Empirical measurement of the welfare impacts of social policies: evaluation of the welfare impacts of basic education policies and assistances in Turkey

In this study, the welfare effects of basic social policies are examined by reviewing the theoretical literature and empirical studies. Besides these, the impact of basic education policies and assistances on welfare improvement and poverty is quantitatively analyzed in Turkey. The social policies included basic health system, basic education, social security policies and food stamp programs or food assistances are examined in different OECD countries and non-OECD member developing countries by literature survey (where it is available). The result of the impact assessment studies or welfare impact of the reform of such policies in selected developing countries is reviewed as examples. In the final section of the study which is related Turkey, basic education policies and assistances are assessed. The basic eight years compulsory education is one of the important reforms in history of Turkey Republic which has been in force since 1997/1998. In this study, the impact of this education reform is assessed using incidence analysis and changes in enrollment rate in higher secondary school and its impact on welfare. The relationship is between attained education levels and income is used as proxy for welfare or poverty alleviation. The empirical model is defined as household?s income is a function of sociodemographic characteristic of household and education level of household head then the model is applied to ?2003 Household Budget Survey? data in Turkey. Empirical results indicate that the education level and income relation is very strong and statistically significant for each education level. The household head with lower secondary education is taken as a reference household and assumed their income equal 100, and then the income of all other household group by household head education level is indexed. It is found that household head with lower (higher) education level has lower (higher) income than reference household. The household head with illiterate, literate, primary school, higher secondary school, vocational school (higher secondary level), technical vocational school (two year university level), and faculty graduate and higher degree (master-PhD) household has income index as 50, 62, 78, 127, 137, 163, 219 and 383 respectively. These results are supporting the opinions and findings (such as TUIK 2003 and 2004 poverty reports) about positive relationship between education level attained by person (household head) and per capita household income. Therefore, the policies which improve the education level of citizen will makes better off citizens? welfare.