The Impact of Household Heads’ Education Levels on the Poverty Risk: The Evidence from Turkey

Abstract

AbstractThis study aims to analyze the relationship between the education levels of household heads and the poverty risk of households in Turkey. The logistic regression models have been estimated with the poverty risk of a household as a dependent variable and a set of educational levels as explanatory variables for all households. There are subgroups of households with female and male heads as well as that of different geographical regions. Other household characteristics, including gender, location of residence, employment status, age, and social allowances, have been used as control variables to capture individual heterogeneity. The data has been obtained from the Income and Living Conditions Survey (SILC) conducted by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT) for the year 2011. One of the main results is that, in general, there is a negative association between the probability of a household being poor and the education level of the household heads. It has also been found that the poverty risk of those households whose heads graduated from a vocational or technical high school is less than those who graduated from high school. However, when we focus on only female-headed households, the situation is reverse. Another prominent result is that gaining a vocational or technical high-school diploma takes precedence over graduating from a university with regard to the probability of a household falling below the poverty line in Istanbul and Southeast Anatolia contrary to other regions.Keywords: Relative Poverty * Education * Logistic Regression * Per Equivalent Income * Turkey * Households * Household Head * Gender * Vocational Schools(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)The globalization period observed after the1980s has caused the countries to attach more importance to the link between poverty and education. When the literature is examined, it is seen that education has a dramatic impact on poverty. According to a World Bank (1995) report, primary and lower secondary education especially enhances productivity of the poor, decreases fertility, and improves health conditions. On the other hand, education helps people to gain abilities to participate in the economy and society. According to Berg (2008), the probability of finding a job increases with increase in one's education level, and additionally educated people earn more. Moreover, the effect of education levels on poverty displays differences in diverse regions and under different socioeconomic circumstances. As indicated in Gemmell (1996), primary education turns out to be salient for low-income developing countries, secondary education for middle-income developing countries, and tertiary education for rich countries in terms of economic growth.Due to the importance of the education level on the issue of poverty alleviation, this study has examined the relationship between the education level of household heads and the poverty risk of households in Turkey by using the logistic regression models for all households, including female and male-headed households, and different geographical regions. The data were obtained from the Income and Living Conditions Survey Micro Data Set (SILC) conducted by Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT) for the year of 2011.We show that there is a negative relationship between probability of a household being poor and education levels of household heads in Turkey. In other words, the risk of a household being poor in Turkey decreases when the education level of a household head increases. On the other hand, the probability of being poor is less for the households whose heads graduated from a vocational or technical school as opposed to the households whose heads graduated from high schools in Turkey. However, when we focus on only femaleheaded households, the poverty risk of those households whose heads graduated from high school is lower than those who graduated from a vocational or technical high school. …