Women*s Economic Empowerment in Turkey (Routledge Studies in Labour Economics)

Turkey has experienced growth in both the population and the workforce. However, female participation in the workforce in Turkey is extremely low, largely due to financial dependency and lack of higher education. The authors argue that greater research is needed to improve the economic position of women throughout the country, and this remains a challenge that must be fixed both culturally and socioeconomically.

The book explores the significant gap between policy advancements, actual practices, and the impact of regional variety in the cultural structure. The authors suggest that this in turn has affected Turkey’s ability to implement changes and reform. Reform must allow women to pursue changes that will give them greater financial flexibility and freedom within the country. The authors demonstrate the concept and framework for women’s empowerment and explore the need for this. This book seeks to discuss the approaches and strategies for empowering women by outlining the strategies, policies and tools that women are using for their empowerment focusing on Turkey while comparing with other countries worldwide. It also brings several issues to the forefront such as equality treatment, political participation, social issues, the gender pay gap, the glass ceiling and gender (in)equality, the migration effect and education.

Offering a multi-disciplinary exploration of the relationship and connection between employment, national policies, migration economies, entrepreneurialism and gender in present Turkey, this book is an invaluable contribution to the existing literature surrounding Turkish gender studies and will be of interest to both scholars and experts in the field.

Onur Burak Çelik is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics, Yasar University, Turkey. He completed his undergraduate study in Mathematics at Bogazici University and his master’s degree in economics at the same university. He went to the USA in 2002 and earned his Ph.D. degree in economics at the University of Connecticut in 2009. In the same year, he joined the Eastern Connecticut State University academic staff. Afterwards, he worked at Quinnipiac University from 2010 to 2013. Currently, his primary research interest is sports economics.

Meltem İnce Yenilmez is an associate professor in the Department of Economics, Yasar University, Turkey. Her research interests range from Gender Inequality and Discrimination Policies in Labor Market to Women Empowerment and Female Labor Force. Her works have been published in English and in Turkish in edited volumes and in leading national and international journals. She has taken part in international/national socio-economic projects, and conducted Jean Monnet Module on "Gender Politics and EU in the Time of Crisis".