Factors affecting women's participation in labor force: An econometric analysis

Women, whohaveparticipated in thelabourforcebehind men frompasttopresent, havebeenvisible in thelabour market as unpaidworkers. WiththetechnologicaladvancementsbroughtaboutbytheIndustrialRevolution, womenhave not onlybeenconfinedtohouseholdduties but havealsocontributedtothegrowth of thenationaleconomybyenteringthelaborforce. Thisstudyaimstoinvestigatethefactorsinfluencingwomen'sparticipation in thelaborforce, specificallywithinthecontext of Turkey.The data set of thestudyconsists of annual data fortheperiod 1991-2022.Inthestudy, women'slaborforceparticipation rate waschosen as thedependentvariableandinflation rate, grossdomesticproduct rate, population rateandfertility rate werechosen as independentvariablestoinvestigatethefactorsaffectingwomen'sparticipation in laborforce in terms of thesevariables. Theexistence of a long-runrelationshipbetweenthevariableswasinvestigatedusingthe ARDL (Autoregressive Distributed LagBound Test) Bound Test. As a result of theresearch, a long-runrelationshipwasfoundbetweenthevariables. An analysis of thelong-runcoefficientsrevealsthattheincrease in thepopulation rate has a positiveeffect on women'slaborforceparticipation rate in thelongrun, whilefertility rate, inflation rate and GDP rate havenosignificanteffect on women'slaborforceparticipation rate.Furthermore, the presence of a causalrelationshipamongthevariableswasinvestigatedusingtheToda-Yamamotocausality test. Finally, thestudyconcludedthatfertility rate, inflation rate, GDP andpopulation rate togethercausefertility rate andinflation rate.