Is education the panacea for gender inequality in the labor market?: a case study of Turkey

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, İktisat Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2009

Öğrenci: PINAR KAHRAMAN

Danışman: SHEİLA MARGARET PELİZZON

Özet:

The main aim in this study is to criticize the prevalent method of approach of the mainstream economics to women’s problems. The mainstream approach to women’s problems is to emphasize exclusively the significance of education, and participation in work-force, and which defines issues of equality/inequality in terms of economic advantages and externalities. Ensuring gender equality has historically never been the mainspring agenda of governments; and the problems of women have mainly been considered in terms of bringing women into the public sphere. This document examines the situation of women in the Turkish labor market, to see to what extent education helps women exceed their roles of the conventional sexual division of labor in the labor market. The limits of the effect of higher educational degree on the improvement of women’s position within the market mechanism are discussed. We found that despite its importance, education on its own is inadequate to secure gender equality in both private and public sphere.