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This article analyses the state and determinants of women's empowerment in Turkey, based on an extensive and representative survey with more than 100,000 participants. It creates an original index of women's self-perceived empowerment, which incorporates empowerment measures on health, education, income, social life, and personal care and conducts multilevel analysis that integrates effects of individual-level factors with contextual, locality-specific forces. Multilevel analysis confirms the nested nature of women's empowerment in Turkey, which depends on both individual attributes and on the locality in which a woman resides. The Turkish case analysed in this article offers insights for the state of women's empowerment in societies replete with patriarchal norms and neoliberal policies.

Gender gaps in health outcomes are frequently observed. Mental health disorders also display gender differences in various countries. This paper explores gender differences in mental health outcomes of individuals in Turkey. It aims to deliver additional evidence on associations between gender, income and mental health status by providing an empirical analysis from a developing country, Turkey. This study employs a nationally representative data set from Turkish Health Survey of 2016. It constructs an index for mental health at individual level by using polychoric principal component analysis. Conditional mixed process models are estimated for quantification of associations between gender, income and mental health measures. Empirical findings indicate that there is endogenous and positive relationship between household income level and mental health status of individuals in Turkey. Turkish females report lower mental health statuses than Turkish males. Furthermore, females are more likely to use mental health services in Turkey. Gender gaps in both mental health status and mental health service use are present in the Turkish case. Results of this study imply that mental health policies should avoid applying one-fit-all approaches.

This chapter investigates the relationship between gender and use of e-government services in Turkey. Based on household surveys, probit regression models are estimated to quantify determinants of e-government use for Turkish citizens. Empirical findings imply that there is a gender gap in use of e-government services. Turkish females are less likely to employ e-government tools compared to Turkish males. Household income, education level, being employed, and frequency of internet use are positively correlated with probability of e-government use for Turkish individuals. Finally, age demonstrates negative association with use of online government services. As the individual gets older, probability of using e-government platforms decreases. Thus, the digital divide prevails among Turkish citizens and should be addressed by policymakers.

This article aims to understand the correlates of political trust by delving into the multiple interactive effects of education in democratic states throughout the world. It asks whether education raises political trust by increasing the stakes of the citizens in the system and whether education diminishes trust as a result of being abler to evaluate the existence of corruption in a given country. It also taps into how post-materialism as an individual-level factor affects this equation by activating critical judgments toward political institutions. The findings show that, indeed, the effect of education on political trust is very contextdependent. Political trust and education are positively correlated in more meritocratic countries and negatively correlated in the more corrupt ones. Post-material values, combined with educational attainment, tend to lower political trust to a certain extent yet this effect is surpassed by the presence or absence of meritocracy or political corruption. We also find that the effect of education on political trust becomes more pronounced as the level of education increases, with university graduates being the most susceptible to the effects of meritocracy and corruption on their trust levels.