Migration-driven women’s empowerment: The case of Turkey

Abstract. This paper addresses the effect of migration on women’s empowerment in Turkey.  Utilization of data over six decades from 1960 until 2011 gives the possibility that these series can be spuriously correlated. This study, therefore, adopts the bounds testing procedure as a method to determine and to avoid spurious correlation. The results of bounds testing gives clear-cut evidence that women’s empowerment, the share of women in parliament in the present context, is related to the emigration rate, the relative education of women and to a measure of democracy. It is also found that the share of women in parliament is related to the country groups with the largest effect in European and core OECD countries. The results are robust for the inclusion of asylum seekers and refugees in the emigration data. Keywords. International migration. JEL. F22.