Socio-Economic Determinants of Poverty in Turkey: Panel Logit Approach

Abstract

In recent years, the phenomenon of poverty takes the first place in the development agenda throughout the world. Majority of the world’s countries, especially least developed countries of Africa, struggle with bitter poverty. Turkey, as a developing middle-income country, has not been faced by pervasive excess poverty but it has been an important problem for decades. In this study, the determinants of relative poverty in Turkey have been investigated with a special emphasis to gender. Relying on a novel data set and using a panel logit regression model, the findings of the analysis suggest that factors being man, being married, higher level of education, higher level of age, improvement in health status, being employer and self employed, having social security reduce the probability of poverty in Turkey.