Gender Economics in Turkey

Gender Economics in Turkey Elif Çolak Informal Economy; Under Participation Trap; Added Worker Effect This paper will look at the gender issues by focusing more on female side. Women in Informal Economy Worldwide, women’s involvement in the informal economy has increased since the early 1980s, as economic restructuring reduced job opportunities in the formal sector, increased the flexibility and casualness of labor markets, and increased the need for additional family income. There is a strong association between women’s employment and production for exports with the liberalization of the economy in Turkey. The number of women engaged in informal activities grown dramatically with the increasing influence of economic liberalization and flexible working conditions. Women’s work in exporting industries has been a center of major interest since the early 1980s women emerged as an important labor supply especially for the garment industry, but their integration into the production has remained informal and mostly made invisible through the utilization of familial relations in small-scale workshops. It also brings harsh working condition and low wages which allow the se sectors to become competitive. Unregistered economy refers to the legal economic activities which are not recorded officially to reduce production cost and aim tax evasion. Workplaces in unregistered economy are generally smaller in terms of scale; low wages are given to workers. There is an arbitrariness to recruit or fire workers. In rural area, TUÄ °K considers a category of unpaid family worker as employed and the majority of women, who are not registered to any social security institution, work as unpaid family worker. If we consider non-agriculture area, women mostly work as a regular employee and casual employee in unregistered economy. Self employment means that their payments depend on the profit of directly produced goods. They can make decision over operational activities. We can consider traditional handicraft activities under this category. Women who get specific order for dressmaking or handicraft works. They can decide about the finishing time of work and their payments after work. Other home- based work includes the piecework for subcontractor or another mediator. From 2004 to 2013, 5,19% of women on average work at the home. http://www.birlesikmetal.org/kitap/kitap_03/2003-1.pdf http://www.tuik.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=13590 They arrive the conclusion that women are not willingly accept these jobs but they are forced to accept. Due to gender-related point of view, women workers are more prone to be abused by their employers. They work for below official minimum wage and face with harsh conditions at work. They feel helpless and despair due to the behaviors of employers and treatment in the working place. Under Participation Trap To define what the under participation trap means, we should look at the different factors which create this trap in relation to each other. Firstly, we consider the women with low levels of education. Most of them are likely to work in the informal sector with low wages that are lesser than the payment given to domestic workers to do housework or childcare. Labor supply turns into be very low considering these issues. With the belief that girls will not have a chance to participate in labor market with high wages, families may want to invest lesser for the educations of girls. At this point, it creates a cycle, known as the under participation trap, that girls education contributes to keeping wages low so that it will keep labor supply low. (World Bank Report 2009, 21) If we look at segmentation of labor market, we can see that formal sectors have higher productivity than informal sector and offer slightly above minimum wages. Returns to both education and experience are higher in formal sector again. However, the choice of working in informal sectors occurs due to exclusion of low educated women in formal sectors. Very low wages in informal sector lead to low levels of labor supply. There are also very little transaction of low educated women from informal sector to formal sector. Women who work in informal economy face with the lack of social security problem which force them to quit job. There are employment possibilities which offer limited range of work in textile industry, domestic service or retail activities for low educated women. When we look at TUIK data for the reasons of being out of labor force among women, the most important reason is that majority of them are busy with household works along the day. However, when we turn our interest to men, there is no percentage given to household works. The retirement or being students become the important reason for being out of labor force for men. Women are considered as housewives who have more time to dedicate for care giving and house works. This perception also brings some disadvantages to women such as dependence to men, lack of social security, or low self esteem. In the patriarchal family setting, men also see their household activity as an easy job with more spare time at home. Poorly educated women face with the cultural as well as economic barriers which prevent them to participate in the labor market. Former barrier includes the women’s role as care givers and family pressure. Latter barrier includes women’s participation in informal sector with low salaries and long working hours. Mothering and childcare are also other important determinants for female labor force participation. Mothers do not want to leave their kids alone so they need to stay at home to take care of them. In addition to this, they cannot afford to hire someone as a babysitter. â€Å"Participants mentioned they would need to pay at least 500 TL monthly to hire somebody to take care of their children. To afford this, they would need to find a job that would pay them more than 1,500 TL,†¦, was beyond what they could earn given their skills and education level.† (World Bank Report 2009, 20) Added Worker Effect Discouraged Worker Effect after Crisis Added worker effect means that if the unemployment of one spouse leads other spouse to increase his/her labor supply. We need to focus whether women have an incentive to participate in labor force when their husbands involuntarily lose their jobs. Due to the fact that my focus is on the crisis period, family members may also lose their hopes to find job which creates discouraged worker effect. The discouraged worker effects leads to hidden unemployment of the people who want to work but do not look for a job. Therefore, the actual unemployment rates can be underestimated with the dominance of this latter effect. (BaÃ…Å ¸levent and Onaran 2003, 441) To analyze how women react to crisis period in Turkey, Cem BaÃ…Å ¸levent and Ãâ€"zlem Onaran looked at the Turkish Household Survey data from October rounds of 1988 and 1994 period. In 1994, crisis period, Turkish lira was depreciated by more than 50 per cent and by the end of the year, Turkish economy is contracted approximately 6 per cent. (BaÃ…Å ¸levent and Onaran 2003, 441) They analyze difference between two years and compare outcomes according to the effect of economic crisis in 1994. They use the regression of female labor force participation (FLFP) on different groups’ unemployment rates and the other factors. They look at the variables such as education, number of children, and age of women to understand the relationship between these variables and dependent variable FLFP. The number of children has a significant negative effect on the FLFP although it has no significant effect on male labor force participation. Only exception for the effect on MLFP is that i f children’s ages are between 6 and 14, then employment rate of husbands increased due to the expenses of school age children. If married women have fewer children, they have a tendency to participate in labor force. Their conclusion is derived from the fact that while there is no significant correlation between 1988 data for added worker effect and discouraged worker affect, they find statistically significant result for added worker affect of the married women in currency crisis in 1994 which had negative correlation with discouraged worker effect. In other words, it can be concluded that the added worker effects dominates the discouraged worker effect by looking at 1994 crisis. Their expectation, not analyzed in their research, is that added worker effect could be more dominant than discouraged worker effect for women due to the positive influence of female employment trends as well as getting more accustomed to working life. Ä °pek Ä °lkkaracan and Serkan DeÄÅ ¸irmenci look at the years between 2004 and 2010. They also include single female into their analysis. They focus on the fact that added worker effect creates pressure on the labor market which has already contracted due to crisis. In addition to this, active labor market participants may give up looking and withdraw their labor force from labor market. They make emphasis on particular characteristics of the women such as their age, marital status, and education level. Household unemployment shock increases the participation of university graduates who are between 20 and 45 age group by up to 34 per cent while the percentage drops to 17% for high school graduates. (Ä °lkkaracan,and DeÄÅ ¸irmenci 2013,1) The effect of migration from rural to urban areas shifts the agricultural labor power of women from unpaid family workers to unpaid household workers while men shifts from agricultural worker to industrial or service work ers in the urban areas. With the financial liberation, which started in 1980s, women have encountered with harsh working conditions, long working hours with low wages under poor labor market demand. Therefore, expected returns from female labor force participation are lower and structural constraint such as lack of child or elderly service weakens the added worker affects. (Ä °lkkaracan and DeÄÅ ¸irmenci 2013, 31) They make a conclusion that added worker effect in Turkey appears as a coping strategy to deal with economic downturns but it again refers to smaller effects like 8-10 percent of working age female become labor force participant with job loss of their husbands. If we look at 2008 crisis, Turkey faced with productivity loss as well as economic instability which pave the way to unemployment. â€Å"According to the Institute of LaborLaw (2009), the Turkish unemployment rate in January 2009 was 15.1 percent, which roughly corresponded to 3,600,000 individuals being out of jobs. Based on the data of the Turkish Institute of Statistics (TURKSTAT) (2009), the labor unions declared that the highest rate of unemployment since the foundation of the Turkish Republic was during the period of the 2007–2008 economic crisis, when between 13.6–16.3 percent of all workers lost their jobs (Tes-Ä °Ãƒâ€¦Ã… ¸ 2009, 30). Almost nine million of these people now work without being covered by any social security insurance.