THE GENDER WAGE GAP IN TURKEY

Arda Aktaş; Gokce Uysal

doi:10.14780/muiibd.280227

THE GENDER WAGE GAP IN TURKEY

Abstract

The most prominent form of gender discrimination in the labor market is the gender gap in wages.

Using the Wage Structure Survey, a firm-level data set, we study the gender wage gap in Turkey. We

concentrate on formal employment as this is the jurisdiction of the Labor Code in Turkey. Although

women earn 3% less than men on average, a wider look reveals important differences along the entire

wage distribution. There is virtually no gender gap at the lower end of the wage distribution. More

surprisingly, women seem to earn about 5 percent more than men at the top. Using quantile regressions

which allow the study of the gender gap along the entire wage distribution, we find that women actually

earn 8 percent less at the median. Moreover, at the high end of the wage distribution women earn 4.5

percent less than men once we control for differences in basic labor market characteristics such as

education and labor market experience. The decomposition results reveal the unexplained part of the

gender wage gap is actually larger than that observed in raw data.

Keywords

Gender wage gap,Quantile Regression,Machado-Mata Decomposition

References

ALBRECHT, James and Bjorklund, Anders and Vroman, Susan, “Is There a Glass Ceiling in Sweden?”, Journal of Labor Economics, 21 (1), 2003, 145–77.
ALBRECHT, James and van Vuuren, Aico and Vroman, Susan, “Counterfactual Distributions with Sample Selection Adjustments: Econometric Theory and an Application to the Netherlands”, Labour Economics, 16(4), 383–396.
AMUEDO-DORANTES, Catalina and De la Rica, Sara “The Impact Of Gender Segregation on Male-Female Wage Differentials: Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data for Spain”, IZA Discussion Papers 1742, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), 2005.
ANTONCZYK, Dirk and Fitzenberger, Bernd and Sommerfeld, Katrin, “Rising Wage İnequality, the Decline of Collective Bargaining, and the Gender Wage Gap”, Labour Economics, 17(5), 835– 847, 2010, April
ANTÓN, José-Ignacio and Muñoz de Bustillo, Rafael and Carrera, Miguel, “Labor Market Performance of Latin American and Caribbean Immigrants in Spain”, Journal of Applied Economics, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 233-261, November 2010.
ARULAMPALAM, Wiji and L. Booth, Alison and Bryan, Mark L. “Is There a Glass Ceiling over Europe? Exploring the Gender Pay Gap across the Wage Distribution” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 60(2), 163–186, October 2004.
BAYARD, Kimberly and Hellerstein, Judith and Neumark,David and Troske,Kenneth, “New Evidence on Sex Segregation and Sex Differences in Wages from Matched Employee-Employer Data”, Journal of Labor Economics,University of Chicago Press,vol.21(4), 887-922, October 2003.
BLINDER, Alan, “Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates”, Journal of Human Resources, 8 (4), 436-455,1973.

