15 Female Labor Force Participation in Turkey: An Analysis of Some Prominent Trends

Asst. Prof. Zeki Akbakay

For sustainable development, the production factors need to participate in production at the maximum level. As a production factor, the female workforce constitutes half of the total workforce in the world. However, the female contribution of the labor force is limited. Because the labor force participation rate of women is low compared to men in the world. In Turkey, however, this ratio remains well below the World average. At the beginning of the 1990s, the labor force participation rate decreased with the increase in migration from rural, where women’s participation in agricultural economic activities was high, to urban areas. Therefore, the distancing of families from subsistence farming has played a dominant role in the reduction of women’s labor force participation. Nevertheless, in recent years, the policies applied to increase women’s employment, changing attitude towards the working women in society, increasing education levels, getting married later and having low fertility rates have increased the labor force participation rate.