Fertility trajectories of the Roma population in Türkiye: An event history analysis from menarche to fifth birth

While Türkiye has entered a post-fertility stage, this demographic shift shows significant internal heterogeneity. Utilizing data from the 2023 Türkiye Roma Population Survey (TRPS-2023) – the first representative sample of its kind – this study delineates the fertility levels and reproductive trajectories of the Roma population from menarche through the fifth parity. The findings reveal a pronounced disparity: the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) among Roma women stands at 2.8, significantly exceeding the national average of 1.7 recorded between 2020 and 2022. Furthermore, the data indicates an accelerated reproductive timeline; Roma women achieve nearly all life-course milestones excluding menarche earlier than the general population. On average, the reproductive life cycle begins at age 14.1, followed by marriage at 17.6 and the transition to first-time motherhood at 19.7. These results suggest that while the broader Turkish population occupies a post-fertility-transition phase, the Roma community remains in the late-fertility-transition stage, highlighting a critical demographic divergence. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .