Essays on Turkish Labor Market

Abstract

Turkish labor market has fundamental problems; labor force participation and employment rates are quite low especially among women and informality is prevalent. This thesis includes analysis on three issues in Turkish labor market. First, the factors behind the rise in the female labor force participation in recent years are analyzed. Cohort effects, which can be considered as a proxy for change in societal norms about women’s employment, are found to be the main determinant in the rise. Improvement in educational attainment of women and decline in fertility rate are also found to have significant contributions. Second, the causal relation between public employment and private employment is investigated. Results suggest that rise in public employment generates additional employment in non-tradable private industries whereas it has no effect on tradable sector employment. Finally, the determinants of wage over reporting and the causal link between wage over reporting and minimum wage are investigated. The results show that wages of female, young and low educated workers have higher probability of being over reported to administrative bodies. In addition, the propensity of over reporting increases after minimum wage hike.