Zaidi

Self-employment and relative Poverty in Turkey : 

Self-employment and relative Poverty in Turkey Ahmet Yereli, Necmidden Bagdadioglu and Alparslan Basaran Hacettepe University, Department of Public Finance Turkey Session: Self-employment and Inequality 29th General Conference of the IARIW Joensuu, Finland Discussed by Asghar Zaidi European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research Vienna, Austria

Aim of the research: 

Aim of the research “….. to analyse the link between relative poverty and self-employment by calculating poverty and inequality indices……”

Analytical approach adopted: 

Analytical approach adopted Poverty profile of the overall population, across groups categorised by: Age, sex and household size Education Regions and provinces Poverty profile of the self-employed Undeclared income and its disproportional impact on self-employed

Methodology: 

Methodology Relative poverty concept is applied (using 50% of eq. median income as poverty line) Using OECD equivalence scales (1, 0.75, and 0.5) Only absolute number of poor people are reported Lots of results generated (27 tables in a 19 page paper!) using the HIES in 2003 …. no sensitivity analyses of any sort …. descriptive results only …. no details on how self-employed income is defined

Results Part I: Overall poverty profile: 

Results Part I: Overall poverty profile

Results:Part I (continued): 

Results: Part I (continued) Other tables (2-14) Region/ province Age/ sex/ household structure Health insurance Education Working sectors Jobs Employment status

Results:Part I (continued): 

Results: Part I (continued)

Results:Part I (continued): 

Results: Part I (continued)

Results Part II: Poverty profile of self-employed: 

Results Part II: Poverty profile of self-employed 10 more tables (15-24) Region/ province Age/ sex/ marital status Education/ Health insurance Occupation / Industry Whether work status declared to Social Security Institutions? I won’t be presenting all these results; apologies!

Results Part II: (continued): 

Results Part II: (continued) 87% of all self-employed are men; no gender differential in poverty risk 91% of them are married, and they also have same poverty risk as overall population (18%) One-half are below age 45; and they have a much higher poverty rate than older self-employed 60% are in skilled agricultural activities (slightly higher relative p.r.); those in elementary occupations have significantly higher p.r. 45% 75% of them do not declare their work status to the SSI; higher poverty rate for this group (23%)

Recommendations: 

Recommendations More rigorous analyses linking self-employment status and poverty risk Discuss issues linked with the different definitions of self-employment income More sensitivity analyses: w.r.t. Equivalence scales w.r.t. Poverty line, etc How results compare with other work on this topic (World Bank estimates and other studies)