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

Gender Segregation in Turkish Institutes of Higher Education

Serap Palaz (Balıkesir University)

Abstract  

This paper is mainly empirical and its aim is to illuminate the size and character of vertical gender segregation in Turkish Higher Education employment and the changes that have taken place over the last decade. To this we use the Karmel and MacLachlan index and the fact that the total change in this index between two points in time can be decomposed into a certain number of underlying components which show the contribution of different factors to the observed total change. The Turkish case is an interesting one in that in the early years of the Turkish republic gender segregation within academic employment was less pronounced and had another pattern than in many other countries, with female representation in the faculties of Natural Sciences being high and female representation in the Humanities faculties being low. We discuss the historical and sociological background to this and how the forces that gave rise to this particular pattern have since tapered off and women’s choices changed from the natural sciences to fields traditionally female in the west such as the humanities, arts and vocational education. A first empirical section deals with the evolution of total academic employment between 1985 and 1998 and the changes that have taken place in the female representation in different professions and in different faculties. Then, the main section of the paper calculates the Karmel and MacLachlan index for total academic employment and for each of the 40 faculties over the year of 1988/9 to 1997/8. Finally the contribution of each of the faculties to the level of segregation in academic employment is calculated. For el of segregation over time, but the decomposition shows that this has come about through a negative composition effect, meaning that the gender composition within positions has worked to decrease segregation, and a positive mix effect, reflecting that changes in the structure of positions and in the gender composition of the work force have worked to increase segregation.

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