A Sociological Study on Working Women in Türkiye: Welfare Regime, Familism and Experiences of Reconciling Employment with Unpaid Domestic and Care Works
Mustafa GültekinThis research examines 36 married women with children who are employed in different professions in Türkiye, predominantly in the service sector. On one hand, the study aims to analyze the similarities and differences among these women using quantitative data on sociodemographic, socioeconomic, and childcare tasks. On the other hand, it seeks to understand how women interpret their double burden, childcare responsibilities shared within the family and working conditions during the pandemic. The study applied hierarchical clustering and k-means method to the quantitative data then discovers the compatibilities and incompatibilities between the quantitative and qualitative data. Clusters 1 and 2 are shown to be close to feminist consciousness, with work having a liberating meaning for them. One common tendency was able to be observed in Clusters 3, 4, 5 and 6 with the participants perceiving the double burden as a duty/obligation and not perceiving work as liberating. Furthermore, their status at work was found to have led to inequalities in terms of the use of social security during the pandemic. The fact that almost all respondents continue to have their children looked after by their mothers or mothers-in-law suggests that familism remains a strong source of welfare.
Türkiye’de Çalışan Kadınlar Üzerine Sosyolojik Bir İnceleme: Refah Rejimi, Aileselcilik ve İstihdamı Ev ve Bakım İşleri ile Uzlaştırma Deneyimleri
Mustafa GültekinBu araştırma, Türkiye’de büyük ölçüde hizmet sektöründe birbirinden farklı mesleklerde ücretli olarak istihdam edilen evli ve çocuklu 36 kadını incelemektedir. Çalışma bir yandan, sosyo-demografik, sosyo-ekonomik ve çocuk bakım sorumluluğu ile ilgili nicel verilerle kadınların aralarındaki benzerlik ve farklılıkları analiz etmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Öte yandan, kadınların çifte yükü, aile içinde paylaşılan çocuk bakımı sorumluluklarını ve pandemi esnasındaki çalışma koşullarını nasıl yorumladıklarını keşfetmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Çalışmada nicel verilere hiyerarşik kümeleme ve k-ortalama yöntemi uygulanmış, ardından nicel ve nitel veriler arasındaki uyumluluklar ve uyumsuzluklar keşfedilmiştir. Küme 1 ve Küme 2’nin feminist bilince yakın oldukları ve çalışmanın onlar için özgürleştirici bir anlam taşıdığı gösterilmektedir. Küme 3, Küme 4, Küme 5 ve Küme 6’da çifte yükü bir vazife/mecburiyet olarak algılamalarında ve çalışmayı özgürleştirici olarak algılamamalarında ortak bir eğilim gözlenebilmiştir. Ayrıca, pandemi sürecinde işteki durumlarının sosyal güvencelerden yararlanma bakımından eşitsizlikler ürettiği görülmüştür. Neredeyse görüşmecilerin tümünün çocuklarının bakımını annelerinin ya da kayınvalidelerinin üstlenmeye devam etmesi, aileselciliğin güçlü bir refah kaynağı olarak devam ettiğini göstermiştir.
Both quantitative and qualitative data are currently found to demonstrate that Türkiye has evolved into a society primarily comprised of wage earners. By reflecting trends seen in OECD countries, women in Türkiye, notably in the service sector, can be observed to be actively engaged as wage earners. However, within developing nations such as Türkiye, both formal and extensively informal employment structures prevail. Scholars widely agree that Türkiye aligns with the Southern European and Mediterranean welfare regimes. Familism, which is prevalent in Türkiye’s welfare system, leads to categorizing women in this regime as homemakers and is significantly influenced by cultural norms. Familism stands as a common resource from which employed women in Türkiye can benefit, albeit the impact may vary across diverse occupational profiles.
This study focuses on 36 married women with children employed as wage earners primarily within the service sector across 12 different cities in Türkiye who operate within the framework of the familism welfare system. Employing a mixed research method, this research seeks to analyze the female participants’ similarities and differences using quantitative data concerning socio-demographic, socio-economic, and childcare tasks. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate how women perceive the double burden that includes childcare supported by family members, and their experiences concerning the work conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study analyzed the quantitative data using data reduction techniques such as hierarchical clustering and the k-means method through the program SPSS 25.0. Subsequently, the study interpreted the qualitative data obtained from respondents alongside the derived clusters derived, thus allowing for the identification of congruences and inconsistencies between the quantitative and qualitative findings.
The study’s introduction presents both quantitative and qualitative data in order to explore Türkiye’s transition to a society dominated by wage earners, the formation and growth of the service sector in which wage earners are predominantly active and the female employment rate. The study first outlines the literature concerning female employment within Türkiye’s familism welfare system before discussing the policies aimed at balancing work and life in Türkiye. The subsequent section delves into the analysis of the respondents’ quantitative data using hierarchical clustering and the k-means method, resulting in the classification of 36 female respondents into six distinct clusters. Lastly, the study connects the identified six occupational clusters with the qualitative data, revealing the congruences and discrepancies.
The analysis of the data reveals Clusters 1 and 2, which are separate from each other but have similar occupational and educational profiles, to be common at the level of discourse. The representatives of these two groups have a relatively feminist consciousness, are supported by their family members regarding childcare and housework, and benefit from the social security the state provided during the pandemic as public sector employees. Even though the quantitative analysis reveals a distinction among the female respondents of Clusters 3, 4, 5, and 6, these respondents can be seen to have a strong tendency toward viewing employment as a double burden, namely as a duty and obligation or as an unbearable obligation. At the same time, the act of being employed has an emancipatory function for the respondents from Clusters 1 and 2, while the members of the other clusters do not perceive being employed as emancipatory due to the negative work conditions. However, due to the weakness of the welfare state and the high care rates in the market, informal care (i.e., balancing the burden of care with family resources) is still widespread due to women doing unpaid domestic work in Türkiye.
All the women who were interviewed had faced either advantages or disadvantages regarding access to State-provided social security coverage during the pandemic; this viewpoint being based on whether they were employed in the public sector, private sector, or self-employed. Throughout the pandemic, public sector jobs did not result in job or wage insecurity, unlike employment in the private sector, which carried a potential risk of job loss or income reduction. On the other hand, self-employment was seen to correspond to a level of security midway between the other two job types. The study’s findings show that the positive and negative effects of the social security system, which has an unequal corporatist structure that provides unequal benefits to citizens in Türkiye, also had adverse effects on working women during the pandemic.
As a result, the study finds that some of the female respondents have a feminist consciousness, while others have a mentality that reproduces the patriarchal mentality. Furthermore, for almost all female respondents, family resources represent a fundamental compensatory resource for childcare tasks. While female respondents working in the paid public sector benefited greatly from social security during the pandemic, the social security of the female respondents working in the private sector was found to be more fragile.