Demography and immigration/emigration

Abstract

Turkey has been undergoing a demographic transition since the early twentieth century. Ingeneral terms, this transition has witnessed a shift from a regime of high and uncontrolled levels ofmortality and fertility to one of low and controlled levels (Behar, 2006; TÜSI.AD, 1999; SIS,1995). Moreover, the transition has also been characterized by increasing mobility of peoplewithin and across the country’s borders, and by changes in the size and age structure of thepopulation. Changes to Turkey’s population structure have given rise to social and policychallenges that have yet to be fully resolved (Aks ̧it, 2007; Toros, 1993). During thefirst three-quarters of the twentieth century, rapid demographic growth resulted from a sharp decline inmortality due to the expansion of health services, the low cost of importing effective medicine,and a pronatalist policy that sought to populate the national territory (Tauber, 1958). Growth wasespecially rapid between 1950 and 1975, when the population increased by over 2.5 percent peryear (MoH, HIPS and DHS Macro, 1995). However, Turkey experienced a rapid decline infertility during the last quarter of the twentieth century, largely because of new population control policies adopted in the early 1960s and strengthened in the 1980s. At 2010, the annual rate of population growth was less than 1.5 percent (Koçet al., 2010).