Turkey’s social protection spending up sharply in 2013

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

Turkey’s spending for social benefits in 2013 rose to 13.8 percent of the GDP, according to a report from the Turkish Statistical Institute released Dec. 29.

Expenditures on social protection accounted for 219.9 billion Turkish Liras ($94.2 billion) in 2013, an increase of 12.5 percent from that of the previous year, the report said.

The government has become the main financial source of social protection expenditures, with 41.1 percent having been paid from the national budget.

Contributions from employers constituted 27.7 percent of all social protection spending, while 25.2 percent was paid by people already benefiting from social protection programs.

In terms of the GDP, social protection expenditure on older citizens took the largest share, rising to 6.7 percent of the GDP in 2013, from 6.5 percent in 2012.

Spending on healthcare services was 4.2 percent of the GDP, and funds paid to widows and orphans were 1.6 percent of the GDP.

Turkey spent 11.4 percent of its GDP – $820 billion – to social benefit spending, a rate lower than developed states of the European Union.

Among the EU Member States, the level of social protection expenditure in relation to the GDP in 2011 was highest in Denmark (34.3 percent), France (33.6 percent) and the Netherlands (32.3 percent), while Belgium, Greece and Finland also reported ratios of 30.0 percent or more. By contrast, social protection expenditure represented less than 20.0 percent of the GDP in Poland, Malta, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, Estonia and Latvia (where the lowest share was registered, at 15.1 percent).

In Ireland, expenditure on social protection relative to the GDP in 2011 remained 8.1 percentage points higher than it had been in 2008, which was the largest increase over this period among EU Members States. Greece, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Denmark and Cyprus all recorded increases ranging from 3.3 percentage points to 4.0 percentage points during the same period. By contrast, the increase in expenditure on social protection relative to the GDP between 2008 and 2011 was 1.0 percentage point or less in Austria, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Hungary and Sweden.