According to data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute, over the past decade university graduates in Turkey have experienced a significant increase in poverty. The figures also show that people who are illiterate or have no formal schooling have seen relatively better income outcomes than university graduates. Over ten years, the number of poor people who are illiterate fell by 446,000 while the number of poor university graduates rose by 126,000.
What Do the Shares Look Like?
Within the scope of the Turkish Statistical Institute’s Income and Living Conditions Statistics, the share of total national income held by the wealthiest 20% has risen sharply. From 2021 onward, that share first increased to 46% and then to 42%, according to the published data. Those excluded from that top slice and experiencing poverty are largely people who are literate and have university degrees. The research indicates that earnings once belonging to the so-called middle class — an average per-person income of about 2,000 lira — have eroded and flowed increasingly to the wealthy, pushing part of the middle class into poverty.
Who Became Significantly Poorer?
The reports reveal an unexpected trend in 2021: the groups that became poorest fastest were not the illiterate with greater expected difficulties finding work, but rather people with higher education — bachelor’s, associate, master’s and doctoral degree holders.
Looking back to 2006, the number of educated people living in poverty was recorded at 24,000, rising to 129,000 in 2015. By 2016 the number of poor university graduates reached 150,000, and in 2020 it increased by another 21,000. Over the last ten years the number of poor people who are illiterate declined from 1,969,000 to 1,523,000, a decrease of 446,000. Of that total decline, 114,000 people moved out of poverty in 2021 alone.
When the numbers for those who did not complete any schooling are added, the picture becomes more striking. In ten years the number of poor people who did not finish school fell by 75,000, from 1,000,000 to 929,000. Records show that 521 people who had not completed primary school escaped poverty. Among those with education below high school, poverty declined by 49,000 over ten years and by 74,000 in the last year alone.
Rates for Groups with Falling Poverty
Overall, total poverty fell by 264,000 people, from 7.2 million to 6.9 million. Meanwhile, the annual income of the illiterate group rose from 3,269 lira to an astonishing 10,815 lira — an increase of roughly 231% within a year. A 29% share increase was recorded specifically between December 2020 and January 2021. Despite these improvements for some groups, university graduates show no increase in income or employment; in fact, declines exceeding 70% have been observed for some measures.
Any Change among the Wealthy?
Statistics on the wealthy show that the top 20% experienced a 23% rise in income, becoming even wealthier. The main drivers of increased income for the wealthy were returns from securities, including gains from bonds and stock investments.
Despite these shifts, salaried workers such as academics, civil servants, teachers, healthcare professionals and others on fixed wages did not benefit from the sudden income increases seen among the illiterate group and remain reliant on stable, often stagnant pay.