Gendered Labor Market and Labor Force Participation of Women: Case of North Cyprus

Abstract

Abstract

The low labor force participation of women in North Cyprus is an interesting and controversial issue. Since the de facto partition of the island as North and South Cyprus, North Cyprus economy has been suffering shortage of labor. However, women who make up half of the population stay or are held out of the labor force. Although the governments came up with policies of overcoming the shortage by inviting labor to migrate from abroad, specifically from Turkey, they never came up with policies to increase women’s participation. Increasing participation of women may not bring an ultimate solution to the labor shortage problem due to the small size of the population but it is definite that it would help. In 2010, still around 60 percent of working age women population is out of the labor force. The studies on female labor force participation in North Cyprus suggest gender segregation and gender pay gap, that is to say women's concentration in low-paying occupations as the most important explanation for the continuing low labor force participation of women. Therefore, this paper aims at investigating the presence, extent and the patterns of occupational gender segregation in North Cyprus labor market for the period 2004-2010. To investigate the presence, extent and patterns of occupational segregation the D-Index, is computed for 7 years for 9 broad occupational categories for nationwide and across rural and urban regions. Study employs Household Employment Surveys data. Preliminary results show that total occupational gender segregation increased by %3.5 over the period (2004-2010). Decomposition calculations of the segregation index show that the main reason of the increase in the level of segregation is the increase in the gender composition of individual occupations. Although the occupational structure of the labor force is more integrated in 2010 compared to 2004, due increasing concentration of women in certain occupations total occupational gender segregation increase. Results also indicate differences in occupational gender segregation through time and across urban and rural regions. In the urban areas occupational gender segregation indices shows that occupational gender segregation decreased by %8.6 over the period. The individual occupations and the occupational structure of the labor force become more integrated in the urban areas and this decrease the occupational segregation in the urban areas. However, in the rural areas occupational gender segregation indices show that occupational gender segregation increased by %62.8 over the period. In rural areas both, the gender composition of individual occupations and occupational structure of the labor force become more segregated.