Reclassifying the Turkish Welfare Regime in the Light of Child Well-Being Indicators

This study attempts to discuss welfare regimes examining data on the state of child well-being data across OECD countries. It is argued that if the Turkish welfare state clustering is developed considering child well-being indicators, the clustering will be different from its current structure. This thesis asserts that Turkey can be classified not in the same with Southern European but, it can be described in the same cluster with Latin America (Mexico and Chile) in terms of child well-being. Well-being means that the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy in the dictionary. Child well-being approach emphasizes the child’s quality of life, life satisfaction, and aims to enhance child abilities in the light of basic indicators. Child well-being measures the quality of children’s lives utilizing both objective and subjective measures into six dimensions defined by OECD: material well-being, housing, and environment, educational well-being, health and safety, risk behaviors, quality of school life. Family policies which directly effects the child well-being investigated in Southern Europe, Turkey and Latin America countries (with regard to Chile and Mexico). While a comparative analysis of social policy development in different countries lies beyond the scope of this thesis, the discussion presented in the study draws attention to the role of family policies in determining the child well-being outcomes and suggests, in particular, that gender-based policies appear as an important factor affecting child well-being outcomes.