Turkey’s cultural expenditure slightly increased in 2020: TÜİK

ISTANBUL

Cultural expenditures in Turkey increased by 5.9 percent compared to the previous year, reaching 60.3 billion Turkish Liras ($4.46 billion), the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) said on Dec. 1.

The ratio of cultural expenditures to the gross domestic product was 1.2 percent in 2020, while the share of general government expenditures in total cultural expenditures was 55.2 percent.

Cultural expenditures within general government expenditures decreased by 2.2 percent in 2020 compared to the previous year and remained at the level of 33.3 billion Turkish Liras ($2.46 billion).

In the distribution of the total cultural expenditure made by households in 2020, television and its equipment costs remained at 20.2 percent, and data processing equipment costs remained at 15.3 percent.

These two expense items were followed by expenditures on cable/private TV broadcasting services with 13.6 percent, and expenditure on stationery and on books with 13.2 percent and 13.1 percent, respectively.

Cultural employment in the country decreased in 2020 compared to the previous year, the institute added.

In 2020, 592,000 people were included in cultural employment in Turkey with a decrease of 6.2 percent compared to 2019, TÜİK said.

It added that 49.3 percent of the cultural employees were males and 50.7 percent were females last year.

“Nearly 64.5 percent of the people in cultural employment were in the 30-54 age group, 26.2 percent in the 15-29 age group and 9.3 percent in the 55 and over age group,” the institute said.

In 2020, 37.5 percent of the total cultural employment graduated from middle schools, 38.7 percent from tertiary education and 23.6 percent from high school and vocational high school.

The 89.4 percent of the people in cultural employment had a cultural occupation, while the other occupations’ share was 10.6 percent, TÜİK noted.

Considering the cultural occupational fields of employees, 41.2 percent of those in cultural employment were handicraft workers, and 18.9 percent were architects, planners and surveyors and 7.4 percent of those were creative and performing artists, it added.

The turnover of enterprises operating in the cultural sectors increased by 6.8 percent in 2020 compared to 2019 and reached 89.9 billion Turkish Liras ($6.55 billion).

The number of employees in these sectors decreased by 1.9 percent in the same period to around 250,000.

Among the cultural sectors, the activity with the highest number of enterprises was the retail trade of newspapers and stationery products in stores dedicated to a certain commodity with 16.9 percent.