More than one in three children in Turkey faced a risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2025, according to data from Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).
Children accounted for 36.8 percent of those at risk, compared to 27.9 percent of the total population. The rate was slightly higher among girls, at 37.8 percent, than boys, at 36 percent.
The figures come from TurkStat’s “Statistics on Child, 2025” released on Monday.
As of December 31, 2025, children made up 21.4 million of Turkey’s 86.1 million people, or 24.8 percent of the population. That share has been steadily declining in recent years along with falling fertility rates.
Despite the shrinking proportion of children, the data suggest they remain disproportionately exposed to economic hardship. The gap of nearly 9 percentage points between the overall population and children indicates a higher vulnerability among younger age groups.
Over the past decade child poverty in Turkey has remained persistently high and, by some measures, has worsened. Data from TurkStat show that the share of children at risk of poverty or social exclusion has hovered around one-third since the mid-2010s, with upward pressure in recent years driven by high inflation, declining real wages and rising housing and food costs.
Analysts also point to structural factors, including larger household sizes among lower-income families, lower female labor force participation and regional inequalities, particularly in southeastern provinces, which increase children’s exposure to economic hardship compared with the overall population.
