Ataerkil toplumlarda erkek çocuklar gerçekten iltimaslı mıdır?: Türkiye örneği

Gender bias in expenditure patterns has been an issue of concern over the last two decades, starting with the pioneering work of Deaton and Subramanian (1991). The main argument was that if systematic patterns of discrimination exist, they would be reflected in the household expenditure pattern. Early studies focused on low income and lower middle income countries. This literature is motivated by higher child mortality among girls and the ?missing girl? phenomena. However, most studies have failed to find significant evidence in household spending of discrimination against girls. This study differs from previous papers by investigating expenditure patterns in an upper middle income country ? Turkey. Household level data set obtained from the Turkish Statistical Institute Household Budget Survey for 2003 through 2005 were used to investigate intrahousehold gender discrimination among children in rural and urban Turkey. Following the existing literature, we estimate Engel curves for child goods and adult goods. Despite the widespread impression of a patriarchal culture in Turkey, the expenditure patterns of Turkish families show little evidence of discrimination against girls. The pattern of spending on adult goods indicates that girls are favored, in the sense of capturing a larger share of household resources. For child goods, a more mixed pattern of both boy and girl bias is revealed. The results are show to be robust to parametric and semiparametric estimation of the Engel curves.