Survivor pension application for wives and daughters in Turkey and the relationship with employment: Qualitative and quantitative analysis

This study aims to analyze the impact of survivors' pension application on the working decisions of wives and daughters. In this context, in-depth interview and document analysis techniques were used together in the study. First of all, 1000 survivors' pension files, which were connected to the beneficiaries after the death of insured employees working under a service contract at the Denizli Social Security Provincial Directorate, were examined in the study. Within the scope of this examination, the demographic characteristics, insurance information, education levels and reasons for the termination of pensions of the beneficiaries receiving pensions were analyzed. The findings obtained show that the fact that the wives receive survivors' pension does not affect their decisions to work as insured. On the other hand, it was determined that the rate of receiving survivors' pension decreases as the level of education of the eligible daughter's increases. It was determined that the most common reason for the termination of survivors' pension for daughters was insured employment (48.1%); it was also determined that 59.3% of the daughters whose pensions were terminated for this reason were higher education graduates. Therefore, it was seen that educational status is a determining factor both in the process of making the decision to work and in the tendency to receive survivors' pension. It was also determined that 81.6% of the girls who graduated from higher education worked in jobs compatible with their field of education. In the study, in-depth interviews were also conducted with 16 women who received survivors' pension from their spouses and 7 girls who received survivors' pension from their parents. It was determined that the majority of the participants faced financial difficulties and that informal employment was widespread. In the study, two separate generosity indexes were created to measure the generosity of the aid provided to wives and daughters from survivors' insurance on a country basis. As a result of the examination of the index results and the multiple regression analysis, it was determined that there was no statistically significant relationship between the generosity of survivors' insurance and women's employment rates.