Bolstering baby numbers

In an effort to reverse the trend, the Turkish government has called 2025 the Year of the Family. Ankara has introduced a series of financial incentives to encourage couples to have children - and more of them. They include a one-off payment of 5,000 Turkish liras (about $125) for a couple’s first child, and 1,500 lira in child benefit every month for a second offspring until he or she reaches the age of five. The payments increase sharply to 5,000 lira a month for those having three or more babies. 

The government is also cheering on marriage, which is seen as a prerequisite to starting a family in Turkey. It is offering an interest-free loan of up to 150,000 lira ($3,730) for young couples planning to wed. There are even discounts on white goods and furniture to help people set up home, and “psychological and social support”, according to the Family and Social Services Ministry. 

Proponents of the government's schemes frame childbirth as a national duty. 

“Protecting and strengthening the family is our constitutional responsibility,” Minister of Family and Social Services Mahinur Ozdemir Goktas said earlier this year as she announced the incentives. 

Some civil society organisations have welcomed the measures, especially the larger payments for three or more babies.

“We believe that the increased financial incentives for families with a third child carry strategic significance in terms of Turkey's long-term demographic goals,” Canan Sari, chairwoman of Kadem, a women’s rights organisation, tells The National. “We believe that such support can have a facilitating effect on families' decisions to have children.”

In late July, Ms Goktas said 1,750,000,000 lira ($43 million) had been paid out in the new child benefits to the bank accounts of more than 220,000 women. Tens of thousands of couples have so far benefited from marriage services and counselling, she added. 

The ministry did not respond to requests for comment or interviews, or say how the benefits were being funded. The National also contacted officials and MPs from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) but did not receive responses. 

Money isn’t enough

To its critics, the scheme is limited, and does not address core reasons for couples choosing to have fewer, or no, children. 

In an interview with The National, Aylin Nazliaka, Shadow Minister for Family and Social Services, described the financial incentives as “temporary and superficial” solutions. 

“It is not that women do not want children; they do not want to have children without being able to build a stable life or secure a future,” says Ms Nazliaka, from Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP). “Having children is no longer seen as a right, but as a luxury.”

Similarly, the incentives only apply to new births from 2025, meaning that families struggling to provide for the children they have, like Baris and Zeynep Uzel, do not benefit. With inflation at 35 per cent, the amounts on offer are not enough to persuade them to have a fourth child. 

“It's better than nothing, of course,” says Mr Uzel. “It's good, but it's insufficient.” 

He also pointed out that some of the most expensive years of childhood are not covered by the scheme, which ends when a child reaches five. 

“After the age of 5, the child wants a phone, a tablet, games, courses, education, and so on,” Mr Uzel adds. “They need clothes, and they look at their friends and say, ‘I want clothes, too,’ ‘I want shoes, too.’”

Research has long shown that financial incentives alone are not enough to encourage people to have more babies. In 2021, academics found that South Korea’s pro-natalist policies would have had to give out benefits 15 times greater than those distributed to bring the country’s fertility rate back to desired levels. Despite Hungary’s strict pro-natalist policies, the fertility rate has risen only 0.2 to 1.5 since 1999 - still far below replacement rate. 

In the most deprived districts of Istanbul such as Tarlabasi, volunteer Mehmet Yeralan says families he helps with in-kind and cash donations struggle to feed their children. 

“My opinion is: we can’t even take care of the children we already have, and yet we’re asking people for more,” says Mr Yeralan, who says he is not affiliated to any political party.

Like many others interviewed by The National, he regards the monthly stipends as insufficient to encourage people to have more children. Turkey’s economic woes have been going on for years, squeezing quality of life and causing the cost of basics to soar. The situation would worsen, Mr Yeralan predicts, when schools return after the summer holidays and families would not be able to cover the costs of stationery, uniforms and food. 

“A piece of cheese is 500 liras, olives are 400 to 500 liras,” he says. “You can’t even afford to feed your child breakfast and send them to school.” 

Mr Yeralan began helping underprivileged families and migrant communities in Tarlabasi many years ago. Anecdotally, he says he has seen a rise in child labour in recent years as families’ economic troubles increase. 

“I just can’t think positively,” he says. “There is no such thing as ‘the year of the family.’ Families have fallen apart.”

For Mihran, a 28-year-old from Istanbul with two children, the issues go beyond costs. She believes having children is harder for modern parents because they are growing up in a riskier world. 

“For our children, it's not like it used to be in the past - you can't just leave them in the garden while you do your work at home,” she tells The National, as she gripped a buggy carrying one of her children. Like many voicing criticism of government policies in Turkey, she did not give her surname. “Now you have to constantly watch over them, protect them. There's all kinds of evil. In this situation, the financial support they provide doesn't help.”

Apartments are also not big enough to accommodate a family, she also believes. In cities like Istanbul, the housing stock is gradually being knocked down to make way for buildings that comply with modern earthquake regulations. 

“I don't understand why the government allows [apartments] to be so small,” she says. “What is anyone going to do with a one-bedroom house? They tell people to get married, but then they build one-bedroom houses. This seems very absurd to me.” 

Even organisations such as Kadem, whose trustees’ board is chaired by Sumeyye Erdogan, one of the Turkish president’s four children, believe that the government needs to introduce broader family-friendly policies beyond financial incentives. Measures could include more free or low-cost nurseries, extended paid paternity leave, and regulations to prevent employers penalising workers who choose to have children. 

“We cannot define women solely by their role as mothers, nor can we determine their value based on whether or not they are mothers,” Dr Sari says. “What determines women's life choices are not social impositions, but rather their personal characteristics, free will, preferences, and consent.”

In July, the Turkish government introduced flexible working policies for state employees, offering both men and women the opportunity to work part-time until their child starts school. But working part-time means an employee’s salary will drop by 50 per cent, making the benefit less attractive.

The allowance risks stifling women’s professional development further because childcare is still seen as women’s work in Turkey, says Ms Nazilaka.

“The family member who will work part-time will mostly be women,” she tells The National. “As a result, women will be deprived of economic security, social life, and professional development.”

Beyond practical issues discouraging childbirth, critics voice concerns about the pro-natalist programme. They believe it is tied up with policies and positions that reinforce traditional gender roles, tied up in conservative frameworks. 

“The issue is worldwide, with conservative rights groups becoming closer to the governments and making sudden decisions without involving any other parties, and making decisions about women,” Canan Gullu, president of the Federation of Women Associations of Turkey, tells The National. “This is happening, not only in Turkey or in America, but also in Europe and Russia, to diminish women's rights.”

Personal freedoms and women’s rights

Many take umbrage at the state dictating over how many children a woman should bear, and want to be able to determine how to live their lives, with or without children. 

For Melina, a 43-year-old mother of one, she sees parenthood as, “entirely an individual’s choice”. While some of her friends and relatives have three children, she decided she did not want any more.

Some Turks feel disheartened at the state of their country and global instability, dissuading them from starting a family, she believes. In the past two decades, Turkey has in some ways developed vastly. Infrastructure has improved, more people are going to university, and life expectancy has crept up to 77 (the UAE’s is 83 and the USA’s is 79, per UN data). Despite economic turmoil, national output has grown to $1.3 trillion, making Turkey one of the world’s 20 largest economies.

But human rights observers have warned of the erosion of civil and political freedoms, and creeping authoritarianism. Overall, many want a society where they know there will be stability for their children, should they choose to have them. 

“They don't feel safe enough in the country for that [parenthood],” Melina adds. “I think people are discouraged, especially those in their 20s and 30s who are trying to build their new lives right now, because they're deeply disappointed with the country.” 

Conscious of the huge responsibilities of raising children, some young people are open to the prospect. But they feel uncertain as to whether their future circumstances will allow it. 

“It depends a lot on my ability to provide for them - on my financial circumstances, on my lifestyle,” says Şule, a 22-year-old resident of Istanbul, as she stood by a ferry pier on the city’s Asian shore in the upper-class Kadikoy district. “So, I can't figure out what I should do.”

Some go further, accusing the government of focusing on childbirths while failing to address women’s rights more widely. While women’s access to education and jobs has increased in Turkey, the number of women in the workforce still lags far behind men. 

Ms Gullu, of the Women Associations of Turkey Federation, sees domestic abuse, early marriages and femicides as issues that the government needs to tackle before encouraging more babies. Last year, campaigners recorded 394 femicides, in which women were often killed by male relatives, or their current or former partners. Mr Erdogan - whose government condemns such murders - has blamed domestic abuse on alcohol addiction. Meanwhile, campaign groups cite economic difficulties and lax implementation of laws protecting girls and women. 

Ms Gullu is also calling for better child care networks, and, because women are in the main responsible for looking after older relatives, more support for the elderly.  

“After all these problems are solved,” she says, “then they can declare a year of the family.” 

Mr Uzel believes the focus needs to be on raising well-rounded children, who can contribute meaningfully to society. He wants to replace the bear with a boomerang, and believes that investing in individuals who will make good citizens will pay dividends. 

“If the government throws kindness to its citizens today, it will see it,” he says. But if it gives a little and then stops, tomorrow there will be trouble.”