Variation in labor market participation of married women in Turkey

By A. Gündüz-Hoşgör, Jeroen Smits. 2008

171 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We explore the role of paid work in women's empowerment in Turkey by analyzing the variation in employment status and occupational position of Turkish women according to socio-economic and geographic background characteristics, characteristics of their marriage, and gender role attitudes. Being employed is seen as a major instrument in making women less dependent on their families and freeing them from the suppressing influence of patriarchal ideologies. However, only 35% of married women are gainfully employed and half of them work as (family) farm workers. Women engaged in the formal economy are more highly educated, have husbands with higher occupations, have fewer children, live in the West and urban areas, are less suppressed by their families and have less traditional gender role attitudes. Not speaking Turkish is a major obstacle to economic independency for ethnic women. Findings basically support the U-curve hypothesis which predicts that with increasing modernization female employment first decreases and then increases. However, the effects of modernization are overshadowed by the strong influence of patriarchal ideology that tends to confine Turkish women to the private domain. The major way out of the web of patriarchal restrictions seems to be via education.

Subfields: Gender Studies, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1231dde6cc54f64e5873e504930e35daf4c821bf

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Citations in the corpus

Hidden child labour : determinants of housework and family business work of children in 16 developing countries (2012, background): “When girls marry out of the household, investing in their education might not be worthwhile (Gunduz-Hosgor and Smits, 2008)).”
New Grounds for Patriarchy in Turkey? Gender Policy in the Age of AKP (2011, background): “In the Turkish context—contrary to the neoliberal premise—Gunduz-Hosgor and Smits ( 2008 , p.”
Patriarchal Norms, Religion, and Female Labor Supply: Evidence from Turkey (2015, background): “Gündüz-Hosgör and Smits (2008) find that women who are more strongly controlled by their families, as indicated by the fact that bride money was paid at their weddings or that they have only a religious marriage, have a higher probability of being housewives.”