International Labour Organization (ILO) Office for Turkey and the Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT) signed a Cooperation Protocol in January 2020 on calculation of the gender pay gap to improve decent work conditions for women under the “More and Better Job for Women” Programme” implemented by the ILO Office for Turkey with funding from Sweden.

The Cooperation Protocol signed within the framework of the project “Multi-Lateral Cooperation for Gender Equality in the World of Work” under the programme aims primarily to develop, in the period of January 2019 to May 2020, a new methodological proposal to officially calculate the gender pay gap in Turkey. The intention is to calculate and compare the gender pay gap and motherhood pay gap by various data sources including Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), Income and Living Conditions Survey (ILCS), Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) and administrative records.

A series of meetings on methodology development have been held since January 2019 between the ILO Office for Turkey and TURKSTAT with the participation of experts and relevant parties in the context of work on gender pay gap.

In the framework of the Cooperation Protocol, it is planned to compare the calculations of gender pay gap including motherhood pay gap in Turkey using various data sets at an event to be organised in cooperation of ILO and TURKSTAT, and issue a TURKSTAT bulletin that provides updated information on indicators of gender pay gap and motherhood pay gap.