The FINANCIAL -- A larger percentage of job-seeking women than men are unemployed, and for a longer period of time, according to a study released yesterday by Bahçeşehir University's Center for Economic and Social Research (BETAM).

“In Turkey, participation in the labor force and unemployment figures show a great divergence based on gender, and these differences are reflected in the amount of time that a person stays jobless,” stated the researchers.

According to the Turkish Statistics Institute's (TurkStat) May 2009 data on the amount of time people remain between jobs, about 33 percent of job-seeking women remain unemployed for 12 months or more, while this percentage is just 24 for job-seeking men. In the short term, 51 percent of men were able to find employment within five months, compared to 45 percent of women. When it comes to medium-term (six to 11 months) unemployment rates, figures for women and men are fairly equal, as 22 percent of women and 25 percent of men cannot find jobs.

Another discrepancy the study showed was that there are more unemployed women than men although job-seeking women have more education. Among university graduates, there are fewer men (9.4 percent) unemployed than women (21.3 percent).

"For high school graduates seeking employment, about 40 percent of women are unemployed compared to 25 percent of men. Among the population with less than a high school education, only about 12.9 percent of women join the labor force compared to 72.6 percent of men. The researchers point out that participation in the labor force increases proportionally with education and that this increase is more striking for women," Today's Zaman says.

Gender plays a role again among people who have work experience. Of all job seekers, 63.7 percent of women compared to 84 percent of men have previous work experience.

Looking at the reasons behind these discrepancies, BETAM researchers stated that one factor is the reservation wage, which concerns the cost-benefit analysis people make before accepting a job. If a person's reservation wage is high, then their possibilities for employment will be lower, so they will face a longer period of unemployment. If the benefits of accepting a job would be greater than the opportunity cost (which could include a possible increase in earnings from future jobs or the economic value of domestic production for a woman) of accepting the job, a person would accept the job.

Another factor behind differences in the amount of time men and women spend unemployed is discriminatory tendencies in society. No matter how much more education or experience women might have, employers in Turkey prefer male workers and this fact prolongs the time women remain without a job.

Researchers point out the need for more data to measure employers' attitudes in selecting employees based on gender.

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