Socioeconomic Determinants of Out-Of-Pocket Health Care Expenditures in Turkey

This paper explores socioeconomic determinants of out-of-pocket health care spending in Turkey. I use a nationally representative Turkey sample of the Life in Transition Survey. This paper extends the previous literature by using a new nationally representative survey of Turkey to investigate the factors contributing to out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures. Also, thanks to the data set used, this paper can control maternal education, health status, and perceived relative income variables which cannot be controlled in the previous studies. Overall, I find that growth in income increases out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures whereas an increase in the respondents’ and mothers’ educational attainment drops the out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures. I also find that males are more likely to have out-of-pocket healthcare spending than females. Finally, having good or excellent self-reported health decreases the possibility of making out-of-pocket health care spending.