Abstract:
Resulting mainly from rapid urbanization and rural to urban migration, urban poverty is a serious problem that affects developing countries as well as the developed ones. The purpose of this research project is to explore urban poverty in Ankara in the context of Alkire and Foster’s (2007, 2011) multidimensional poverty index framework. Being the most comprehensive and representative microdata available for Ankara, we use Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC) 2018 of Turkstat to calculate multidimensional urban poverty. Findings of the research reveal that 7.72 percent of the individuals in the sample are multidimensionally poor in Ankara. Almost 3 percent of the individuals are determined to be “vulnerable to poverty” while almost 2 percent of them suffer from “severe poverty.”
Additionally, this research finds that multidimensional urban poverty is a more serious problem for some disadvantaged groups such as women; individuals who are divorced/widowed; individuals who are retired, disabled and having health problems etc., and individuals occupied with housework and nursing in an household. Despite the advantages of the SILC data set, it was determined that the solution foreseen by the capability approach did not respond adequately. Within this context, a new, original and more comprehensive quantitative-qualitative data set is needed in order to measure and solve the multidimensional urban poverty in Ankara.