†page98- unregisterd worker†¦. Policy Offers Lack of child care service for the pre-school age and elderly care services, which constitutes structural constraints, leads women to stay at home in order to provide the needs of these family members. The majority of women do not take more than secondary education so that they are offered by these poor employment opportunities. Without any public service, they have to use their labor power for domestic workload and if they start to work, they will face with harsh conditions without satisfactory payments in the workplace. In addition to this, women who are employed in the informal sector suffer from the poor access of maternity leave which affects the labor supply of women. We estimate the marginal effect of the unemployment shock on labor market transition probability for the overall sample as well as for different groups of women, and hence demonstrate that the effect varies widely depending on the particular characteristics of the woman—for example, her education level, age, urban/rural residence, and marital and parental status. Creating job opportunities for first time job seekers Affordable child care Sustaining investments on education In 2012, a cash transfer program targeted to give social security coverage for the poor widowed women because these women without men are seen as impoverished and vulnerable group to maintain living of their household by themselves. Distinction across welfare regimes is important to understand how social welfare is produced and allocated between state, market, and family. We should also take the criticism about welfare regime into account that this â€Å"welfare regime† approach is â€Å"gender blind† or in other words, there is gender bias toward women without men. (Ãâ€"zar and Yakut-Çakar 2013, 25) Women are not capable of continuing their working lives because they have drop-outs with marriages or child born. Care services cannot be affordable for those women so that they turn their home again. Women without men ( a male breadwinner) can less likely to find job in the formal sector due to lack of experience and considerable break between working time and staying at home. They will not face with job opportunities in the formal sector so that they need to accept uninsured and low-waged works in informal sector. Characteristics of unregistered jobs create unstable and volatile situation for women due to its duration and wage level. To maintain their daily livings, sometimes women take informal support from the relatives or neighborhoods but it turns out to be inadequate again.†By providing support to only widowed women, that is, those women falling outside family involuntarily upon the death of the spouse, the welfare regime in Turkey continues to assume women within the boundaries of family and punishes those that fall outside these boundaries.†32 spouse, the welfare regime in Turkey continues to assume women within the boundaries of family and punishes those that fall outside these boundaries REFERENCES BaÃ…Å ¸levent, L. and Onaran, O. 2003. â€Å"Are married women in Turkey more likely to become added or discouraged workers?† Labour, 17, 439–58. DeÄÅ ¸irmenci, S., Ilkkaracan, I. (2013). Economic Crises and the Added Worker Effect in the Turkish Labor Market. Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, 774, 1-47. Kà ¼mbetoÄÅ ¸lu, B., AkpÄ ±nar, A. (2010). Unregistered Women Workers in the Globalized Economy: A Qualitative Study in Turkey. Feminist Formations,22(3), 96-123. Unfolding the invisibility of women without men in the case of Turkey Ã…Å ¾ahin, M. (2011). KayÄ ±t DÄ ±Ãƒâ€¦Ã… ¸Ãƒâ€žÃ‚ ± Ä °stihdam ve Esnek ÃÅ"retim Sà ¼recinde KadÄ ±n EmeÄÅ ¸inin Durumu: Tà ¼rkiye’de Ev-Eksenli ÇalÄ ±Ãƒâ€¦Ã… ¸ma, UzmanlÄ ±k Tezi, T.C. BaÃ…Å ¸bakanlÄ ±k KadÄ ±nÄ ±n Statà ¼sà ¼ Genel Mà ¼dà ¼rlà ¼Ãƒâ€žÃ… ¸Ãƒ ¼, Ankara. TurkStat (Turkish Statistical Agency) (2012) Household labor force survey, Online. Available HTTP: http://www.tuik.gov.tr/VeriBilgi.do?alt_id=25> (accessed 23 May 2013). http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=16005 World Bank Report 48508-TR (2009). â€Å"Female Labor Force Participation in Turkey: Trends Determinants and Policy Framework†. Human Development Sector Unit Europe and Central Asia Region. World Bank State Planning Organization (2009). Female labour force participation in Turkey: Trends, determinants and policy framework. Report No: 48508-TR. Washington: The World Bank. DÄ °SK BirleÃ…Å ¸ik Metal Ä °Ãƒâ€¦Ã… ¸Ãƒ §ileri SendikasÄ ± EV-EKSENLÄ ° ÇALIÃ…Å ¾ANLAR VE Ãâ€"RGÃÅ"TLENMELERÄ ° Bu kitapà §Ãƒâ€žÃ‚ ±k Ev-eksenli ÇalÄ ±Ãƒâ€¦Ã… ¸an KadÄ ±nlar ÇalÄ ±Ãƒâ€¦Ã… ¸ma Grubu’nun katkÄ ±sÄ ±yla hazÄ ±rlanmÄ ±Ãƒâ€¦Ã… ¸tÄ ±r. Ä °stanbul, Mart 2003 1

