Age, Employment and Educational Reform: An Alternative View of Unemployment in Turkey

Abstract

Unemployment rates reported by governmental authorities do not account for changes in the age and sex composition of the labor force. However, different age groups tend to have different unemployment rates, and changes in the relative importance of these groups in the labor force will affect measures of unemployment. We apply an alternative age-adjusted unemployment rate to Turkey between 1988 and 2009, and find that if the relative composition of the labor force had not changed, the reported unemployment rate would have been as much as 10.7% higher in 2007. The main factor that has led to the lower reported unemployment rates has been the fall in the labor force participation of men and women aged 15-24. We argue that the main reasons for this change in the relative age composition of the labor force are new education laws, which have kept younger workers out of the labor force.