Introduction

This paper evaluates the findings of another study on rural poverty in Turkey (Akder 1999). The first aim of this study is now to overcome a practical problem. The main finding of the previous study was the list of urban and rural Human Development Indices (HDI) of 915 districts in Turkey. How can 915 indices (approximately 18 pages of information) can be presented (other than putting all results to the appendix, as it was done previously) such that an assessment is possible without loosing the overview? Second, there seems to be a strong relationship between human development and rural problems in Turkey. This might be a general concern of many, especially "medium developed" nations.

The Conceptual Framework

The indicators of human development index are here income (GDP in purchasers value), education (simple literacy rate), and health (life expectancy at birth). These indicators were central to the study, because all districts have been ranked according to this index and all other variables have been associated with the study according to this ranking. Each district has not been disaggregated into its rural and urban parts. Instead, a hierarchy of rurality has been worked out and the analysis has been done along the degree of rurality of districts. Three types of districts have been distinguished: "predominantly rural", "significantly rural" and "predominantly urbanised". The criterion used to create this typology at is the share of the rural population (defined by State Institute of Statistics of Turkey). The following thresholds have been borrowed form an OECD study (OECD 1994): predominantly rural" - if more than fifty per cent of the population lives in rural communities; significantly rural" - if the share of rural population is between fifteen and fifty per cent; "predominantly urbanised" - if less than fifteen per cent of the population is classified as rural.

The Human Development Index (HDI) is based here on three indicators: longevity, as measured by life expectancy at birth; educational attainment, as measured by simple adult literacy and standard of living, as measured by GDP per capita. This is a similar approach as UNDP uses it in the annual Human Development Report (HDR). However, there are differences between the UNDP index and the ones calculated here. UNDP uses in addition to literacy rate the enrollment ratio that is not available at district level in Turkey. UNDP uses GDP (at purchasing power parity) which also quite impracticable at district level of a country, in addition, UNDP uses for the construction of the index, fixed minimum and maximum values. All these differences imply that the indices are here specific to Turkey and are not internationally comparable. They are only useful for comparing the districts in Turkey. Yet, there remains an unsolved problem, how to set the thresholds for low, medium and high Human Development for data specific to Turkey?

Geography and infrastructure variables have not been directly or indirectly employed for the calculation of the human development index. Access to water and quality of roads have been chosen as infrastructure variables that may be associated with poverty concerns. Mechanisation and land use are variables that indicate to geography and productivity (technology) concerns.

Disaggregated HDI as "cumulative distribution function"

The first question, how to present the long list of results has been overcome by a "cumulative distribution function" (Akder 1994). Disaggregated HDI's are arrived at by using the data for the HDI components pertaining to each of these groups into which the HDI is disaggregated, treating each group as if it were a separate country. The limit of disaggregation is here a district.
 
 

The x-axis measures the HDI and the y-axis measures the cumulative percentage of population, i.e, the share of population whose human development is less than an indicated level. In this format the HDI profile is presented as a cumulative distribution function.

Assume now the extreme case, if all individuals in Turkey were identical and there were no disparities. One could have presented the HDI profile (cumulative distribution function) by one of the vertical gridlines, corresponding to the (average) HDI. For this specific data of Turkey it is 0,49. The area to the right of the average-line may be called as the "area of deprivation", which could be separated into income, education and health components. Any individual within this profile is represented by the average. This dissaggregation may be considered as an attempt to approximate the "true" HD profile of Turkey by calculating several HDIs. The limit of disaggregation could be reached if one could calculate the HDI for each individual in a district separately. Although each new HDI is still an average for the respective districts, differences of human development are becoming by this process apparent.

Graphical analysis of HDI profile

Disaggregated HDI profile is here the hierarchy of district averages. This implies graphically the rotation of the "vertical average gridline at 0.49" ( Figure 1, for practical purposes this may be approximated by 0.50 here). The profile slopes positively after disaggregation. The new rotated HD profile implies inequality of HD among individuals or group of individuals, The area between the vertical average-gridline 0,49 and positively sloping disaggregated-HDI-profile may be considered as the area of inequality of HD, relative to the average. The disparity index amounts here approximately 20 percent. The interpretation is as follows: the achieved HD is 49% of the unity (the deprivation is almost as high as development). Disparities amount almost to one fifth of the achieved HD.

One may infer easily that the same average value of HD does not necessarily imply the same distribution of HD. Smaller inequality area implies more equal distribution. Closing human development gaps means the improvement of HD by an acceptable or declining area of inequality or the relative decline of area of inequality with respect to the increases in HD, parallel rightward shift of the profile

Adjustment versus disaggregation

The need for distinguishing the HD performance of males and females and of different income groups was felt soon in HDR's. The "adjusted HDIs" were actually an effort in some kind of disaggregation. As long as disaggregation remained at national (average) level, HDR's defined them as "adjusted HDI's". They were thought for international comparison. The adjusted HDI's have no great information on their own. They are quite informative with respect to the previous, unadjusted (average) indices. It is the deviation of the two indexes which implies policy. Instead of calculating two HDI’s separately for rural and urban Turkey and comparing these (adjusting them) to each other, more or less the same is reached by the rotation of the vertical average gridline. The difference between the two indexes could be considered as an approximation (indexing) about the inequality area of HD. (Akder 1994)

The rightward shift of the disaggregated HDI profile shows how gaps, disparities are closed or widened. Three (hypothetical) different patterns may be identified, if we disregard a fall in overall HD (leftward shift). The profile may shift parallel, the new profile may exhibit a less steep slope than before and the new profile may become steeper. The parallel shift implies that the existing disparities are unchanged but relative to the increase in HD they have become now less important. If the rightward shift of the profile ends up by a less steep slope it means increase in disparities or new increasing disparities and progress in HD, i.e., relative decline of these disparities. It is the relative strength of these two opposing effects which will then decide about the final outcome. A rightward shift of the profile by steepening the profile. This shows both an improvement of HD and its distribution. This is probably the most desirable pattern for "closing the gaps".

