The Gendered Relationship Between Temporary, Informal Employment and Wages: Evidence from the Turkish Labor Market

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between types of employment and wages by gender and gender pay gaps among permanent, temporary, and informal workers. There are substantial gender inequalities in bargaining, and these inequalities are argued to be more prevalent for temporary and informal jobs. Hence, larger wage penalties for women in such positions are expected. Moreover, the inverse association between wages and non-permanent contracts is larger for low-paid women. To this end, the study employs unconditional quantile regression techniques and counterfactual decomposition analysis, and accounts for selection bias. The dataset is based on labor force surveys over the period 2005–19 in Turkey and focuses on private sector employees. The findings highlight the disproportionate impact of temporary and informal employment on women’s earnings and suggest that employment type can be a contributing factor to the gender pay gap in Turkey, particularly for low wage groups.