Figures released ahead of the Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day, a national holiday marked on May 19, show there are fewer people to genuinely celebrate it now as Turkey is gradually aging. Still, numbers are ahead of European Union countries, the Turkish Statistical Institute (Turkstat), which published the statistics on Tuesday, said.

Young people, or those between the ages of 15 and 24, made up 15.3% of the population in 2021, a considerable decline from 17.4% in 2008. Projections by TurkStat shows their proportion will further decrease to 14.3% in 2025 and more in the following decades. A little solace for the nation is that the current percentage is ahead of the EU average of 10.6%.

The highest proportion of the youth population is in the southeastern province of Hakkari, at 22.8%, ahead of neighboring Şırnak. The two provinces usually score high in statistics on fertility rates and the number of children. Muğla, the southwestern city popular among holidaymakers and pensioners, had the lowest rate of youth population at 12.3%, ahead of Tunceli and Balıkesir.

Some 31.1% of the youth population was in the age group between 20 and 22, according to TurkStat.

The statistics on youth employment and education also highlight the need to get young people into either. The proportion of young people who took part in neither education nor employment was 24.7%.

The employment rate of young people increased to 32.2% in 2021 and more than 51% were employed in the service sector.

A life satisfaction survey added to the statistics shows the rate of young people declaring their happiness dropped to 44.5% in 2021 from 47.2% in 2020. More than half of happy young people were women. The employed youth were mostly satisfied with their jobs, at a rate of 76%, though only 42.3% of them were fine with their income.