Özet:

This 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.

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