Socioeconomic Determinants of Gender-Specific Life Expectancy in Turkey: A Time Series Analysis

Abstract

This paper analyses the socioeconomic determinants of Turkey’s aggregate and gender-specific life expectancies from 1971 to 2017. The stationarity of data is checked with ADF, PP, and DFGLS unit root tests, while structural breaks are determined with the help of Zivot and Andrews (2002) unit root test. Also, ARDL bound test is conducted to identify co-integration. The estimated results show that the overall level of education, purchasing power, and economic development have a significant role in deciding the average life expectancy among the Turkish population at the aggregate, while population growth and environmental degradation are found to be insignificant. Gender-wise, estimation results show that environmental degradation, purchasing power, and level of male education contribute significantly to the life expectancy of males in Turkey, while economic development and the share of the male population are found to have insignificant effects. Moreover, environmental degradation, female education, fertility rates, and the female population significantly affect females' life expectancy, while purchasing power plays a statistically insignificant role. Overall, the results suggest that Turkey's government should implement policies to increase educational attainment, stabilize purchasing power, and maintain sustainable development with controlled fertility rates for higher-level life expectancy.