Minimum Wage Effects on Gender Wage Gap in Türkiye

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the increases in minimum wages on gender wage gap in Türkiye. We use the individual level micro data of the HLFS provided by the Turkish Statistical Institute for the years 2004-2023. At first, the disparities in wage determination between genders with the use of a Heckman-type wage equation with selection is conducted. Second, the gender wage gap for each year using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method is calculated. Finally, the wage gap is computed from the microdata serves as the dependent variable, while the explanatory variables include the share of women in employment, real minimum wage increases, and the proportion of individuals earning at or below the minimum wage by an OLS model. The results of Heckman wage equations show that education emerges as one of the most significant factors in both the wage and selection equations. The OLS regression results suggest that a one percent increase in the minimum wage correlates with a 2.4 percent reduction in the wage gap, and a one percent rise in the proportion of employees earning at or below the minimum wage leads to a 9.4 percent decrease in the wage gap.