Determination of the Convergence of Turkey and European Union Countries in Terms of Youth Labor Indicators by Cluster Analysis

The aim of this study, which was conducted on the basis of the convergence hypothesis, is to reveal the convergence problems of Turkey towards the European Union based on the basic indicators of the youth labor market. For this purpose, a large gender-disaggregated data set has been constructed with 29 observation units consisting of the European Union Average, European Union Countries, and Turkey, using the basic indicators of the youth labor market that point to the future, within Eurostat and Ilostat data. The clustering method, which is one of the advanced statistical techniques, was preferred to determine which countries are similar to each other and which are different from each other within the data set. In this study, where non-hierarchical and hierarchical clustering methods were used together, it was concluded that Turkey diverges from the developed countries of the European Union, such as Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, and is similar to countries such as the EU (27), Bulgaria, Czechia, and Italy. Along with this result, this study also reveals remarkable gender differences in the indicators for young men and young women in the youth labor market in Turkey, and that Turkey’s main convergence problem towards the European Union is realized in NEET rates. In this context, this study is completed with suggestions for various policy measures to address convergence problems, such as NEET, unemployment of young women, and low labor force participation rates of young women in Turkey, within the scope of sustainable development goals such as quality education and gender equality.