Abstract:

The main purpose of this study is to analyze the youth poverty phenomenon of Turkey and the twelve members of the European Union (Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Austria, Sweden, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, and Finland). For this purpose, youth social inclusion and poverty data of the European Statistics Office (Eurostat) were analyzed. At the beginning of the analysis process, the concepts of poverty and youth poverty were defined, and then the poverty risk of young people aged 16-29 (the risk of excessive material deprivation, the risk of poverty of young people living in families with a low employment rate), the risk of social exclusion, and the poverty risk of employed young people living with their families were examined. Even though the analysis results show that the youth poverty risk has a downward trend in the thirteen countries including Turkey in the last decade, it is still too high. When the results are evaluated in terms of gender, it is obvious that poverty risk is higher for young women comparing to young men.

Keywords: