Istanbul home to richest households

ANKARA

Istanbul last year was the region with the highest annual average household disposable income with 34,912 Turkish Liras (around $6,100), data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) showed on Sept. 23. 

The region including the western provinces of Tekirdağ, Edirne and Kırklareli ranked second with 29,952 liras of annual income, followed by the capital Ankara with 29,487 liras, according to TÜİK’s latest income and living conditions survey

In 2018, the annual average equalized household disposable income in Turkey was 24,199 liras, showed the TÜİK data.

The equalized disposable income is defined as the total income of a household, after tax and other deductions, that is available for spending or saving.

The region including the eastern provinces of Van, Muş, Bitlis and Hakkari had the lowest annual household income with 10,965 liras.

TÜİK reported that Istanbul also had the highest income inequality in 2018.

The Gini coefficient for Istanbul, the country’s business, financial and commercial center, was 0.444 last year.

The Gini coefficient is one of the measures of inequality. It varies between 0, which reflects complete equality, and 1, which indicates complete inequality.

Other regions with the highest Gini coefficient was the region including the southern provinces of Adana and Mersin (0.402) and the region including the provinces of Tekirdağ, Edirne and Kırklareli (0.401).

The Gini coefficient was 0.408 for Turkey in 2018 whereas the lowest value was in the region including the eastern provinces of Malatya, Elazığ, Bingöl and Tunceli with 0.305.

The region which includes the Black Sea provinces of Zonguldak, Karabük and Bartın presented the second lowest Gini value with 0.308.