8% for girls.