Are the Determinants of Attitudes Toward Abortion Changing in Turkiye?

Abortion, which has health, social, political, and moral dimensions, is a sensitive issue for many societies. In many studies in the literature, religiosity, and education have been highlighted as the most prominent indicators in shaping individuals’ attitudes toward abortion. Turkiye is a secular country that a conservative party has governed since 2002. Recent studies indicate an increase in the number of deists in Turkiye. When the data of the World Values Survey (WVS) for the years 2009 and 2019 were examined, there was a decrease in the rates of those who responded in the form of “God is very important,” “Abortion is never justified,” and “I visit religious services more than once a week” in the recent period. This study investigated whether the dynamics affecting the attitudes toward abortion have changed by considering the WVS data for the years 2009 and 2019.

The dynamics affecting the attitudes toward abortion have been studied broadly. In the first step, based on the Reiss hypothesis, the direct and indirect effects of gender roles, education, number of children, and religiosity were evaluated by structural equation modeling. In the second step, the impacts of socioeconomic and demographic factors were assessed by ordinal logistic regression and correspondence analysis.

According to the findings obtained from the data for 2009 and 2019, the effect of the level of religiosity on the attitudes toward abortion is not statistically different. With the increase in the level of religiosity in individuals, support for abortion decreases. Similarly, the effects of gender roles on attitudes toward abortion are not statistically different for both periods; it seems that those who believe in gender role equality are more tolerant of abortion. Interestingly, while the education variable was an effective variable on the attitudes toward abortion for the data of 2009, it was found that the level of education was not effective in 2019. The effects of educational attainment and religiosity on the number of children are statistically different for both periods, and the impacts of these variables decreased over time. The income level, town size, political view, and marital status indicators impact the attitudes toward abortion for both periods. However, for the data of 2009, while “single people and cohabitees” were more tolerant of abortion than married people, there is no difference in terms of the impact of these groups in 2019.

Although religiosity, perspective on gender roles, income level, and political affiliation stand out in determining the attitudes toward abortion for both periods, educational level and marital status are significant only for 2009 data.

According to the literature, low education levels and high religiosity negatively affect support for abortion and egalitarian attitudes toward gender roles. While the 2009 data gave results in line with the literature, it was seen that the effects of education and religiosity were not statistically significant in 2019. The results show that there has been a change in society’s education level and religiosity in the recent period. In this sense, the relationship between the education policy being followed and gender inequality, an indicator of development, should be examined.