25% Of Children Are Poor

Turks love to bluster about their country, the reality is that despite the alleged AKP economic miracle, Turkey and Turks are still desperately poor.

Bahcesehir University Center for Economic and Social Research (Betam): ONE IN EVERY FOUR CHILDREN IS POOR (PDF)

April 22, 2013

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We use[d] the Survey of Income and Living Conditions 2006 and 2010 to study material deprivation, as measured by access to basic needs of nutrition, heating and clothing, of children between the ages of 0 and 15. The variables used are the ability to “eat meat, chicken or fish every other day”, “keep home adequately warm” and “afford new (not second-hand) clothes” respectively. Children who live in households that do not have the ability to meet any of these basic needs are defined to be poor children. According to this definition, 4.6 million children, i.e. one in every four children, are materially deprived (Table 1).

When we look at the basic needs separately, we see that 40.3 percent of all children who live in Turkey live in households that cannot keep their homes adequately warm and 40.8 percent of children cannot afford new clothes. 12.5 million children are not able to consume meat, chicken or fish every other day, i.e. their nutritional needs are not met. Given that two out of three children do not have access to main sources of protein, we can conclude that these children cannot have a healthy diet.

There have been significant improvements from 2006 to 2010. Share of materially deprived children decreased from 34.7 percent to 24.4 percent. Looking at the components of material deprivation, it is clear that the improvement stems from the clothing item. The share of children who cannot afford new clothes fell from 60.2 percent to 40.8 percent. One can guess that this striking improvement is a result of the decrease in the relative price of textiles. There has been some improvement in heating and in nutrition, albeit smaller.

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Data points to stark regional differences. ... An overview reveals that child poverty deepens as we move from the western to the eastern regions. ...

One in every three children is materially deprived in East Black Sea and Northeast Anatolia. However, child poverty is more widespread in Southeast Anatolia. 42.1 percent of children who live in Southeast Anatolia are materially deprived. To reiterate, 1 million 200 thousand children in Southeast Anatolia cannot meet their basic needs as measured by nutrition, heating and clothing.

... 66.9 percent of children living in Turkey cannot eat meat, chicken or fish every other day. Even in the most privileged regions, such as Istanbul (57.4 percent) and Central Anatolia (55.6 percent), more than half of the children cannot satisfy their basic nutritional needs. In Southeast Anatolia, 80 percent of children cannot.

In Turkey, 40.3 percent of children live in households that cannot heat their homes adequately. Even though the share of children in such homes are lower in the western regions, in Istanbul, Central East and Southeast Anatolia, almost half of the children live in homes that are not adequately heated.

Moreover, 40 percent of children cannot replace their old clothes with new ones. This is more common in Mediterranean, East Black Sea and Central East Anatolia. In Northeast Anatolia and Southeast Anatolia, more than half of the children cannot afford new clothes.

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Turkish colonists in Germany have a 30% unemployment rate!

Republic of Cyprus, Press and Information Office, Turkish Press Review: Study shows that 193 thousand Turkish migrants return back to Turkey from Germany in the last four years

Turkish daily Hurriyet Daily News (14.03.13) reports that according to a study conducted by the Germany-based Turkish European Foundation for Education and Scientific Studies (TAVAK) ...

According to the study, there are currently 2,950,000 people of Turkish origin living in Germany, of whom only 1,020,000 are in possession of German citizenship. Some 1,930,000 people keep their Turkish passports and hold foreigner status. 

Individuals of Turkish origin make up 31% of the nearly 9 million immigrants in Germany. Around 720,000 of these are tenants while 230,000 own their houses. Average household size is 3.9 and average income is 2,020 euro, meaning that the total income of Turks in the country amounts to 16.5 billion euro.

The unemployment rate among Turks in Germany is 30% according to TAVAK figures, compared with the overall unemployment rate of 5.90%. However these statistics do not tell the whole story, according to Sen.

“Nearly 2 million short term workers are not counted among the unemployed. In addition, nearly 1.5 million people taking vocational courses and the nearly 1.6 million women who have remained jobless for over 15 months do not have unemployed status,” he said, suggesting that the real overall unemployment rate in Germany was 14.5%.

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Sen also claimed that excluding Turks from professional life was a regular practice in Germany. “Firms do not want Turks or other outsiders that are suggested for their positions by the Labor-Employment Exchange Institute,” he said, adding his opinion that the reason behind this, is rising “Islamophobia” and “Turkophobia,” especially in Germany. He said that the neo-Nazi attacks against Turks, were concrete results of discrimination.

