The effects of neoliberal economy policies to middle class in Turkey

The middle class has an important function in terms of its share in aggregatedemand and it contributes to GDP growth. In this study, how neoliberal economicpolicies affected the middle class is investigated. Neo-liberal economic policiesadvocate reduction of state in the economy, development of the market and free trade.For this purpose, after analyzing the neo-liberal period of Turkey in terms ofdevelopment, the status of middle class occupations, income distribution, and povertyrates are studied with data provided by TURKSTAT. According to the data it can besaid that the middle class has expanded in Turkey after 1980. The transformation ofagrarian society to an industrial one, a relative improvement in the indicators ofdevelopment mostly after 2002, an increase in the number of middle-class occupations,an improvement in the income distribution, and reduction of the poverty rate haveoccurred in the neoliberal period.