Social protection expenditures reached TL 382.6 billion ($104.8 billion) in 2017, Turkey's statistical authority announced yesterday. Social protection expenditures rose by 13.7 percent year-on-year in 2017, according to figures from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

It noted that 98.1 percent of all social protection expenditures consisted of social benefits - a total of TL 375.5 billion. The biggest share from social protection benefits was taken by elderly people at TL 185.4 billion, followed by the sickness and health care segment with TL 103.8 billion.

"The social protection benefits are the sum of the social benefits provided within eight key risk needs: sickness and health care, disability, old age, survivors such as widows, family and children, unemployment, housing and social exclusion," TurkStat noted in its report.