ILO and TurkStat jointly prepared a Report on “Measuring The Gender Wage Gap: Turkey Case”

News | 30 September 2020
The long-standing collaboration between the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) reached a new momentum by the cooperation protocol signed in January 2020 which has set out a joint work to calculate the Gender Wage Gap on the purpose of providing factual data to improving the working conditions of women under the “More and Better Jobs for Women Programme.” This report is a product of six-months intensive work under that protocol.

This study aimed to develop a new methodology to officially calculate the Gender Wage Gap in Turkey, and relied on various data sources including Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) and administrative records. Considering Goal 5: Gender Equality, Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth and Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities of the Sustainable Development Agenda, it can modestly be argued that the work and final report cast light on important data needs.

The Gender Wage Gap (GWG) is defined as the difference between wages of men and women divided by men’s wages. It is a measure of wages inequality between employed men and women in the labour market. The calculation of Gender Wage Gaps is highly important in that it allows capturing the current situation on inequalities at work, and monitoring and evaluating the evolution and improvement by sector, occupation, educational level and similar factors.

Based on the cooperation protocol between ILO and TurkStat, this report calculates the Gender Wage Gap by a new approach using various data sources. Working with a consultant academician under the protocol, experts from ILO Office for Turkey and TurkStat engaged in exploratory work for calculating the Gender Wage Gap by household-based data sources. The indicator was calculated by the results of the Income and Living Conditions Survey. The gender wage gap was evaluated with various breakdowns and factor-weighted assessment by using this data set. The report also includes an indicator calculated for the “Motherhood Wage Gap”, an important concept in the literature. The new approach to calculation takes due note of international methodological developments, recommendations of the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat), and country practices.

As part of the cooperation between the parties, the findings revealed by the report was shared with public on 30 September 2020 by means of an online seminar in which Mr. Numan ÖZCAN, Director ILO Office for Turkey and Ahmet Kürşad DOSDOĞRU, the Acting Vice President of TurkStat, made the opening speeches and also Hüseyin Tancan KALE, Head of Laborforce Input Indicators Group, and Emel MEMİŞ, academician consultant for the report, joined as panellists.

Respectfully announced to the public.

For the Report click here:
Measuring the Gender Pay Gap