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Breakpoint model application to Turkish population growth

5. Conclusions
The present study aimed to overcome the limitations of the demographic and economic models through the detection of
the structural changes in the data series, using the breakpoint test to address the demographic events that led to different
regimes of the POPG. The breakpoint model was used because the empirical results provided a large evidence of the major
breaks in the POPG series since the sequential procedure selected four breaks. Thus, the breakpoint model was capable
of accurately and quantitatively recognizing the key impact of the main demographic events on POPG in Türkiye during
six decades now. The results obtained from the breakpoint model are reasonable since the breaks in the POPG somehow
coincide with significant economic realities and population dynamics in Türkiye. Consequently, these breaks have fostered
to capture the structural changes in Türkiye with regard to its socioeconomic development and population dynamics. Thus,
a good exploratory analysis was made based on these breaks and regimes separately from the theoretical knowledge of the
four phases of demographic transition process that are specific for Turkish society. In addition, it is observed that within
different regimes of the model, the responses in terms of population policies targeting specific demographic aims have lost
their popularity and probably, there were replaced by policies focusing on social and economic changes. In today’s modern
Türkiye, it would be more difficult to implement for instance pronatalist policies that are directly aimed at raising fertility.
The results of this research work provide valuable information on the relationship between migration trends, fertility, and
mortality and POPG trends in Türkiye during the period of 57 years, that is, from 1965 to 2021. The empirical results of our
research study on Türkiye reflect typical changes in both demographic and epidemiological transitions, such as declining
fertility, declining growth rates, declining mortality, and changes in improving longevity. The breakpoint regression analysis
confirms the presence of persistent differences in the POPG in Türkiye over the period 1965 – 2021 as a result of the dynamics
of key determinants of the POPG. In other words, the relationship between POPG and these determinants is somewhat
predictable because POPG is largely directly due to these variables. In addition, for comparison, during the whole period of our
research study (1965 – 2021), the POPG rate in Türkiye has more than halved. In other words, from the level of about 2.4% in
the late 1960s and the first half of the 1970s in the last years of 2019 – 2020, it reached a level of about 1% and will fall below
1% in 2021. What is interesting is that the Turkish POPG still has positive momentum in comparison to almost all European
countries. Furthermore, interesting is the fact that the TFR in Türkiye for the same period (1965 – 2021) has dropped 3-fold.
The role ascribed to migration changed from supporting out-migration of mainly low-skilled domestic population in the 1960s
to promoting university education abroad from the 1970s until today, and immigration of the highly skilled from 2000 onward.
Through this time period of more than 50 years, Türkiye underwent all phases of a migration cycle, beginning as an emigration
country and turning into an immigration country. As a result of the complicated process of human migration, it must be pointed
out that in Turkish case migration is featured in the context of many policy issues, extending from social and economic policy
to demographic, regional, and structural policy, cultural and human resource development, as well as international relations.

Acknowledgments
None.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial entity, or not-for-profit organization.

Conflicts of Interest

The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.
Authors’ Contributions

Goran Miladinov conceived and designed the paper, analyzed the data, and wrote the paper.
Ethics Statement

Not applicable as this study involves the analysis of secondary data collected by the Macrotrends website.
Availability of Supporting Data

Data utilized to this paper are from secondary sources and available to the public. The data can be freely accessed online
from the Macrotrends LLC website: https:////www.macrotrends.net/countries/topic-overview.

36 International Journal of Population Studies | 2021, Volume 7, Issue 1