The Conflict between Education and Female Labour in Turkey: Understanding Turkey’s Non-compliance with the U-shape Hypothesis

Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies (JBNES) is an English language journal for the study of the complex historical, economic, political, diplomatic, cultural and security issues that confront the region of the Balkans and the Near East. JBNES constructs an academic forum to bring together disparate scholarly perspectives and publishes research on the nation-states of the Ballkans, Central Asia, the Middle East and the Caucasus, from 1945 to the present day. The journal encourages historical research, comparative approaches, critical scholarship and a diversity of international relations, political economy and geo-political/geo-strategic views on the region.This article forms part of a special issue: Women in the Mediterranean.

Abstract:

Female labour force participation rates (FLFPRs) are known to be exceptionally low in Turkey by international standards. The general consensus is that the catalyst behind FLFPRs is the level of educational attainment. In the academic literature, the relationship between the two factors—education and female labour force participation—is explained under what is known as the U-shape hypothesis.

Although female education has increased over the past years, the U-shape is not observable in Turkey. This research scrutinizes the economic and social characteristics of the labour markets in Turkey and finally seeks to demonstrate how women in Turkey are trapped in a vicious cycle. The U-shape theory is insufficient to explain FLFPRs in Turkey. Turkish women, although well educated, face cultural barriers in entering the labour markets. They present a form of passive human capital, whose skills are underutilized. Thus, the curve remains an L-shape rather than a U.