Housing and Living Conditions of Turkish Households: What Has Changed in 2000s?

Abstract

Housing policies in Turkey have been employed as a means to achieve quantitative targets, and this was especially the case in the first two decades of this century. Increasing the share of owner-occupier households, producing a certain number of housing units for low-income households, and increasing housing transactions by reducing interest rates and down payments are some of these targets. However, none of these measures set a target for the housing and living conditions of households. The neglect of this issue at the policy level is also reflected in the lack of research. This chapter elaborates on the housing and living conditions of households through the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC) for 2006 and 2018. Households are evaluated according to their modes of tenure and the NUTS Level-1 region they live in. Housing and living conditions are approached according to six dimensions: poverty status, material deprivation, housing-related living conditions, adequacy of current income, and the burden of housing, and non-housing expenditures. The findings demonstrate that so far this century households' housing space consumption increased despite the decreasing household size and the households at risk of poverty decreased considerably. However, high rates of material deprivation and poor housing conditions continued among this group. Tenants experience high rates of material deprivation compared to owner-occupiers yet display similar rates in terms of poor housing conditions for 2018.