general schooling. Finally, all these studies show very high returns to higher education than to other levels of schooling. This is consistent with the very high demand for university level education albeit restricted with the very competitive entrance examinations. Karatas (2018) also obtains results like Tansel (2001). The higher returns to vocational education than to general education is a similar finding to our estimates in Table 2 for 2017, although our estimates for 2017 are much smaller in size than those obtained by Tansel (2001).

Salehi et al. (2009) report the overall Mincerian estimates for men for 1988, 1994 and 2003. Their estimate for 1988 is lower than our 2017 estimate, but their estimates for 1994 and 2003 are higher than our 2017 estimate. Vural and Gulcan (2008) report estimates for 1994 and 2004. Their estimate for 1994 males is about the same as our 2017 estimate, but for females it is lower than our estimate. In 2004 for both females and males, their estimates are higher than our 2017 estimates. In contrast, Guris and Caglayan (2012) find estimates in 2003 and 2006 for females and males much lower than our 2017 estimates. Tansel and Bodur (2012) report similar overall estimates of around 8 percent for 1994 and 2002 which are similar to ours. Tansel and Daoud (2014) also report similar overall estimates for 2004 and 2008, around 12 percent, which are higher than ours. Bakis (2012) reports for 2008 an overall estimate of 10 percent. Mocan (2014) reports a surprising overall estimate of zero percent for men and 14 percent for women.

# **Turkey’s 1997 reform-affected returns**

Turkey’s 1997 reform of basic education had a forward-looking vision for the education system that defined the kind of citizens that the system would develop: “To raise individuals of the information age who are devoted to the principles and reforms of Atatürk, whose thinking, perception, and problem-solving capabilities have been developed, who are democratic, devoted to freedom, faithful to moral values, open-minded, and aware of their personal duties and responsibilities...” (8th Five Year Development Plan, paragraph 675).

The Basic Education Law (Law No. 4306) passed in August 1997 mandated eight years of compulsory education. This launched an unprecedented expansion of public primary schooling. The eight-year Basic Education Program involved a broad range of actions. As a result, enrollment in basic education increased by over 1.1 million students, raising the gross enrollment ratio from 85.63 percent in 1997 to 96.30 percent in 2002. Enrollment rates for girls, especially in rural areas, made particularly impressive gains. For example, in the nine provinces in the eastern and southeastern regions of Turkey that had the largest gender disparity, female enrollment increased 160 percent. Using a combination of government and private contributions, the Ministry of National Education built 81,500 new primary-education classrooms during the five-year period 1997–2002, increasing classroom supply by 30 percent (World Bank 2005).

The 1997 reform extended compulsory schooling from grade 5 to grade 8. We use it here as a natural policy experiment in the subsequent analysis. This type of policy-related instrument (based on compulsory schooling) is frequently viewed as an ideal instrument. It provides the return to persons who decide to enroll only because of the policy change. This reform affected 24 percent of the wage earners in the 2017 HLFS survey.

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