Genre Analysis: Musical The Wizard of Oz Essay

The Wizard of Oz is one of the biggest American Musicals in film. It has become known world wide, it is apart of our American popular culture, and is best known of all films. It was based on the novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz written by L. Frank Baum in the 1900s. It was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayar in the year of 1939. This film just hit the end of the â€Å"Golden Age of the Musical† that started in the early 1930s. MGM benefited greatly from the hit of the rebirth of musicals. It’s known for the use of technicolor which is a system of making color motion pictures by means of superimposing the three primary colors to produce a final colored print (Websters Dictionary), fantasy storytelling, interesting and creative characters, and the musicality imbedded into it. There was also a complex use of special effects for film in that specific time era which helped the film receive special notice. MGM’s film had many awards but one of the most famous one was the award of Best Original Song for â€Å"Over the Rainbow.† It was sung by Judy Garland as Dorothy just five minutes into the movie after she was trying to get her Aunt and Uncle to come to a realization of what happened to her poor little dog Toto. In the beginning of the film â€Å"Over the Rainbow† is played by MGM orchestra over the starting credits. There is a big taste of fantasy in this particular film which kind of in a way departs away from the musical genre. There is many scenes of flying monkeys, and the wicked witch of the West and Glinda, the good witch of the South, and the munchkins, and talking lions, and a tin man, and a talking scarecrow. There are many musical scenes that I am fond of in The Wizard of Oz like the scarecrow’s song â€Å"If I only had a Brain†, the tin man’s song â€Å"If I only had a Heart† and the lion’s song â€Å"If I only had the Nerve†. The Wizard of Oz was the famous directors, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayar’s, most popular musical in his time. Starring Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale was one of the best professional choices MGM had in his career. She was the stand out in the whole film. Also starring Frank Morgan as the wizard, Ray Bolger as the scarecrow, Jack Haley as the Tin Man, Bert Lahr as the cowardly lion, Billie Burke as Glinda the good witch of the south, and Margaret Hamilton as the wicked witch of the west. â€Å"Somewhere over the Rainbow† became Judy Garland’s signature song. She has been in 32 of MGM’s films and she won a Golden Globe Award, Grammy Awards and the Special Tony Award. She was then nominated the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in â€Å"A Star is Born†. Everyone of the lead rolls in The Wizard of Oz has been in many of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayar’s other films.

History &The Philosophies of Enlightenment Essay

The Enlightenment, also named the Age of reason, was an era for the period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The term â€Å"Enlightenment† also specifically talks about a rational movement. Moreover, this movement provided a basis for the American and French Revolutions. During this period, philosophers started to realize that by using reason they can find answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. Enlightenment philosophers believed that all human beings should have freedom of religion and speech. Furthermore, they wanted to have a government of their own and a right to vote. John Locke and Thomas Hobbes were two very important philosophical thinkers of their time. John Locke was a prominent thinker from England, and Thomas Hobbes is perhaps the most complete materialist philosopher of the 17th century. John Locke believed that people are good, and they should have natural rights such as â€Å"life, liberty, and property† but Thomas Hobbs main focus was how human beings can live together in peace and evade the danger and fear of civil war. John Locke (1634-1704) was one of the most significant and powerful philosophers during the Enlightenment era. Both the French Enlightenment and Founding Fathers of the American Revolution drew on his thoughts. John Locke suggested that the human mind was a tabula rasa (blank slate). There were no â€Å"innate ideas† known from birth by all people and society forms people’s mind. Since all people share the same undeveloped usual features, people are all equal and they determine their liberty. Locke said all human beings are equal expect women and Negroes because they are closer to the state of nature therefore they are less civilized and this led to the American Revolution. Locke’s most important work of political philosophy was the Two Treatises on Government. He argued that the power of the king is derived from the people, each person has a right to hold property, and if ruler takes this property from people without their own permission, people can depose and resist him. . Thomas Hobbes is another philosopher in 17th century who argued that people were naturally wicked and could not be trusted to govern. