It will give a Turkish businesswoman a chance to comment publicly on key issues and to help shape policy in various areas. But her success should not obscure the fact that Turkish women are still too rare in positions of leadership and in the work force in general.Male TUSIAD members were joking that they would soon be in the minority. They need not fear for their positions just yet! Although they may genuinely believe that women have achieved equality in Turkey, figures show a very different reality.
In terms of female participation in the labor force, Turkey currently ranks 110th among 115 countries, according to the World Economic Forum. Among legislators, senior officials and managers, the ratio of women is only 6 percent.
The trends are disturbing: work force participation of women has been declining steadily for several decades. In 1955, 72 percent of Turkish women were working -- many of them employed in agriculture as unpaid family workers -- but by last year, the ratio had plummeted to 26 percent. In urban areas, it was lower still and stood around 17-18 percent. In sharp contrast, women have entered the work force in large numbers in most OECD countries in the past two decades.
Does this mean that Turkish women do not want a career? Some women may prefer to look after their children, but many are kept at home by a lack of job opportunities, adequate childcare facilities and flexible working hours. The high level of unemployment that persists in Turkey despite strong economic growth is yet another obstacle that affects women’s options.
Cultural traditions play a role in women’s employment. Studies show that across the EU, preferences vary: while in Sweden, a majority of women choose full-time employment, in Holland, they tend to favor part-time work after they marry. What is important is to have an infrastructure that allows women to make their own choices. At this point, public childcare facilities are rare in Turkey and private daycare centers still beyond most families’ budgets.
The Turkish government appears to be waking up to the fact that Turkey’s poor record on gender equality is likely to affect the country’s economic development in the future, as well as its integration into the European system. In 2006, the EU, aware that the gender gap had not been fully closed in any member state -- not even Sweden -- prepared a new “Roadmap for equality between women and men,” which aims to increase women’s employment rate from 55.7 percent to 60 percent by 2010. The roadmap also foresees measures to close a 15 percent wage gap between women and men.
Unless Turkey rapidly introduces measures to catch up with the EU average, gender equality will become yet another contentious issue between Turkey and the EU. State Minister Nimet Cubukçu recently berated the Central Bank for publishing a gendered list of vacancies. Turkish law prevents gender discrimination in the hiring process, but in practice public sector institutions do not always implement it and few rejected job applicants have the time and money to challenge decisions in court.
Turkey, which signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1985, needs an equality body to monitor the gender gap and suggest the right measures to narrow it. Perhaps it is a matter that TUSIAD, under its new leader, could bring to the political agenda in the coming months.
