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More children means less women labor
Turkish Daily News
April 21, 2008
» Go to http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=102397
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's much debated call to women to give birth to at least three children was criticized yet again yesterday with the argument that having more children will exclude women from the labor force, thereby making them more dependent on men.
"A woman stays away from her job for at least six years on average for pregnancy breaks if she has three children. This means, women told to have three children will not be able to work. They will have to take care of their children and husband instead," said writer Nuray Sancar at a conference on problems faced by working women held in Istanbul yesterday.
Referring to the recent social security reform bill endorsed by Parliament late Thursday, Sancar said, "The new amendments will disadvantage women who are already having difficulties in working life by taking away their acquired rights."
Another factor that excludes women from work and makes them more dependent on men is the migration trend from rural to urban areas.
The decrease in rural population has had severe adverse effects on women since women who work in agriculture or animal farms find themselves unemployed when they migrate to urban areas, according to Betül Urhan, an academic from Kocaeli University.
"Women who have immigrated do not have appropriate skills to work in cities and they have to stay at home or do the worst jobs, which is usually unregistered employment," said Urhan. Most women work without any security benefits and the government's policies seem to be supporting this system, she said.
The problems women workers face and the discrimination against them is not limited to Turkey, but it is an international phenomenon, according to experts.
"Capitalism's essence is to create cheap labor and this is possible with sexist and racists policies. Women, children and excluded segments of society are forced to work for the lowest wages," said Urhan.
However, the situation is even more difficult in patriarchal societies. Women being active in the work force has had historically secondary importance in Turkey.
"The perception of female employment being secondary to men's cannot be changed easily since it is embedded in societies with a historically patriarchal system," said Urhan.
The institutions which should ease women's burden are ignoring them since they are also part of this patriarchal system, experts say.
"Unions are not sensitive to women's issues and the problems of female workers since they are established as men's clubs in public sphere which excludes women historically," said Necla Akgökçe, editor in chief of Women Magazine published by the Petrol-İş union.
But as the women's movement in the society becomes stronger, the position of women in trade unions will also be strengthened, said Gökçe, giving the example of the successful strike held by women working at the Novamed company in Antalya.
Around 81 women, working in the factory which produces medical instruments in the Antalya Free Zone, held started a strike in 2006 in order improve their working conditions. Women workers achieved the signing of a collective bargaining agreement which not only improved their working conditions but also their wages after strikes and protests lasted more than a year.
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