The impact of exporting on women employment: A study on Turkish manufacturing industry

Exploiting a recent and comprehensive firm level data, we aim to evaluate exports' impact on women employment rate for Turkish manufacturing firms between the years 2003-2015. We shed light on the possible mechanisms for job creation by distinguishing between several sub-samples of firms according to export sophistication, wage level and technology intensity of the sector that the firm operates. To investigate the effect of initiating to export on women employment rate, treatment models are constructed and propensity score matching (PSM) techniques accompanied by the difference-in-differences (DID) methodology are utilized. The estimation results indicate that starting to export increases women employment rate in Turkish manufacturing industry. It is observed that the effect of turning into two-way trader on women employment rate is more than becoming one-way trader. We find differential effects of exporting across different types of industries. Gains in female employment rates are observed for the firms operating in low and medium low technology intensive sectors, low wage sectors as well as labor intensive goods exporting sectors.