Birth and Employment Transitions of Women in Turkey: Conflicting or Compatible Roles?

The relationship between fertility and employment among women is a challenging topic that requires further exploration, especially for developing countries where the micro and macro evidence fails to paint a clear picture. This study analyzes the two-way relationship between women’s employment and fertility in Turkey using a hazard approach with piece-wise constant exponential modelling, using data from the 2008 Turkey Demographic and Health Survey. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that makes use of an event history analysis to analyze this relationship within a developing country context. Specifically, a separate analysis is made of the association between the employment statuses of women in their first, second, third, and fourth and higher order conceptions, and the association of fertility and its various dimensions with entry and exit from employment. The findings suggest that a two-way negative association exists between fertility and employment among women in Turkey, with increasing intensities identified among some groups of women. Our findings also cast light on how contextual changes related to the incompatibility of the roles of worker and mother have transformed the fertility-employment relationship in Turkey, in line with propositions of the role incompatibility hypothesis.