The Impacts of Gender Inequality in Education on Economic Growth in Turkey

A large number of literature on education of women clearly suggest that educating a woman is equal to educating a family and that woman are worth training more than their counterparts, men, in many respects. However, despite the fact that positive contribution of women education to the economy and society has long been known, education of women in many nations, particularly in developing countries, needs to attract more attention. The education level of women is quite low in Muslim countries which are mostly developing countries. Increasing the level of education is dependent upon eliminating gender inequality in education. Muslim countries need to use all of their resources in order to reach their economic development targets. Women participation in economy is a major economic resource which is not frequently used in Muslim countries. A large amount of literature (Dollar and Gatti, 1999; Barro, 2001; Schultz, 2002; Klasen, 2002; and Knowles, 2002) suggests that, gender equality has a positive effect on economic growth Taking Muslim countries into account, one can reasonably claim that the rate of the effect of gender equality on economic growth is higher in developing countries. In this paper, the impact of gender inequality in education on economic growth for Turkey will be explored, using econometric techniques. The relationship between such variables as primary school graduation, high school graduation, vocational high school education and university graduation with economic growth will be discussed in detail. The paper will take into account of all variables for the period 1968-2005. The contributions of educated women in an economy are threefold. First of which is that increasing the level of human capital, correspondingly, decreasing the fertility rate of the women. Second argument is that infant mortality rate might decline by virtue of decreasing the fertility rate of the women. Thirdly, increasing women education level may affect the education level of next generation positively. Within this framework, co-integration approach will be applied in order to understand long run relationship between these variables which is gender inequality in education and economic growth. The empirical results indicate that there is a long-run relationship among these variables. Although Turkey has the biggest national income among OIC countries according to 2011 data, she has not been successful in fully eliminating gender inequality. Furthermore, Turkey is an interesting case in terms of education level of women and position of women in labor force. For instance, women are represented in academic life with 38% in Turkey, while the rate of women in quite low in many other sectors. Similarly, it is quite interesting to note that the rate of university graduates among Turkish women are only 3.9%, the rate of women participation in Turkish labor force is 28% and the rate of schooling among women are 32%, while women representation in academic life in quite high. Another interesting and unique situation in Turkey is that half of the female workers are placed in agriculture sector. These facts reflect significance of our study and its contribution to the field. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.