Social services spending increases in Turkey

ANKARA - Anadolu Agency

Contributions from the Turkish government, employers and private individuals for social services increased by more than 13 percent last year compared to 2013, according to a report from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) released on Dec. 17.

Expenditures on social services reached 249.4 billion Turkish Liras ($84.7 billion) in 2014, an increase of 13.1 percent compared with 219.9 billion liras ($74.7 billion) in 2013, the report said.

The two main sources of funding were general government contributions from taxes (41.5 percent) and employers (26.4 percent), while 26.2 percent was paid by people already benefiting from social service programs, the report said.

The largest expenditure on social services benefits was for older citizens, with 116.9 billion liras ($39.4 billion) followed by health care with 73.3 billion liras ($24.9 billion). The lowest expenditure was for social services related to the socially excluded at 3.2 billion liras ($1.1 billion).

Turkey spent 14.3 percent of its GDP on social services in 2014, up from 11.4 percent in 2013, the report said.

The average expenditure of the 28 EU countries on social services in 2013 stood at 19.6 percent of their total GDP, according to figures from Eurostat.