Demographic Correlates of Work-Related Attitudes in Türkiye: An Exploratory Analysis Based on World Values Survey Wave

This study examines how demographic and socioeconomic characteristics relate to work-related attitudes among adults in Türkiye. Work-related attitudes encompass both normative beliefs about the social and moral value of labor (work ethic) and the degree to which work occupies a central place in life relative to other domains (work centrality). Given Türkiye’s distinctive combination of rapid modernization, Islamic cultural heritage, and collectivist social norms, and the relative scarcity of population-level empirical evidence on this topic, the study provides a preliminary descriptive account of attitudinal variation across standard demographic groups. Individual-level data were drawn from the Turkish national subsample of World Values Survey Wave 7. Three WVS items were combined into a composite Work Values Index. Independent samples t-tests, one-way ANOVA with Tukey HSD post hoc tests, and OLS multiple regression were employed. Gender was unrelated to work-related attitudes. Education showed a statistically significant but modest effect, with respondents holding no formal schooling endorsing traditional work values more strongly than those with secondary or tertiary education. The full regression model was significant, yet accounted for only a small fraction of variance; marital status was the sole significant predictor. The overall pattern is one of considerable attitudinal uniformity, attributed to the deep cultural embeddedness of work as a moral obligation in Turkish society, reinforced by both Islamic tradition and secular-nationalist heritage.