The other side of the coin: the growing opposition in turkey against to the european union accession

Graph – 2: Age structure and population of Turkey (2013-2075)

Source: Turkish Statistical Institute, 2012.
By taking into consideration the data from the basic scenario in the report of Population Projections; the graph⁴² presents the changes on age structures of population in Turkey, besides introducing the prospective growth of the population in the stated years. The data shows that a significant increase is anticipated for the age group of 65 and over whilst the age groups of 0-14 and 15-64 slightly decrease. The age group 15-64 will continue to have an important role in population, even though a decline is expected in the future.
On the other hand, the situation of the population structure in the EU is not a secret. Even though there are 503,663,601 inhabitants in the EU⁴³, the proportion of the age group of 65 and over ceaselessly augments in population of the EU.

A similar report was published by Eurostat on the “Yearbook 2012”, for every ten years until 2060, including the population of all the 27 member countries of the EU. With respect to the data⁴⁴, there are major changes on population structure between the years 2010 and 2050, especially on the proportions of the age groups. In spite of the fact that the age group of 0-14 is slightly declining from 15,5% to 14,3%, the age group of 65 and over is significantly increasing from 17,4% to 28,6%. Naturally, the changes on the rates also affect the age group of 15-64 that declines from 67% to 57%. As a former member of Turkish Parliament and Vice-President of Republican People’s Party (CHP), Onur Öymen underlines that these numbers should not be perceived as a simple statistical indicators. He adds that declining youth population whilst increasing the old population in the EU will cause mostly economical problems, especially in the case of social insurance; because the burden of social insurance for the age group of 65 and over will always be on the young population.⁴⁵

In accordance with the results of population projections; the proportion of the age group of 15-64 will remain its place with a slight decline in population of Turkey while the proportion of same age group will significantly decrease in the 27 EU member states until 2050.