Assessing poverty and related factors in Turkey

Poverty, a complex, multidimensional, and universal problem, has been conceptualized as income and material deprivation. In this article, we discuss poverty and related factors in Turkey. The absolute poverty line for Turkey was US$ 4 per capita per day. Turkey was ranked 92nd out of 177 countries with moderate human development in the 2006 Human Development Report. The individual food poverty rate was 1.35% and the non-food poverty rate was 25.6%. The highest poverty rate was among primary school graduates (42.5%; 38.5% for women and 46.8% for men). The rate for this group was higher in urban than in rural areas. Among poor people, 57.2% were married. The highest poverty rate was among agricultural workers (46.6%) and in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia. Factors related to poverty were crowded households, unemployment, immigration, working for a daily wage in the agricultural and construction sector, low educational status, female sex or married status, lacking social insurance, and living in rural areas or in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia.