CARLA GE RONDI e ROBERTA ROSSI

Italia e Turchia: demografie a confronto

N. 170

Summary — The present essay tries to outline a comparative picture of the Turkish and Italian demographic situations.

The process of modernisation of the Turkish demographic system developed much faster than the Italian one, but at later times. The former, therefore, represents a typical instance of a ‘young’ system, now in a advanced transitional phase and characterised by a tendency towards continuous population growth. The latter, instead, is an example of a ‘mature’ system, virtually stationary in that it is almost reaching the point of zero-growth.

It has been shown how in Turkey fertility rate is three times higher than in Italy (3.5 against 1.3 children per woman — the Italian fertility rate being the lowest in the world). Moreover, life expectancy at birth in Turkey is more than 12 years shorter than in Italy, owing primarily to great discrepancies in infant mortality rates.

Differences in the fertility rates, as well as in the probabilities of survival, of the two countries determine profound differences in their age structures: in 1985 almost 50% of the Turkish population was under 20 and only 4% was over 65. Conversely, the Italian population included 28% of people under 20 and 13% over 65. In 1985, moreover, the dependency ratio in Turkey equalled the one registered in Italy at the beginning of the century (68%).

In Turkey the large proportion of young people represents a great potential for future growth, despite a tendency towards a rise of the average age of the population due to both diminishing fertility and increasing longevity. It is therefore possible that in thirty years’ will be one (Turkey) bigger than the other (Italy) one and a half times.