Turkey's 'Year of the Family'
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2025
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Turkey is facing a growing global problem: a declining birth rate. The number of babies being born reached an all-time low in 2024, of 1.48 children born per woman - that’s well below the replacement level of 2.10.
The country's President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is calling the drop in fertility rate "a disaster" and has declared 2025 the "Year of the Family", promising incentives for parents.
President Erdoğan is focusing on saving traditional family values, which he says are under threat, and is encouraging women to have at least three children. However, many in Turkey say it is the faltering economy - with inflation at around 35% - that is making it impossible to grow their families.
If you'd like to get in touch with the programme, you can email us: [email protected] Presented and produced by Emily Wither with Zeynep Bilginsoy
(Picture: A mother holds her baby during a visit to Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Turkish Republic's Founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on National Sovereignty and Children's Day, a national holiday dedicated to children, in Ankara. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:05.9 | I'm Emily Wither. Today I'm in Turkey, a country that's economic growth was once driven by its young workforce. |
| 0:12.7 | Now, the nation is confronting a challenge faced by a number of other countries around the world, |
| 0:18.0 | an aging population and a falling birth rate. |
| 0:23.1 | She says she can't even imagine having two or three children. She'd have to quit her job. |
| 0:31.0 | Turkey's president, Red Chip Taip Erdogan, is calling the drop in the fertility rate. That's the |
| 0:35.8 | average number of babies born to a woman over |
| 0:38.3 | her lifetime, a disaster. He's declared 2025 the year of the family, promising incentives for parents. |
| 0:46.1 | We'll be asking, is it going to work? President Erdogan has long been advocating three children |
| 0:52.2 | per family, which given the economic conditions and the evolution |
| 0:56.3 | of the society, doesn't seem to resonate much. |
| 1:00.5 | Inflation is still sitting at around 35% and more families are struggling with deepening poverty. |
| 1:07.3 | Right now, families are having trouble accessing basic needs. |
| 1:12.6 | So how is Turkey going to convince its population to have more children when many families |
| 1:17.6 | are struggling to feed the ones they have? |
| 1:20.3 | That's coming up on Business Daily from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:28.4 | It's 8am on a windy Wednesday morning and I've come to a daycare centre in Istanbul |
| 1:33.5 | run by the municipality. |
| 1:35.6 | They operate over a hundred of these centres in the city, which are free or subsidised for families |
| 1:40.8 | who are finding it difficult to afford private nurseries. |
| 1:46.1 | Halime has just kissed goodbye to her four-year-old daughter Malek, |
| 1:49.9 | meaning Angel, before heading to the office. |
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