Material deprivation among children

Today, Turkey celebrates the 93rd anniversary of the opening of Turkey's parliament that took place on April 23, 1920 in Ankara at the beginning of the War of Independence. This important national holiday is dedicated to children and it is celebrated as National Sovereignty and Children's Day.
During the festival's parades organized all over Turkey, we admire thousands of children dressed in beautiful clothes observe the adults on the pavement proud of the achievements of the Republic. Of course, the real condition of the children in this country, as is the case in most countries, differs from the impression that a foreign spectator would get from seeing the happy children in parades. But how big is the difference? Bahçeşehir University Center for Economic and Social Research (BETAM) published on Monday a report that gives a partial answer to this question. Using Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) micro data from the Income and Living Standards Survey available for 2006 to 2010, BETAM calculated the number of households that are not able to meet three basic needs adequately: nutrition, warmth and clothing. In these surveys, TurkStat and the EU statistical agency, Eurostat, asked nine questions regarding the accessibility of some capabilities in the sense defined by Indian philosopher and Nobel prize-winner in economics, Amartya Kumar Sen. BETAM chose the three following questions out of nine: Do your family members eat meals with red meat, chicken or fish every second day? Are you able to keep the home warm enough? Do family members buy new clothes, except second-hand ones? BETAM defines as poor or materially derivate, children living in households answering “no” to these three questions. According to this criterion, there were almost 7 million children materially derivate in 2006 out of a total of approximately 19 million in Turkey; so, one child in three did not have these basic needs satisfied adequately. The number of children in this pitiful situation decreased to 4.5 million and the share to approximately to 25 percent in 2010. Obviously, the rapid increase in the income per capita in the last few years improved poverty statistics in general and child poverty in particular, but one child out of four is still suffering from severe material deprivation nowadays. The situation item by item is even worse. The share of children living in households answering “no” to the first question regarding the nutrition was 69 percent in 2006 and it decreased only to 67 percent in 2010. These shares in response to the second and third questions (about warmth and clothing) decreased respectively from 45 to 40 and from 60 to 41 percent. It clearly appears that most of the overall improvement in poverty has been in better clothing, which might be explained by the decline in the relative price of clothing during the period considered. As could be expected, the distribution of child poverty across regions is quite unequal. The lowest poverty rate is observed in West Anatolia at 13.6 percent, while the highest rate belongs to Southeast Anatolia with 42 percent. Let me remind readers that that the average rate of child poverty in the country is 24.4 percent. For the sake of curiosity, I would like to note that the poverty rate for Istanbul is 24.5 percent, almost equal to the national average; Istanbul, as in other fields, faithfully seems to represent the national average in poverty, too. These findings evidence that the picture is not as rosy as it might be imagined. The problem of child poverty must be addressed seriously if Turkey wants to achieve its highly challenging goals, like an increase of per capita income from TL 13,000 to USD 25,000 USD for the centenary of the Republic to be celebrated in 2023. These claims necessitate huge efforts in a number of areas, but the fight against poverty emerges as one of the most important priorities in BETAM's research. Indeed, the educational level and skills of the labor force should be radically improved in order to raise labor productivity, which is key to high and sustainable economic growth. On the other hand, one cannot expect more schooling years and better education results from children suffering from severe material deprivations. Academics have to spare more time for research on poverty and the government must consider the issue of poverty among its foremost priorities.