Social exclusion and quality of life: An empirical study from Turkey

Date

2012-01

Authors

Bilgel, Fırat

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Springer

Abstract

We examine the perception of social exclusion and quality of life and their interactions among a group of Turkish citizens. For this purpose we used the social exclusion scale developed by Jehoel-Gijsbers and Vrooman and the WHOQOL-BREF scale. The study group consists of 2,493 participants who are residents of a city in Turkey. Our study was based on self reporting and voluntary participation. We used SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) for the analysis. We observed significant paths among several dimensions of quality of life and social exclusion. We found that the material deprivation dimension of social exclusion has a direct and negative impact on the environment and social relationships domains of quality of life. The material deprivation dimension explains 36% of the variation in the environment and 16% of the variation in social relationship domains of quality of life. This finding indicates that the material deprivation and social participation play an important role in the perception of environmental and psychological life quality. Physical health, social relationships, and environmental domains of life quality are important in the social participation dimension of perceived social exclusion.

Description

Keywords

Social sciences - other topics, Sociology, Quality of life, Whoqol-bref, Chronic-fatigue-syndrome, Stigma, Turkey, Empirical analysis, Perception, Social exclusion, Social participation, Socioeconomic indicator, Voluntary approach

Citation

Bayram, N. vd. (2012). "Social exclusion and quality of life: An empirical study from Turkey". Social Indicators Research, 105(1), 109-120.