Patriarchal Norms, Religion and Female Labor Supply: Evidence from Turkey

Yasemin Dildar, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Despite significant structural and social change, the share of women working or seeking jobs in Turkey has declined. This paper focuses on the role of social conservatism as a constraint for women’s labor force participation using 2008 Demographic and Health Survey data. In analyzing labor supply model, I incorporate cultural constraints, specifically the sexual division of labor in the household and broader gender ideology into the analysis. I find that both patriarchal norms and religiosity are negatively associated with female labor force participation, and that the impact of patriarchal norms is statistically significant after controlling for endogeneity.