Are Married Women in Turkey More Likely to Become Added or Discouraged Workers?

Abstract. The purpose of this study is to examine the labour market outcomes of married couples to find out which of the added and discouraged worker effects is dominant in urban Turkish families. Using household labour force survey and province‐level data from 1988 and 1994, we look for evidence regarding the dependency of the labour force participation decisions of wives and the employment status of their husbands. On yearly and pooled samples of married couples in their prime ages, bivariate probit estimates indicate that the two decisions are negatively correlated. However, the correlation is found to be statistically significant only in the economic crisis year of 1994. We interpret this finding to mean that the added worker effect dominates the discouraged worker effect.