The paper attempts to determine whether there are significant gender differences in academic performance among undergraduate students in a large public university in Turkey based on three indicators; university entrance scores, performance in the English preparatory school and in the program the student is majoring in. The paper finds that a smaller number of female students manage to enter the university and when they do so, they enter with lower scores. However, once they are admitted to the university, they excel in their studies and outperform their male counterparts. This result holds after controlling for the field of study and individual attributes.

This paper estimates the impact of the extension of compulsory schooling from 5 to 8 years in Turkey-which increased women's schooling by more than a year-on marriage and birth outcomes of teenage women. We employ a regression discontinuity design, where we compare month-year of birth cohorts of women. The increased compulsory schooling years reduce the probability of teenage marriage by age 16 and first-births by age 17 substantially. However, these effects dissapear after ages 17 and 18 for marriage and first-births, respectively. Our results indicate strong incarceration effects of the policy on marriage and birth outcomes during the newly mandated compulsory schooling years as well as human capital effects on the time to marriage. However, the human capital effects on the probability of being ever-married vanish after a couple of years the students become free to leave school.

This paper investigates, in a unified framework, the effects of sibship size, birth order and sibling sex composition on children's school enrolment in urban Turkey. We utilize an instrumental variable estimation method to address parents' joint fertility and schooling decisions using twin births as instruments. We find no causal impact of sibship size on school enrolment. However, there is evidence for a parabolic impact of birth order where middle-born children fare worse. Sex composition of siblings matters only for female children. Our finding that birth order and sibling sex composition matter more for poorer households suggests that scarce financial resources play an important role in bringing about the sibling composition effects. Copyright (c) Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the Department of Economics, University of Oxford, 2009.

The aim of this study is to investigate the determinants of child labour in urban Turkey with a special reference to low household income or poverty as one of its root causes. Studies done elsewhere have produced mixed results which necessitate the relationship to be studied at country-level. The data from urban Turkey indicate that children from poorer families stand at a higher risk of employment. This finding is confirmed using various measures of household material well-being. Simulation results have further pointed out that current interventions are not likely to produce a sizeable impact on the child labour problem.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu This study examines the effects of the extension of compulsory schooling from 5 to 8 years in Turkey in 1997 -which involved substantial investment in school infrastructure -on schooling outcomes and, in particular, on the equality of these outcomes between men and women, and urban and rural residents using the Turkish Demographic and Health Surveys. This policy is peculiar because it also changes the sheepskin effects (signaling effects) of schooling, through its redefinition of the schooling tiers. The policy is also interesting due to its large spillover effects on post-compulsory schooling as well as its remarkable overall effect; for instance, we find that the completed years of schooling by age 17 increases by 1.5 years for rural women. The policy equalizes the educational attainment of urban and rural children substantially. The urban-rural gap in the completed years of schooling at age 17 falls by 0.5 years for men and by 0.7 to 0.8 years for women. However, there is no evidence of a narrowing gender gap with the policy. On the contrary, the gender gap in urban areas in postcompulsory schooling widens. The findings suggest that stronger sheepskin effects for men, resulting from their much higher labor-force participation rate, bring about this widening gender gap. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SJEL Classification: I21, I24, I28, J15, J16