Structural Change in Wage Differentiation Patterns for Turkey in Terms of Working in the Same Industry

Abstract

In this paper, wage differentiation patterns for Turkey in terms of the couples who are working in the same industry and the ones who are working in different industries are investigated. In order to do this, the Turkish Household Labor Force Surveys from 2004 to 2014 are utilized. It is examined that regions can be grouped into three with respect the wage differentiation. In some of the regions, mean household wage incomes at which couples are at the same industry are higher than the mean household wage incomes at which couples are at different industries and the difference is nearly the same for all of the years. In the other kind of regions, the gap is increasing. In the last ones, mean household wage incomes at which couples are at the same industry are lower than the mean household wage incomes at which couples are at different industries. The gap is decreasing and at some point there is an intersection and afterwards the gap is increasing. These findings are valid not only for females’ but also males’ mean income. The squared wage differences are clustered into three categories by using K-Means clustering method. It is also examined that east regions change their clusters while some of the west regions never changes. If the variation is higher for the region, this is probably due to the structural changes in those regions.