Comparing of Welfare Indicators Between Turkey and European Union Member States

Abstract

This study considered pre-selected socio-economic indicators of the first 15 members of the European Union, subsequent 9 countries from East and Central Europe and Turkey, analyzing the situations of countries and variables according to one another and betraying the possible commonalities and disparities between them. Aiming at finding possible similarities and disparities between them selected social economic indicators from EUROSTAT (2005 data were used) is acquired and by using related variables the multidimensional scaling analysis is applied. As a result of the multidimensional scaling analysis the obtained stress value for the two-dimensional configuration was 0, 18. The k=2 dimension the stress value explains the data in the rate of 0, 85387. It is important to look at the inflation rate and gini coefficient first, when the objective is to investigate the development and welfare indicators of a country. According to distances between Countries, higher welfare and development level was demonstrated in the first 15 members of the European Union. In the second dimension, the distances between the countries of East-Central Europe that subsequently joined the Union and Turkey show that they have similar welfare and development level.