The Importance of Women's Employment in Social Development

The Importance of Women's Employment in Social Development

Women's participation in the workforce is closely related to the level of development of societies. The empowerment of women in terms of political, economic and social rights and the expansion of their sphere of influence in this way make a significant contribution to the formation of more stable and just societies and to the improvement of the quality of life.

The “Global Gender Gap Report” prepared by the World Economic Forum is an invaluable resource to understand how effective women are in the economic and political arena.

Global Gender Gap Report Results

The report, which has been prepared by examining employment rates in more than a hundred countries every year since 2006, tries to measure gender-based differences in access to resources and opportunities.

In this report, genders are examined in terms of four main dimensions. These dimensions are “Economic Participation and Opportunity”, “Educational Achievement”, “Health and Survival” and “Political Empowerment”.

According to 2022 data, the global gap has closed by 68.1%. In other words, it takes 132 years for the gap to be completely closed under the current conditions. In the pre-pandemic period, this period was calculated as 100 years (2020).

According to the report, Iceland is the country with the lowest gender gap in the world ranking whereas Turkey ranks 124th among 146 countries (In terms of “Participation in the Economy and Opportunity' dimension, Turkey is 134th).

Female Employment in Turkey

In order to find a good job, having a good education and equipment is among the most important factors. From this point of view, Turkey is among the countries in a relatively good situation in terms of equal access of the sexes to educational opportunities. However, when we look at the distribution of employment and voluntary/involuntary unemployment in our country, it is seen that there are gender inequalities in the distribution and that women are quite disadvantaged in certain areas.

According to TUIK data, as of the end of the second quarter of 2022, employment in Turkey is 30.7 million, of which 9.9 million are women. Considering the sectoral distribution of employed women, the service sector ranks first with 60%, while the agricultural sector ranks second with 21%.

Table 1

Daily housework and childcare continue to be among the important elements that shape the life of women, especially in the household. 21 million of the 30 million people who are not “in the labor force” are women, and 10 million of these women stated that they are not included in the labor force because they are busy with “household chores”.

Table 2

According to unemployment data, as of the 2nd quarter of 2022, the unemployment rate for women is 12.8% and the number of unemployed women is 1.4 million. When unemployment rates are analyzed according to educational status, the unemployment rate among women who graduated from higher education institutions is 14%, which is above the general average.

Table 3

Positive Effects of Female Employment on Working Life

The International Labor Organization (ILO) report titled Women in Business and Management: Rationales for Change is an extremely comprehensive resource created by analyzing data on 13,000 businesses from 70 countries in 2019.

According to the report; Three-quarters of companies that monitor gender diversity in their management report profit growth between 5% and 20%. In addition, as the number of female members in the board of directors increased, it was observed that the business output of the companies improved by 20%.

Efficiency can increase by up to 62% in companies where women reach equal levels with men in terms of personal rights and company policies. 54% of the respondents stated that women having equal rights with men in management would contribute to the company's reputation.

To exemplify other important findings in the report, with the increase in female employment within the company, the probability of retaining talented employees increases by 59.7%. Thanks to the sensitivities specific to women, the possibility of companies to analyze consumer needs more clearly increases by 37.9%, according to the report.

In addition to its direct contributions to the economy, there are also a number of areas where the increase in women's employment will indirectly trigger its development. One of these is the increasing demand for household appliances and machines that will allow routine work in the home to be done in a shorter time. Another can be exemplified by the more intense demand for service needs such as support for housework and childcare. A more active role of women in business life will contribute to the demand for more intensive services from other sectors around them and to the development of the economy as a whole.

Another positive effect of women’s increasing employment can be stated as the increase in education investments of the state and private sectors for day care / child education centers.

Conclusion and Evaluation

Although female employment is on an increasing trend, it is yet much further than the expected level.

According to the data in Turkey, it seems that women’s participation in employment is highly affected by gender roles in many different ways such as sectors with high female employment, reasons of women not to participate in employment and women’s status in the places of employment.

Women's participation in employment should be encouraged at all times for stable economic development, as it will increase overall production and quality. It is extremely important that the responsibilities of housework and childcare should be shared as equally between the sexes as possible.

Contribution to the economy should be taken as a basis for sustainable growth, without discrimination between men and women. Realizing the full potential for social welfare and development should become one of the main objectives.