Report: Poverty, gender income inequality increase in Turkey

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The Research Center of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK-AR) has released a report on income inequality in Turkey shortly after the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) published the "Income and Living Conditions Survey 2020." 

The official agency found that the country's richest 20 percent had 47.5 percent of the total income last year with the gap between the rich and poor increasing.

"In Turkey, the trend of increase in inequality both between social classes and by gender continues," says the DİSK-AR report, noting that the P90/P10 ratio, which indicates the income gap between the richest and the poorest 10 percent, has increased to 14.6, the highest level in a decade.

Turkey's Gini coefficient increased from 0.395 to 0.410 in a year whereas the average Gini coefficient of the EU countries is 0.302, the report notes, citing Eurostat data. Turkey has the highest coefficient in Europe, followed by Bulgaria (0.408) and Lithuania (0.354).

In addition, the number of the poor in the country increased by 700,000 in a year with the poverty rate reaching 29 percent.

Gender gap

In 2010, women's average household income was 19.8 percent lower than the average individual household income whereas men's income was 31.2 more than the average.

In 2019, women's income was 16.9 percent lower than the average income and men's income was 27.4 percent higher.

Among the people working on their own behalf, men's income was 64 percent higher than women's. The gap was 18 percent among paid employees, 21 percent among employers and 84 percent among casual workers. (HA/VK)