Labor Experiences of Childcare Givers in Türkiye on the Axis of Relation to Parents
Kezban Çelik, Fatma Umut Beşpınar, Ecem ErtenIn parallel with the global care crisis, the institutional provision of childcare services in Türkiye is very limited. Therefore, childcare takes place predominantly in the private sphere of family especially in early childhood, with childcare being provided by the women in the family such as mothers and grandmothers. Depending on the mother’s participation in the workforce, another woman is paid informally to provide childcare when services and support for childcare is outsourced. This study focuses on the paid domestic workforce of full-time babysitters based on qualitative research. The study conducts within its scope in-depth interviews with 21 caregivers who are Turkish citizens with the aims of understanding childcare experiences and practices and examining the relationship these experiences and practices have with parental practices. The main finding shows that childcare work that takes place in the home environment within family relationships and that includes emotional expectations such as love and compassion makes the caregiver indispensable for the family they serve while simultaneously leading to caregivers being vulnerable to low wages and job insecurity due to the inadequacy of institutional childcare services and legal regulations regarding childcare work.
Türkiye’de Çocuk Bakıcılarının Ebeveynle İlişkisellik Ekseninde Şekillenen Bakım Emeği Deneyimleri
Kezban Çelik, Fatma Umut Beşpınar, Ecem ErtenKüresel bakım krizi süreçlerine paralel olarak, Türkiye’de de çocuk bakımında kurumsal hizmet sunumu oldukça sınırlıdır. Bu nedenle özellikle erken çocukluk döneminde bakım, yoğun olarak “aile-özel alan”da gerçekleşmekte, çocuk bakımı anne başta olmak üzere, anneanne, babaanne gibi ailedeki kadınlar tarafından sağlanmaktadır. Annenin işgücüne katılımına bağlı olarak, ailenin, çocuk bakım konusunda dışarıdan hizmet/destek alması söz konusu olduğunda, ücretli bakım yine bir başka kadın tarafından yaygın olarak enformel yollarla sunulmaktadır. Nitel araştırmaya dayanan bu çalışma, yaptığı işten ücret alan ve tam zamanlı bir iş olarak çocuk bakıcılığı yapan yerli işgücüne odaklanmaktadır. Çalışma kapsamında İstanbul ve Ankara illerinde yaşayan 21 Türkiye Cumhuriyeti vatandaşı bakıcı ile derinlemesine görüşme yapılmıştır. Çalışmanın amacı, çocuk bakıcılığı deneyim ve pratiklerini anlamak ve bu deneyim ve pratiklerin ebeveyn pratikleri ile ilişkiselliğini incelemektir. Çalışmanın temel bulgusu kurumsal bakım hizmetlerinin ve bakım emeğine ilişkin yasal düzenlemelerin yetersiz olması nedeniyle, ev ortamında, aile ilişkilerinin içinde gerçekleşen ve sevgi, şefkat gibi duygusal beklentileri de içeren bakım emeğinin, bakıcıyı hizmet sunduğu aile için vazgeçilmez kıldığı ama aynı zamanda düşük ücret, güvencesizlik gibi nedenlerle güçsüz ve kırılgan bir konuma getirdiğidir.
In parallel with the global care crisis, the institutional provision of childcare services in Türkiye is very limited. Therefore, childcare takes place predominantly in the private family area especially in early childhood, with childcare being provided by the women in the family such as mothers and grandmothers. Depending on the mother’s participation in the workforce, another woman is paid informally to provide childcare when services/support for child care is to be outsourced. This study focuses on the domestic workforce that is paid as full-time babysitters based on qualitative research. The study conducts within its scope in-depth interviews with 21 childcare givers who are Turkish citizens with the aims of understanding childcare experiences and practices and examining the relationship these experiences and practices have with parents’ practices. The main finding is that childcare work that takes place in the home environment within family relationships and that includes emotional expectations such as love and compassion makes the caregiver indispensable to the family they serve while simultaneously leads to caregivers being vulnerable to low wages and job insecurity due to the inadequacy of institutional childcare services and legal regulations regarding childcare work. Caregivers see the care they provide and therefore themselves as valuable to the child and family. However, they position themselves as safe and valuable or vulnerable and disposable in their relationships with the family based on (a) the job description and employer’s expectations, (b) experiencing autonomy and control when providing childcare, and (c) the parent’s views on parenting. This relationship is mostly limited to a few years due to childcare only being provided in the preschool period, during which time caregivers also develop some strategies such as presenting themselves as an experienced teammate to the parents and winning the child over to strengthen their position in the family.
