The Gender Wage Gap in the Turkish Labor Market

This paper examines the sources of the gender wage gap in the Turkish labor market by using matched employer-employee data and the standard wage regression estimations as well as the Oaxaca decomposition method. The extensive number of variables in the data set enables a thorough quantitative analysis of the role of various individual- as well as firm-related factors leading to wage differentials between men and women, namely human capital endowments including job tenure, occupational and industrial segregation, private/public sector location, coverage of the workplace under collective labor bargaining, and firm size. It also examines the extent of gender-based industry and occupational segregation within the confines of data set and computes the Duncan & Duncan segregation index. We find that a large portion of the gender wage gap is attributable to women's considerably lower levels of work experience and job tenure. Other important variables that lead to pay differentials are women's lower concentration in jobs covered by collective labor bargaining and a substantial degree of occupational and industrial segregation. The differential rates of return to many of the wage determinant variables are also found to be significant in the formation of the gender wage gap. Copyright 2007 The Authors; Journal compilation 2007 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd..