Declining Turkish Birth Rates Alarm Erdogan
The Turkish government is putting forward new family-planning initiatives in the context of a declining birth rate and Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan's opposition to abortion, writes Sibel Utku Bila.
ANKARA — For more than a decade, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has enjoyed unwavering support for his vision of a grand Turkey, winning three elections in a row and two key referendums. But one cause he has fervently championed is falling on deaf ears: Turks are refusing to make more babies.
Himself a father of four, Erdogan has urged married couples to have at least three children, pushing his message bluntly on every platform — from casual chats and wedding ceremonies to party meetings and diplomatic occasions. Arguing that a larger, youthful population will help propel Turkey into the world’s top 10 economies, he has vilified past policies of “family planning” and made bizarre warnings of plots “to wipe the Turkish nation off the global stage.” Recently, he has upped the bar even higher, calling for four or five children.
But Erdogan’s hopes for a baby boom took a heavy blow on Jan. 28 when the statistics institute announced that Turkey’s birth rate had fallen to an all-time low of 0.12% in 2012. The figure means that the average number of births per woman is now two, down from 4.33 in 1978. The population still increased to 75.6 million last year, but its median age crept over 30 for the first time.
The premier must have been truly alarmed. Only two days later, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said he had received instructions from Erdogan to create a task force to outline measures to reverse the trend, stressing that the issue was now a top government priority.