CHRISTOFIDES, Louis N., and Polycarpou, Alexandros, and Vrachimis, Konstantinos, “Gender Wage Gaps, ‘Sticky Floors’ and ‘Glass Ceilings’ in Europe”, Labour Economics, 21, 86-102, 2013.
CUDEVILLE, Elisabeth and Gurbuzer, Leman Yonca, “Gender Wage Discrimination in the Turkish Labor Market: Can Turkey Be Part of Europe?”, Comparative Economic Studies, 52(3), 429-463, September 2010.
DAYIOĞLU, Meltem, and Tunalı, Insan, “Falling behind While Catching up: Changes in the Female-Male Wage Differential in Urban Turkey 1988 to 1994”, Unpublished manuscript, 2003.
DAYIOĞLU, Meltem. and Kasnakoğlu, Zehra, “Kentsel Kesimde Kadın ve Erkeklerin Işgücüne Katılımları ve Kazanç Farklılıkları”, Metu Studies in Development 24(3), 329–361, 1997.
GROSHEN, Erica L, “The Structure of the Female/Male Wage Differential: Is it Who You are, What You Do, or Where You Work?”, Journal of Human Resources, 26(3), 457–472, 1991.
GUNDUZ-HOSGOR, Ayşe and Smits, Jeroen, “Variation in Labor Market Participation of Married Women in Turkey”, Women’s Studies International Forum, 31(2), 104–117. (2008).
ILKKARACAN, İpek and Selim, Raziye, “The Gender Wage Gap in the Turkish Labor Market”, Review of Labour Economics and Industrial Relations, 21(2), 563–59, 2007.
JELLAL, Mohamed and Nordman, Christophe and Wolff, F. Charles, “Evidence on the Glass Ceiling Effect in France Using Matched Worker-Firm Data”, Applied Economics, 40(24), 3233–3250, 2008.
KARA, Orhan, “Occupational Gender Wage Discrimination in Turkey”. Journal of Economic Studies, 33(2), 130–143, 2006.
KUNZE, Astrid. (2000). “The Determination of Wages and the Gender Wage Gap: A Survey”, IZA Discussion Papers 193, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), August 2000.
LE, Anh and Miller, Paul, “Glass Ceiling and Double Disadvantage Effects: Women in the US Labour Market”, Applied Economics, 42(5), 603–613, 2010.
MACHADO, José A. F. and Mata, José, “Counterfactual Decomposition of Changes in Wage Distributions using Quantile Regression”, Journal of Applied Econometrics, 20(4), 445–465, 2005.
OAXACA, Ronald, “Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets”. International Economic Review, 14(3), 693–709, 1973.
ÖZCAN, Y. Ziya and Metin-Özcan, Kıvılcım and Ücdoğruk, Şenay, “Wage Differences by Gender, Wage and Self Employment in Urban Turkey: The Case of Istanbul”, Journal of Economic Cooperation, 24(1), 1–24. (2003).
RICA, Sara de la, J. Dolado, Juan and Llorens, “Ceilings or Floors? Gender Wage Gaps by Education in Spain”, Journal of Population Economics, 21(3), 751–776. July 2008.
TANSEL, Aysıt, “Self-Employment Wage Employment Choice and Returns to Education for Urban Men and Women in Turkey” Economic Research Forum Working Papers 9804, 1998.
TANSEL, Aysıt, “Wage Earners, Self Employed and Gender in the Informal Sector in Turkey” Economic Research Forum Working Papers 0102, 2003.
TANSEL, Aysıt, “Public-Private Employment Choice, Wage Differentials and Gender in Turkey”, IZA Discussion Papers 1262, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), August 2004.
TANSEL, Aysıt, “Public-Private Employment Choice, Wage Differentials and Gender in Turkey”, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 53(2), 453–77, 2005.
TANSEL, Aysıt, and Fatma Bircan Bodur, “Wage inequality and returns to education in Turkey: A quantile regression analysis”, Review of Development Economics 16.1 (2012): 107-121.

Details

Primary Language

Turkish

Subjects

-

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Arda Aktaş This is me

Gokce Uysal This is me

Publication Date

December 21, 2016

Submission Date

December 22, 2016

Acceptance Date

November 30, 2016

Published in Issue

Year 2016 Volume: 38 Number: 2

DOI

https://doi.org/10.14780/muiibd.280227

IZ

https://izlik.org/JA28UZ98SZ

Cite

RIS / Bibtex

APA

Aktaş, A., & Uysal, G. (2016). THE GENDER WAGE GAP IN TURKEY. Marmara Üniversitesi İktisadi Ve İdari Bilimler Dergisi, 38(2), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.14780/muiibd.280227

AMA

1.Aktaş A, Uysal G. THE GENDER WAGE GAP IN TURKEY. Marmara Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Dergisi. 2016;38(2):1-19. doi:10.14780/muiibd.280227

Chicago

Aktaş, Arda, and Gokce Uysal. 2016. “THE GENDER WAGE GAP IN TURKEY”. Marmara Üniversitesi İktisadi Ve İdari Bilimler Dergisi 38 (2): 1-19. https://doi.org/10.14780/muiibd.280227.

EndNote

Aktaş A, Uysal G (December 1, 2016) THE GENDER WAGE GAP IN TURKEY. Marmara Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Dergisi 38 2 1–19.

IEEE

[1]A. Aktaş and G. Uysal, “THE GENDER WAGE GAP IN TURKEY”, Marmara Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Dergisi, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 1–19, Dec. 2016, doi: 10.14780/muiibd.280227.

ISNAD

Aktaş, Arda - Uysal, Gokce. “THE GENDER WAGE GAP IN TURKEY”. Marmara Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Dergisi 38/2 (December 1, 2016): 1-19. https://doi.org/10.14780/muiibd.280227.

JAMA

1.Aktaş A, Uysal G. THE GENDER WAGE GAP IN TURKEY. Marmara Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Dergisi. 2016;38:1–19.

MLA

Aktaş, Arda, and Gokce Uysal. “THE GENDER WAGE GAP IN TURKEY”. Marmara Üniversitesi İktisadi Ve İdari Bilimler Dergisi, vol. 38, no. 2, Dec. 2016, pp. 1-19, doi:10.14780/muiibd.280227.

Vancouver

1.Arda Aktaş, Gokce Uysal. THE GENDER WAGE GAP IN TURKEY. Marmara Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Dergisi. 2016 Dec. 1;38(2):1-19. doi:10.14780/muiibd.280227