Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:
The Key to Escape from Poverty
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ethnicity/language (when available), gender of the child, education level of the household head
and household wealth.
Probit regression results
Regression results show that circumstances in general do not have a significant impact on
education opportunities for children in Turkey. Finishing 5 years of education is distributed
equally as it does not seem to be affected by any circumstance (as of 2013). For other education
opportunities negative effect of being poor seems to have decreased over time but it has not
disappeared all together, especially for finishing 8 years of education living in households in the
1st quintile remain to be a major disadvantage. Inequalities regarding gender and language
spoken at home also decreased from 2003 to 2013 and their negative marginal effect is at most
5.9 percent. In summary the results are as follows:
 Living in rural areas does not have any significantly large marginal effect on education
indicators in Turkey. This was the case in both 2003 and 2013. Hence location of the
household is not a problem for children in Turkey.
 No significant regional disparities could be seen in the regressions. Region does not
seem to be a problem for children in Turkey for education opportunities.
 Negative impact of being a girl decreased for attendance in school for older children
and finishing 8 years of education. As of 2013 being a girl only has a significantly large
negative impact for finishing 8 years of education (5.9 percent).
 Negative impact of being poor and having a household head with no or low education
either decreased or disappeared for education indicators. Yet living in the poorest
quintile (compared to living in the richest quintile) continues to decrease the
likelihood of attendance in school for younger and older children and finishing 8 years
of education.
 Living in a household with 5 or more children decreases the likelihood of attending
school for 6-11 year olds only.
 Speaking a language different than Turkish in the household has a much smaller
impact on education outcomes in 2013. Only for finishing 8 years of education it has a
negative marginal effect of greater than 5 percent (5.9 percent).
A detailed analysis of the results for each indicator could be found below:
Attendance in school for 6-11 year olds
As of 2013, living in a household in the poorest quintile and living in a household with or more
than 5 children are the only indicators that have a marginal effect greater than 5 percent.
Marginal effects of all other circumstances are either insignificant or close to zero.
 Living in rural areas did not have a negative effect in 2003 and it had a minor positive
effect in 2013 (2.9 percent).
 Compared to living in the West region living in other regions used to decrease the
likelihood of attending school for 6-11 year olds in 2003. These negative marginal