Women's unregistered employment and economic growth: The sample of Turkey

The informal economy and its reflection in the labor market, unregistered employment, are among the important problems for Türkiye. Women are the individuals involved in the unregistered employment mostly. In the present study aiming to determine the effects of women's unregistered employment on economic growth, explanations are made about the concepts of growth, unregistered economy and unregistered employment firstly, and the theoretical framework regarding the appearance of unregistered employment and women's employment in Turkey is included. The empirical analysis results are explained following the literature review of the study. In this study covering the period 2007-2021; GDP, women's registered employment, women's unregistered employment, migration, birth and population change rate data of Turkey's Level 2 regions and the effect of women's unregistered employment on growth in Turkey are examined using the panel data method. Kao and Pedroni cointegration test was applied to determine the cointegration relationship between the series and it is found that the series are cointegrated. In the causality test between variables, it is seen that there is a causality between the variables of women's unregistered employment, migration, birth and population change rate and GDP, but there is no causality between women's registered employment and GDP. In addition, it was determined that birth and population variables are Granger reasons for women's unregistered employment, but migration variables are not Granger reasons for women's unregistered employment. As a result of the regression analysis, it is concluded that women's unregistered employment affects economic growth negatively at a significant level, and the increase in women's unregistered employment affects economic growth negatively.