Performance of Female Employers in Turkey

Abstract

It is well documented that economic participation of women is very low in Turkey compared to that of men in the country. This gender disparity in economic participation is valid not only for participation in the labor market as a wage employee but also for entrepreneurship. Using European Union statistics on income and living conditions (SILC) dataset, this paper attempts to provide new insights on the high gender disparity in entrepreneurship in Turkey with giving special emphasis to distinguishing characteristics of successful female employers. SILC dataset covers the 2007-2010 period. This paper focuses on employers due to its importance over own-account workers (OAW) in creating jobs and increasing the impact of women in the economy. All tables and figure in this paper make use of the SILC dataset. The paper documents that female employers are in minority in Turkey not only among all working women but also among all employers in the economy. Moreover, female employers earn less than their male counterparts and their firms are generally smaller. As for their background, there is a low churning among female employers and majority of new female employers are transformed from inactivity and very few from wage employment. The paper confirms the importance of university education in closing gender gap. Proportional income gap between male and female employers is lowest among university graduates and highest among primary school and vocational high school graduates. It is also noteworthy that female employers are less educated than female full-time employers but male employers are more educated than full-time male employees. Section one gives introduction. Section two presents characteristics of female employers in comparison to male employers and other female work groups. Section three evaluates the success of female employers in terms of income they generate. Section four presents features of successful female employers. Section five discusses results and concludes.