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was born in London. He finished his college education at Oxford University in England, where he studied classics. Hobbes was English philosopher, scientist, and historian, best known for his political  philosophy, especially as expressed in his masterpiece Leviathan. In his boos he described the â€Å"state of nature† where all persons were naturally equal. He said that people are frightened of violent death, and every single human on the planet has a right to protect him/herself in any way possible. He assumed that it’s in people’s best interest to avoid war. Moreover, he believed that life in the state of nature is â€Å"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.† Although John Locke and Thomas Hobbes do have some similarities, they have different opinions about most of their political arguments. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were two of the great political theorists of their time. Both created great philosophical texts that help to describe their opinions about man’s state of nature in addition to the role of government in man’s life. Both of them believed in individualism. Two years after the end of the English Civil War, Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan. He believed people had a good personality, if they were left to their own plans, life would become â€Å"a solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.† He said if people give some of their freedom, they can have a harmless life. He believed people are always in competition with each other for the best food, shelter, money, and so on. Hobbes supposed the best way to protect citizens would be to have a sovereign that is threatening and supreme. . Locke’s view of the state of nature says that humans have limits as to what people should or should not do. In contrast to Hobbes, Locke believed that humans are generally nice to one another, and we will not bother one another. Therefore, in Locke’s state of nature, humans are peaceful. Locke believed that people had the basic principles needed for a civilized society, so they were allowed to have natural rights such as life, liberty, and property. Locke believed rather than each person being equally at risk of death, each person was equally free and sovereign. The Enlightenment was an era of free thinking and individualism. Different philosophers had enormous role in this era. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were philosophers from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Both philosophers had very strong views on freedom and how a country should be governed. Hobbes had more of a negative view on freedom while Locke’s opinions are more positive. Work Cited FernaÃŒ ndez Armesto, Felipe. â€Å"The Exchange Of Enlightenments: Eighteenth Century Thought.† The World : A History. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. 738-65. Print. SparkNotes Editors. â€Å"SparkNote on John Locke (1634–1704).† SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 14 Mar. 2013 SparkNotes Editors. â€Å"SparkNote on Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679).† SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 14 Mar. 2013.

The Legal Nature Of The Advertisement Made By Arkwright

Introduction: It is important to consider the legal nature of the advertisement made by Arkwright s, i.e. invitation to treat versus a unilateral offer. ( ) I believe that the offer is unilateral as it refers to the world at large as it includes more specific terms than an invitation to treat such as a time frame and a specific course of action that is to be fulfilled in order to receive the Supertech tablet ( ). The case for Mandy: On face value, it seems as though Mandy could not have collected a Supertech tablet due to her ineligibility. This is because the advertisement clearly stated that you are entitled to the tablet â€Å"when you spend more than  £600 on any of our merchandise in one visit†. Instead, Mandy paid in two instalments of  £375 even though she left Arkwright’s store with over  £600 worth of merchandise. But upon further speculation, it is not exactly clear how the offer to pay in two instalments arose. It is mentioned that â€Å"Arthur was keen not to lose a sale† and this suggests that he induced Mandy to pay in instalments. If this is the case, then Arthur may also have suggested that Mandy is still entitled to a tablet. Consequently, Arthur or any other employee at Arkwright’s would have notified Mandy of her entitlement to the Supertech tablet, which they failed to do. On the contrary, Mandy could have made a counter offer to pay in instalments as this explains Arthur’s willingness to pursue the sale. If this is the case, then Mandy would have been in a similarShow MoreRelatedInternational Financial Accounting155754 Words   |  624 PagesThe context and purpose of financial reporting 10457 www.ebooks2000.blogspot.com 1 114 2 www.ebooks2000.blogspot.com Introduction to accounting Topic list 1 The purpose of financial reporting 2 Types of business entity 3 Nature, principles and scope of financial reporting 4 Users and stakeholders needs 5 The main elements of financial reports Syllabus reference A1(a) A1(b) – (d) A1(e) A2(a) A3(a) – (b) 12457 Introduction We will begin by looking at the aim of