Are Occupations of Parents Important? Evidence from Turkey

This paper investigates the relationship between sons' working age and their fathers' income in Turkey. In addition, we investigated the relationship between sons' occupations and fathers' income in Turkey. It is a unique study because no such study has been previously conducted in Turkey, which is both a Muslim country and a developing country. Our data were acquired from the 2015 Income and Living Conditions Survey, which allows us to match the fathers and sons in the sample. Our results suggest that there is a strong relationship between a father's income and his son's age when he first becomes employed. In brief, wealthier sons begin working at an older age than do poorer sons. In addition, our results suggest that when a father's income increases, the probability of his son having the same occupation as his father decreases. This suggests that wealthier sons have more opportunities available when choosing their occupations.