Applying frailty models to analyze the duration of unemployment in Turkey

Nihal Ata Tutkun, Hacettepe University
Durdu Karasoy, Hacettepe University

In recent years, unemployment in developing countries has received great attention. Like in all other countries, unemployment is one of the major problems of Turkey because of its negative socioeconomic effects. Turkey experienced a series of financial and economic crises in its history and one of the leading economic crises is experienced recently in 2001. This crisis affects the unemployment rate; it reached 10.3% in 2002 whereas the unemployment rate was 6.5% in 2000. Since then, unemployment duration becomes a serious problem. According to the 2012 Turkish Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), the population of 15 year and over is 54 million 724 thousand persons. Number of unemployed persons decreased by 97 thousand persons in 2012 and has reached to 2 million 518 thousand persons in Turkey. Unemployment rate realized as 9.2% with 0.6 percentage points decrease. Youth (15-24 age group) unemployment rate was realized as 17.5% with 0.9 percentage points decrease. Number of employed persons increased by 711 thousand persons compared to the previous year and has reached to 24 million 821 thousand persons in 2012. Labor force participation rate (LFPR) realized as 50% with 0.1 percentage points increase compared to the previous year for Turkey in 2012. LFPR was realized as 71% with 0.7 percentage points decrease for male and realized as 29.5% with 0.7 percentage points increase for female compared to previous year. In this study, the assessment of current unemployment in Turkey is discussed. Also, a real data set consists of 471368 unemployed person is analyzed. The factors that effect the unemployment duration in Turkey are tried to be determined by duration models. Revealing what influences the duration of finding a job will be useful for job seekers. Besides, the characteristics of the applicants who apply to get unemployment salary can be introduced.