Income survey shows fall in poverty risk, deprivation rate
by Daily Sabah
Sep 19, 2019 12:07 am


The number of people at persistent risk of poverty has decreased, along with a decline in the number of people unable to pay unexpected financial expenses, survey results revealed yesterday.

The state-run Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) released 2017 and 2018 figures yesterday for its "Income and Living Conditions Survey 2018." The survey gives insight into household incomes and how families fare in the face of poverty.

The survey revealed that relative poverty rate or the rate of people having less income than the general population was 13.9%, with an increase of 0.4 points in 2018 compared to the previous year.

The persistent at-risk-of-poverty rate or percentage of people in households with equivalised disposable income below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold dropped to 12.7% in 2018 from 14% in 2017, the survey shows.

The survey also looked into "severe material deprivation rate" or public perception on inability to pay unexpected financial expenses such as holidays spent in other cities, mortgage or rent payments, a meat dish or having items like a washing machine, color TV and a car. It found that the rate of people who cannot afford at least four of those items decreased from 28.7% to 26.5% in 2018.

In terms of house ownership, TurkStat says 59% of the population lived in their own dwellings. Around 70.4% of the population had installments or loans (other than mortgage -for the main dwelling and housing cost) whilst the rate of the population who reported they cannot afford one week's annual holiday away from home was 58.3%, while those who regarded housing costs as a heavy financial burden was 11.5%. The mean annual equivalised household disposable income increased by 12.2% compared to the previous year from TL 21,577 to TL 24,199 in 2018.

Poverty was the domain of the illiterate, the survey also confirmed once again as 27.5% of the illiterate public and 23.6% of literate people with little education were poor while those with higher education credentials were the group with the lowest poverty rate at 2.2%.