Turkey's Social Policy Response to Covid-19: Labor Market Reforms to Protect Employment

Abstract

Turkey's social policy response to the Covid-19 pandemic combined various conventional and unconventional social policy tools. In a context of already persistently high unemployment rates, the government put an emphasis on labor market reforms to protect employment, with a short-time work scheme playing an important role. For those left unprotected by protective labor market policies, the government provided relatively meagre one-off social assistance payments that reached large parts of the poor. While these policies cushioned the social impact of the pandemic to some degree, they also amplified already existing inequalities: Labor market insiders (regular employees) were far more effectively protected than labor market outsiders (self-employed, people in informal employment). In addition to these social policy instruments the government also implemented 'social policy by other means', which included boosting consumer credit. With regards to future prospects, it remains unclear whether the social policy response that was devised as a temporary intervention will be unwound or result in more permanent changes to the country's welfare regime.