Distributional effects of female employment ratio on Turkish labor market outcomes

Purpose This paper studies demand-side determinants of women’s employment in Türkiye's manufacturing sector and tests whether firm characteristics relate differently to low versus high female employment ratio firms. Design/methodology/approach Turkish Statistical Institute micro data for 2005–2015 are merged, yielding over 250,000 firm-year observations for manufacturing firms with at least 20 employees. Female employment ratio is analyzed with panel quantile regression to trace heterogeneous associations across the conditional distribution for firm size, foreign ownership, age, export ratio, capital intensity, part-time, and overtime work. Findings Larger firm size is linked to higher female employment mainly in low and middle quantiles, with weaker effects at the top. Foreign ownership is positive throughout and stronger in higher quantiles. Export intensity is consistently positive, rising across quantiles and leveling off near the upper tail. Age, capital intensity, and overtime are negatively associated, with larger magnitudes at higher quantiles. Part-time work is positive, peaking in upper-middle quantiles. Practical implications Policies can be targeted by firms’ position in the female employment distribution, combining support for SMEs and low female-employment firms with gendersensitive export and investment incentives and enforceable work-life measures that reduce excessive overtime while improving access to high-quality flexible work arrangements. Originality/value Using a large firm-level panel, the study provides distributional evidence via quantile methods that reveal heterogeneity masked by mean-based models.