Rodiga-Laßnig, Petra

Over the past decade, Turkey has undergone huge economic and social change. This report uses Eurofound’s European Quality of Life Survey to capture changes and developments in the quality of life of Turkish people, measured at three periods over the past decade: 2003, 2007 and 2012. The report examines the key improvements in quality of life over this period and investigates whether all social groups benefited equally. It explores the impact of recent policy changes and charts new expectations that may be emerging in Turkey. It finds that people in Turkey became much more satisfied with their lives over the period; they overtook the EU average in terms of satisfaction with health services and self- assessed health; poverty and material deprivation diminished. However, Turkey has a very high proportion of early school leavers, and gender inequality remains stark.

This report explores how Europeans perceive the quality of their societies, and of their public services. It looks at such aspects of society as trust in institutions and other people, perceived tensions between social groups, attitudes towards migrants and the effects of the economic crisis on social inclusion and social cohesion. It finds that satisfaction with the economic situation of one’s country, not being in employment and overall life satisfaction appear to boost satisfaction with public services; hardship appears to reduce it. In societal terms, trust in institutions decreased visibly from 2007 to 2011. Trust in people however changed less than trust in institutions and is more similar across the EU. A positive relationship exists between trust in institutions and satisfaction with the economic situation of one’s own country; a negative relationship between trust in institutions and inequality. And tensions were perceived to be highest between different racial and ethnic groups and between rich and poor.

Perceived quality of life is lower in the candidate countries of Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey than in the EU27, largely due to poverty. Women’s labour force participation is low and jobs in general are characterised by long hours and poor work–life balance. Families are important for subjective well-being, but the rates of approval for public services and trust in institutions vary.