MHP presents 11-point report on “Turkey’s Population Vision”

The Nationalist Movement Party has presented an 11-point report warning that Turkey’s falling fertility rate and aging population represent a national survival problem. Deputy Chairman Özgür Bayraktar said the party’s Research and Strategy Development Unit had submitted the report to MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli.

The document argues that a state’s strength and a nation’s permanence depend not only on underground resources or military technology, but also on the qualified and dynamic population able to manage them. It describes people as the essence of the state, the core of the nation and the guarantee of the future.

The report says Turkey adopted demand-centered family planning and population policies after 1980, beginning a downward trend in fertility. The total fertility rate stood at 2.38 children in 2001, then fell continuously from 2014 onward to 1.44 in 2025. It has remained below the replacement level of 2.10 for nine consecutive years.

Turkey’s population nevertheless rose from 70.6 million in 2007 to 86.1 million in 2025. The report says the annual population growth rate slowed during the same period and fell to 1.1 per thousand in 2023, one of its historically lowest levels.

Among the proposals, the party recommends redesigning maternity insurance as part of long-term social insurance and gradually reducing mothers’ required contribution days and retirement-age conditions according to the number of children they have. The report also calls for flexible and remote-working arrangements for mothers and includes tax-related measures for working parents.