Segregation at work, segregation at home: Turkish women, gendered jobs and prestige

This study sets out to understand the position of Turkish women in gendered jobs and jobs with different levels of prestige from the 1980s to the 2000s, and to compare this position to that of women in similar countries where possible. Although Turkish women's enrolment rates in traditionally male subjects in higher education is above the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average and despite the fact that they exceed their male counterparts in their graduation rates in most of the university subjects, this success is not reflected in the labour market. Turkish women are mostly trapped in female occupations with medium level of prestige and are particularly excluded from top-ranked jobs. This study argues that the vicious circle of society's expectations of women in the private sphere and the statistical discrimination based on the fulfilment of these expectations affect women's likelihood to be in these jobs negatively. While increasing educational level strongly improves women's position in male-dominated jobs (within 'professional, scientific and technical jobs' category in particular) and their prestige levels, evidence also shows that there is still a drastic lost potential in respect of highly qualified women's employment considering that still in 2010s, there is a remarkable proportion of highly educated women who are not in paid work. It is observed that in 2012, women expanded their attainment in relatively low-prestige jobs and increased their participation further in professional jobs in accordance with their rising higher educational attainment, yet still only 3% of working women are in managerial jobs (TurkStat, 2012). This implies that the prescribed gender roles that saddle women with the heavy burden in the private sphere, which also affect highly educated women's career trajectories, could even be more persisting than the influence of the traditional social structure on women's work that is expected to cause low qualified women to be represented at low rates in (less prestigious) jobs with non-traditional conditions.
Considering that women withdraw from the labour market mostly due to marriage, and the findings show that marriage and having children have a negative impact on women's careers at large, attention should be focused on the private sphere. Looking at Turkish households, it is found that the gender segregation at work is reflected in the private sphere: women undertake the demanding traditionally female housework and while there are more potential sources of support for childcare compared to household chores, women's employment status and level of income also do not make a substantial difference in terms of the former also the unbalanced domestic division of labour unlike it is for the latter. Results demonstrate that Turkish men do not have a particularly traditional gender ideology regarding women's paid work. However, their lack of involvement in female chores creates a barrier for women's careers in a semi-direct pattern. The findings refer to the need for a faster increase in Turkish women's higher educational attainment and a stronger external support system via social policies at work and at home. It is also important to reinforce a more egalitarian gender ideology regarding men's roles as spouses and fathers as well as to promote the importance of women's different roles in private and public spheres, not only as wives and mothers but also as individuals, citizens and employers/employees.

Keywords: employment and family
occupational prestige
female employment
women
family and social policy
gender and work
domestic division of labour
Advisor: Kariya, T