The study used the snowball sampling method to reach out to caregivers. All interviews with the women were recorded with their permission. Two separate researchers read all the interviews, after which a thematic analysis method was used to extract the themes, sub-themes, and codes from the data. The women were asked why they had taken the position, how they viewed it, what they did daily, what their own parenting experiences are, how they felt about the child’s parenting, and how they felt about their role as a caregiver. Like many other developing countries, Türkiye has a lower percentage of its female population in the workforce compared to that of developed nations. Increasing the number of women who are employed is a top priority for governments due to the direct correlation between women’s economic success with the prevention of poverty and the attainment of gender parity. However, attention from the public at large and from childcare facilities in particular is required to reach this objective. Promoting gender equality and decreasing the likelihood that educational differences between children will endure for future generations require early childhood care and education programs to be widely available. These policies aid in societal and economic growth by encouraging dual-income families to combat poverty (İkkaracan, 2014; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2012).
The study attempts to examine childcare behaviors in the context of the caregiver-parent relationship and largely comprises the relevant literature. In the literature review section, the insufficiency of institutional care services in Türkiye is explored historically. The first section briefly mentions Dowling’s (2021) care crisis thesis under the heading of Global Care Crisis. Discussions on the inadequacy of institutionalized childcare, one of the most significant hurdles to women’s engagement in working life, are included under the subheading of Women’s Limited Participation in the Labor Force and the Inadequacy of Institutional Care Services in Türkiye. The subheading Non-Institutionalized Child Care in Türkiye then examines the specific elements of the childcare sector, and finally the subheading The Meaning of Care and Caregiver-Parent Relationships presents the literature on this subject. The second section follows the discussions in the literature and focuses on the study’s procedures, data gathering methods, and data analysis processes. Based on qualitative data, the third section presents findings on the role of the caregiver in child-rearing practices and the meaning of childcare work, their experiences of autonomy and control during childcare, and their position in family relations based on their perceptions and observations about parents and the parent-child relationship. The study finishes with a conclusion that highlights several key findings.
Caregivers often develop a worker-employer relationship with the children of middle- and upper-class families. Families in the middle and upper classes place a high priority on their children’s happiness. This means that caregivers are effectively trusted with the family’s most-valued members by being allowed to babysit. This task requires the parents to evaluate the child’s core characteristics and how they choose to live their lives. A person who wants to do childcare needs to be a reliable, respectable, kind, hardworking, resourceful, industrious, and morally upstanding woman. Such a focus on an individual’s character facilitates entry into the field and informal support networks. People in the care sector, especially those working with children, sometimes feel they are bartering/selling their traits, methods, and emotions rather than their labor. Caregiving is not only a profession but also a social and personal exchange between two people, with studies from Bora (2012), Anderson (2000), and Kalaycıoğlu-Tılıç Rittersberger (1997) being just a few of the ones that support this theory. The current study’s results show providing childcare to be a demanding task that is tough to keep under control. Caregivers’ perceptions of their own agency and control in the workplace and in their personal relationships are profoundly influenced by the standards set by the parents of the children in their care. The job description and expectations the parents provide, as well as caregiver’s sense of self and their relationships with child and his/her parents, have a significant impact on the caregiver’s ability to make meaning of and feel included in their work. The stories the caregivers told often centered on the children in their care. In these accounts, some caregivers portrayed the parent, especially the mother, as a teammate, while others insisted that they make every effort to be a good caregiver regardless of the parents’ attitudes or involvement. The caregivers believe their work is socially relevant and vital, but they perceive themselves as temporary because the parents will always have the last word, and their bond is just temporary. The insufficiencies in the legislative restrictions on caregiving is also found to be able to contribute to a sense of uneasiness and indispensableness.
