Does it pay to work in the public sector in Turkey?

Abstract

This article examines wage gap between the public and private sectors in Turkey. Relying on microdata from Turkey's Household Budget Survey (HBS) for the year 2009, we estimate separate earnings functions for public and private sectors by gender with appropriate correction for selectivity bias. The results suggest that while the observed pay advantage of public male employees can be explained entirely by differences in their observed characteristics, for female employees these differences only partly explain the observed public–private pay differential. Decomposition of male–female wage differentials by sector of work suggests that women are facing discrimination in both sectors.

Keywords:

• wage differentials
• wage decomposition
• public–private
• Turkey

JEL Classification:

• J31
• C50