As Türkiye prepares to mark International Day for Older Persons on Oct. 1, the elderly population is expected to increase among the general public in the coming decades. Professor Ismet Koç, director of the Institute of Population Studies at Hacettepe University, says the rate of elderly persons in the general population will rise to 20% from 10% in 2050, citing that Türkiye was heading toward what "Western European countries have gone through" in terms of aging trends.

The country, which has boasted a young population since the foundation of the republic in the 1920s, now shares the fate of Europe, something, ironically, the result of better living conditions. Indeed, reforms in public health care and improved welfare levels, along with longer life expectancy contribute to the aging trend, according to experts.

The institute at Hacettepe University recently released a study on population indicators. Koç said Türkiye gained momentum in the rise of its population between the early years of the republic and the end of the 1950s, when the population doubled, from around 13 million in the 1920s, in the aftermath of World War I and the War of Independence. In 1985, the population exceeded 50 million for the first time and as of February, it has reached more than 84 million.

"Türkiye is in the process of aging, though this is not something very independent of current population trends in the world," Koç told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Friday. "Indeed, all countries are in a stage where fertility rates decreased and life expectancy at birth increased," he highlighted. He added that the trend started dominating Türkiye at a later date than others. "We still have a high fertility rate inherited from the past though it significantly decreased in recent years. Births per woman averaged five in the 1970s but it is now below 2," he noted, adding that aging trends have gained momentum since the 1990s. "We are slowly losing our young and dynamic population. Replacement level fertility (for population growth and a younger population) is below the reasonable 2.1 children. The Turkish population cannot be replaced anymore," he said.

Growing life expectancy may be good for people, but Koç notes that about 80% of the population lives to the age of 80 and "survives" parallel with improvements in health care resources. "Life expectancy was around 65 in the 1970s, and it is now 81. The average lifetime for citizens increased by about 20 years," he stressed. Back then, it was projected that Türkiye would reach a population of 100 million around 2020, "when the women could give birth an average of five children." "But our projections show reaching 100 million population is not possible anymore. It can happen only if the fertility rate significantly increases, for instance, to the average of 2.5 births. Yet, we still see there is a potential that births may drop," he warned.

"Türkiye is currently in the third stage of demographical transformation," he said, describing two earlier stages as high fertility rate coupled with high mortality rate and low mortality rates and relatively high fertility. "The third stage means a drop in both rates. Western European populations completed the first stage and they now have an elderly population between 20% and 25%. It is currently around 10% in Türkiye but it will be 20% in 2050," he said. But there is still hope according to Koç to boost the fertility rate but it will require "important incentives and investments," noting European countries so far failed to increase the fertility rate despite measures. "Since the 1990s, Türkiye adapted to the practice of having at least two children but nowadays, couples are more often opting to have one child. In the near future, the Turkish population will resemble the European population more in having one child per household and will lose a dynamic, young population," he warned.

The aging population is a concern for the country, which strives to achieve economic growth. The government balances the promotion of births with more care for the elderly. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan champions larger households, as evident in his famous advice to newlyweds to "have at least three children" while under his tenure, the country improved living conditions for the elderly and home care of senior citizens.

The discrimination of elderly

The elderly are widely respected in Turkish society, something rooted in centuries-old Turkish culture and Islam, which orders respect for the faithful. Yet, experts say elderly citizens are still subject to discrimination, something which became more visible at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic when they were confined to their homes. Senex, an association for aging studies that conducted a study on discrimination senior citizens faced, found an average of 194 cases of violence and negligence toward the elderly in Türkiye every month by August 2022, while this number was 170 monthly in 2021.

Seçil Büker, a retired professor from Gazi University, says she is witnessing the discrimination in daily life, with the society unaware of the discrimination they harbored toward the elderly. "Elderly people are almost treated like pets, something that will distract, entertain people, an object rather than a human being. They are treated like children as well. When I did something ordinary that is not normally viewed as a feat for younger people in the society, they are amazed, just like when they are amazed at seeing children doing ordinary things grownups can do for the first time," she told AA. "Ageism, as it was called by Dr. Robert Butler in 1969, is not a very old notion but it became more visible, especially during the pandemic," she said.

Büker, 75, says some people think the elderly do not "deserve" to do things younger people can do. "I used to watch plays a few times a week before the pandemic but was confined at home. I was surprised when a friend told me that I 'did enough' in the past and should not go to theater any longer," she said. "People tend to forget that the elderly have a social identity and each one is different. They believe the elderly cannot have a sexual life, cannot travel as much as young people, cannot dress like the youth, even cannot apply makeup like younger women do," she complained. She said ageism is discriminatory, with elderly from different backgrounds exposed to different sets of rights violations. "Educated elderly people with a relatively higher income face prejudice while uneducated, poorer elderly people are exposed to violence," she says.

Professor Mutlu Binark, from Hacettepe University's Faculty of Communications, said ageism manifested itself in Türkiye as "making the elderly a subject of humor" and "driving them out of public venues by acting like their parents." "We witnessed it in the pandemic, with elderly people going out (amid curfews imposed to protect them from infections) being chased away by people. Some municipalities even set up hotlines so that citizens could alert authorities about the elderly violating curfews," she said. Binark says the pandemic also weakened bonds between young and elderly people, driving up intolerance among the youth toward the elderly.

Binark says the elderly also faced challenges in terms of employment after they retire. "They want to go back to work but they have to contend with average jobs as they do not have new skills and thus, they earn less. They also face prejudice as they are viewed as taking up jobs the unemployed youth are viewed as entitled to do," she said. Binark also pointed out that the majority of the elderly in Türkiye were women and most of them do not have a fixed income, while elderly men had more options for employment. "The income can protect them a little against ageism but women are more dependent on others if they have no income," she added.

Associate professor Özgür Arun, a founding member of Senex, says the biggest challenge in the demographic transformation process of Türkiye was "getting old and impoverished." "When the elderly cannot generate income, they are more exposed to ageism and violence. It is especially worse for elderly women without any children," Arun, who conducted studies on aging for nearly two decades, told AA. Women are more disadvantaged, Arun says, pointing out that the number of illiterate women is "three times higher than illiterate men" in Türkiye. "You can find illiterate elderly women in every region in Türkiye and in some places, they don't even have an ID. We came across an 84-year-old woman in one study and she lived without an ID throughout her life and her children did not know it. She missed all the opportunities an ID could give her throughout her life, like proper access to health care, education and was deprived of her most basic right: the right to vote," Arun said.

Arun also complained about "the language" the media outlets adopted in Türkiye while covering stories about the elderly. "In the pandemic, they were treated as dangerous as the virus itself by the media. The media outlets also tend to portray them as unwitting victims most of the time when they are victims of a crime, rather than an unbiased approach," Arun added.

Senex's monthly reports on ageism and crimes against the elderly show half of the cases of violations in 2021 ended up with deaths of the elderly.