Some 44% of the Turkish migrant population lives below the national poverty line (372 euro per month) in the country, according to Sen. ...

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Turkey and Germany do not have a double citizenship agreement, which forces youngsters to make a choice between the two before the age of 23.

Higher youth unemployment even than crisis racked PIIGS, during alleged AKP boom

On April 27th 2013, the Economist published the following article: Generation jobless. One cannot help but notice the following graph which shows that the Turkish youth have even bleaker prospects than the worst crisis hit members of the Eurozone like Greece or Spain:

NEET: Not in Education, Employment or Training

Yet what we hear mostly in the Turkish and global media is about the alleged success of the Turkish AKP in the economic field and that on the contrary the sky is falling on the PIIGS.

Related post:
Cracks in AKP's El Dorado economy, no gold

Scrap thieves steal a whole bridge in Kocaeli

More evidence of what lies beneath the AKP's alleged economic miracle: 

Zaman: Thieves steal entire bridge in western Turkey12 March 2013 / İSTANBUL
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The 22-ton bridge, which was 25 meters long, was in a village in Kocaeli's Gölçük district and was regularly used by villagers to cross a creek to reach their orchards. The villagers were astonished to discover the disappearance of the bridge on Monday morning as they were making their way to the orchards and immediately alerted the police.
... They believe the bridge was stolen for scrap metal. Its worth was an estimated TL 20,000.
Mustafa Karakaş, one of the villagers, told the İhlas news agency that he couldn't understand how a bridge could be stolen, saying it was unbelievable.
“Now we have to take our socks off and cross the creek,” Karakaş said.

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Related, previous articles:
Cracks in AKP's El Dorado economy, no gold
Many Turks are so poor many of them have to use bathing suits on the beach

Cracks in AKP's El Dorado economy, no gold

Cracks are showing in the "El Dorado" boom economy of the AKP period. Zaman reports:

Presence, hardships of homeless overlooked in blame for Sierra murder

17 February 2013 /TUĞBA AYDIN ,ISTANBUL
The issue of homelessness was brought to the country’s agenda recently after Sarai Sierra’s murder in İstanbul. ... 
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Homeless people are generally individuals without strong ties to family or friends. ...
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Hayrettin Bulan, the head of Şefkat-Der, told Sunday’s Zaman that there are currently around 10,000 homeless people in İstanbul and around 100,000 in the country. “There are only two homeless shelters that give service year round in the country. ..."

To be fair in the USA, where I live the homeless situation is much worse, despite a more powerful on paper economy. However due to the stronger social solidarity and family ties in Turkey, those homeless likely don't even have extended family that can help them.


 Debt is driving many Turks to desperate measures:

Hurriyet: More people trying to put their kidney on sale

February/18/2013, Dilara Sarı

The number of individuals applying to the Turkish Kidney Foundation to sell their kidneys as a way out of severe financial troubles has been rapidly increasing, with once weekly calls now coming 15 times a week, the foundation’s press representative, Gülizar Gün, recently told the Hürriyet Daily News. 

“We used to receive such calls once a week,” Gün said. “Now there are one, two people calling every day. They talk about credit card debt and family troubles.”  

Recent developments hint that the AKP's economic miracle is about over. Here is one of their best tricks from 2012:

Asia Times: The talented Mr Erdogan

By Spengler (David P. Goldman), Dec. 4, 2012

The United States is shocked - shocked - to discover that Turkey, a notional American ally, has done more to help Iran skirt sanctions than any other country. ...
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Turkey's gold shipments to Iran are big enough to make a significant dent in the country's enormous current account deficit. At an annual rate of $17 billion, Turkish gold exports amount to 2.2% of Turkish gross domestic product. Without them, the nominal improvement in the country's bulging trade deficit (to "only" 7.5% of GDP as opposed to last year's 10%) would disappear. 
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However that game has been shut down(thanks to Israel Matzav blog citing Reuters):

A provision of U.S. sanctions, made law last summer and implemented from February 6, effectively tightens control on sales of precious metals to Iran and prevents Halkbank from processing oil payments by other countries back to Tehran, bankers said.

"Halkbank can only accept payments for Turkish oil and gas purchases and Iran is only allowed to buy food, medicine and industrial products with that money," one senior Turkish banker told Reuters.

"The gas for gold trade is very difficult after the second round of sanctions. Iranians cannot just withdraw the cash and buy whatever they want. They have to prove what they are buying ... so gold exports will definitely fall," he said.

Trade in Turkish gold bars to Iran via Dubai was already drying up as banks and dealers declined to buy the bullion to avoid sanctions risks associated with the trade.