The present study does not analyse change of HD in time but presents the distribution on "Figure 1" separately for: predominantly rural districts, significantly rural districts and also for predominantly urban districts.
 
 

The average HDI of predominantly urban districts reach an index value of 0,57. The middle segment is here much steeper than in Figure 1. This means that urban centers are much more homogenous. The great majority of HDI indices for respective districts range between 0,50 and 0,70. Both disparity area and disparity index are here smaller than the overall result. The disparity index amounts here to 12 percent of the achieved HD.
 
 

The HDI profile of significantly rural districts have a quite similar shape as the overall profile. However, the average HDI is (0,47) lower than the average of rural districts (0,57) and overall average 0,49. The disparity reaches here almost to one fifth of the achieved HDI but remains slightly under the disparity of the overall results (Figure 1).

The average HDI for predominantly rural districts amounts to 0,44 and the disparity index is here the highest 0,216. The size of the disparity is both for predominantly and significantly rural areas the same, yet, as the level of HD is lower in predominantly rural areas the disparity index takes a higher value.

One issue remained until to this point unanswered. How to decide about the threshold values for low, medium and high human development? If the HDI value for a district is less than 0,35, that district has been classified under low human development. The index value between 0,36-0,59 corresponds to medium and an index value higher than 0,60 to high human development. These thresholds have been decided after a careful study of the data, some degree of arbitrariness remained, yet, the most critical threshold 0,36 is half of the median value. Accordingly 26.6% of the total population in Turkey may be classified under high, 59.1% under medium and 14.3% under low human development. Looking back to Figure one, one may recognise that these threshold values correspond to the start and end of the steeply sloping middle segment of the bell-shaped cumulative distribution function. It might be worth to repeat the exercise for other countries and time periods, too.

Level of human development and disparities

All these imply a link between level of HD, rurality and disparities. The highest disparities are measured in the lowest developed districts. In this respect one may ask a different type of question. Which problem looses most probably its relative importance as a district passes from low to medium development level, then from medium to high development?

As explained above, the degree of rurality has been derived from the share of rural population. According to the assumed threshold values 30.8 per cent of the population is living in predominantly urban areas. 31.5% of the population is in significantly rural districts. One may translate the same category as districts that have still a significant proportion (15%-50%) of rural population. 37.7% of the rural population is living in predominantly rural districts. The last column of the Table 1 summarises these results and the last raw of the same table gives the breakdown according to the levels of human development.

Population was in this study the most basic indicator, however, it might be a controversial one. The reader has to be warned that the definition of "rural population" is here specific to Turkey. If French, Italian, Spanish or Japanese definitions of "rural" were used the results would have been different. Turkish State Institute of Statistics (SIS) treats the definition of rural population (and area) in many of its publications as a residual category, i.e., "Population of sub-districts and villages (muhtarliks) outside the municipal boundaries of province center and district centers."

Literacy seems to be a great cause of disparity among districts than life expectancy and the low literacy rates are mainly due to the illiteracy of the adults. Per capita income ranges among low ranking predominantly rural districts from $251 to $6652. Here is average income $1022. The overall maximum amount is $36.596. There are numerous districts, whose HDI ranking is higher than its per-capita income ranking. The opposite is also true. Industrial plants situated in predominantly rural districts produce quite high value added. This magnitude is not necessarily reflected to the household incomes of the resident inhabitants.

Table 2 describes the low-hdi predominantly rural districts (average) and contrasts them to high-hdi predominantly urban districts.

There has been two additional observations with respect to HDI but also with respect to newly introduced "human poverty index". The overall HDI ranking of the provinces and ratio of asphalt roads are in Turkey quite parallel to each other, however, the ranking with respect to the availability of water is not in line with that of roads. Although low-hdi ranking districts have also poor water supply, the availability problem is also widespread among medium and even high ranking provinces. The water availability around the Mediterranean and Southeast is much severe than in the East (least developed region) of Turkey.

Low intensity (low mechanisation) in agriculture and low human development are observed in rural Turkey together. Extensive agriculture implies very often poor endowment (Akder 1998).

Conclusions

Almost all National Human Development Reports of Turkey provide since early 1990’s disaggregated HDI’s at province level. Disaggregations into rural and urban sections reveal that low human development is rather a widespread rural phenomenon. High level HD is very sparse in rural Turkey. Medium level of HD dominates. Low level HD has been observed throughout the rural areas of Black-Sea Region, Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia and to some degree in Central Anatolia. Total population living in these regions doesn’t constitute a large share, yet, the area of regions where low human development prevails is very wide. Rurality distributes in Turkey development problems to a very wide area. This in turn challenges all organisational efforts as an additional difficulty.
 

REFERENCES:
Akder H. (1999) "Dimensions of Rural Poverty in Turkey" background-paper in: Turkey, Economic Reforms, Living Standards and Social Welfare Study, World Bank Document. (unpublished)
Akder H. (1998) "Agricultural Mechanisation and Labor in Turkey" in :, Agricultural Structure and and Employment in Turkey, Edt. Prof.Dr. Tuncer Bulutay, SIS Publication No 2209, 1998, p.381-402.
Akder H. (1994) "A means to Closing Gaps: Disaggregated Human Development Index", Human Development Report Office, Occasional Papers 18, New York, 1994.