erc/metu
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN ECONOMICS  IV
September 13-16, 2000, Ankara

Turkish Manufacturing Wages: Inter-Industry Earnings Inequality

Berna Beyazıtoğlu (Boğaziçi Unıversity)
Hakan Ercan (Boğaziçi Unıversity)

Abstract

In the last quarter century, wage inequality has increased dramatically especially in Canada and the United States. Although, during the 1980's average level of real wage rates was roughly stable in the U.S., there were large changes in relative wages. Most notably, relative wages of highly educated (skilled) workers increased in both Canada and the U.S. During the 1980's and 1990's, the share of skilled labor in Canadian manufacturing employment has risen. Education composition of employment evolved in a parallel fashion in Germany and the U.S. but not the wage patterns. Both European and the U.S. labor markets, therefore, faced the same skill biased demand shift, which manifested itself in the U.S. as low wages for the low skilled. In Europe, with more rigid labor markets, the result was worsening employment prospects for the low skilled workers. It is reasonable to expect that Turkish wage structure has undergone some changes, as well. The paper analyzes the patterns of high and low paying manufacturing sector wages in the 1980's and 1990's using annual and monthly data series of the SIS. These results are augmented in more detail by using 1994, 1996, and 1997 Employment and Earnings surveys of the SIS. Finally, panel data set of the 1988 Labor Force Survey of the SIS is used for a detailed microeconometric analysis to confirm stylized facts about the Turkish labor markets revealed by the above data analysis.

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Middle East Technical University
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