Female labor force participation in Turkey: a synthetic cohort analysis, 1988-2013

Abstract

We study the aggregate labor force participation behavior of women over a 25-year period in Turkey using a synthetic panel analysis. In our decomposition of age, year, and cohort effects, we use three APC models that have survived the scrutiny of the demography community. We rely on predictions from just-identified models that render different methods comparable. The exercise is carried out by rural/urban status and by education to tease out some key differences in behavior. Our comparative methodology yields remarkably robust age-profiles that represent the behavior of a typical woman over her life-cycle. Notably an M-shape attributable to child-bearing related concerns is detected in rural areas and for low-educated women in urban areas. We also find that later birth-cohorts among the less-educated women—which constitutes the majority of the female workforce—are significantly more likely to participate, which implies that the recent rise in the aggregate participation rates is not only due to rising education levels and that the current substantial gap in participation by education will decrease.