Mother's and Children's Employment in Turkey

Abstract

The paper attempts to identify the link between children's employment and that of their mothers in Turkey's labor market. Statistical evidence indicates that a disproportionately larger number of employed women are in households where there is at least one working child. Considering that this may not be a random occurrence the study treats mother's employment to be endogenous to the employment decision of children. Indeed, the study establishes that mother's employment decision and that of children cannot be thought independently of each other. The unobservables that increase the likelihood of women's employment also increase the employment probability of children, in particularly of female children. The findings of the paper question the current policy initiatives geared toward decreasing child labor and recommends that poverty alleviation programs be carefully designed taking into account the link between mother's and children's employment.