A Report on Gender Equality and Development in Turkey: SDG 5

This report analyzes gender equality and sustainable development in Turkey, focusing on the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 5. It provides an overview of gender inequality in Turkey, highlighting the country's performance in reducing gender discrimination. Despite being a founding member of the UN, Turkey's progress in this area has been slow, with a current gender equality score of 45.3. The report discusses government policies and measures implemented to address gender-based violence, increase education and employment opportunities for women, and promote entrepreneurship and equal pay. It also examines the challenges and obstacles Turkey faces in achieving SDG 5, including issues related to women's representation in politics, economic participation, and reproductive health. The report utilizes statistics and data to illustrate the gender gap and its impact on overall development. The analysis covers various dimensions of gender equality, including economic participation, political empowerment, health, and education. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for continued efforts and policy reforms to improve gender equality and achieve sustainable development in Turkey.

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT IN TURKEY
Gender Equality and Development in Turkey
Name of the Student:
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1GENDER EQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT IN TURKEY
Executive summary
Gender equality is 5th out of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) designed by the
United Nations (UN). All the member countries of the UN have been taking measures to meet
the target for all the SDGs to achieve a sustainable development for the economies and achieving
gender equality is one of them. This essay gives an overview of the issue of gender inequality in
Turkey and its performance in reducing the gender discrimination in the society. Despite being
one of the founding member of the UN, performance of Turkey in reducing gender gap and
discrimination is quite poor. Over the years, it has been taking measures to reduce the
discrimination and violence against women, such as, increasing safety measures by law,
increasing education and employment opportunities, entrepreneurship trainings, healthcare, equal
wage for women etc. and situation have improved by 2018-19. However, the nation still has a
long way to go to improve its gender equality score of 45.3.

2GENDER EQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT IN TURKEY
Introduction
The overall development of a nation depends on various aspects such as economy,
environment, improving quality of life, decreasing inequality and gender gap etc. To provide
specific directions to the nations towards planning for sustainable development, the United
Nations have formulated 17 sustainable development goals and based on the performance of the
nations in these 17 areas, the UN provides a score and ranking to the countries. This depicts the
performance level and the year on year growth or poor performance of the countries in terms of
sustainable development (Bebbington & Unerman, 2018). Among these goals, the 5th one is
‘Gender Equality’. According to the United Nations (UN), women empowerment and gender
equality are two major factors to accelerate the achievement of sustainable development. It has
been observed that discrimination and inequality against women and young girls is not only a
violation of the basic human right, but it also has multiplier effect across the other areas of
development (Stafford-Smith et al., 2017). Hence, gender equality has been considered as one of
the 17 major areas of sustainable development for a nation. The United Nations (UN) formulated
the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with an aim for ending the discriminating practices
against women and young girls all over the world (sdgfund.org, 2020) and bringing an overall
development for the economy. However, despite much efforts, initiatives and planning by the
UN as well as the countries, gross inequalities between men and women have been observed
regarding employment in labor market and payments in many regions. It has also been observed
that in many regions, there are high number of instances of sexual exploitation and violence,
human trafficking, inequality in unpaid domestic work, and lack of responsibility given to
women for public decision making, and these are a huge barriers to sustainable development for
the countries (sdgfund.org, 2020).
Turkey is one of the founding members of the United Nations (UN). Currently, the
number of member states is 193 (mfa.gov.tr, 2020). However, the nation ranks 79 out of 162
OECD countries, with a Global Index Score of 68.5, which is 11.8% less than the regional
average. In regards to the 5th SDG, Turkey has achieved a score of only 45.3
(Dashboards.sdgindex.org, 2020). Among the other SDGs, turkey has shown a very poor
performance in regards to the gender equality. This is one of the huge barriers in the path of
achieving the SDGs for 2030 in Turkey. Hence, to achieve sustainable development in all the 17

3GENDER EQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT IN TURKEY
areas and in the overall economy, Turkey must focus on improving the gender equality. This
essay will provide a comprehensive discussion on the need for improved gender equality in
Turkey and its significance in achieving sustainable development and the country’s performance
in implementing the measures for gender equality in the nation.
Discussion
According to turkishpolicy.com (2017), the erosion of fundamental human rights is quite
high and women are primary victims of the repercussions of this particular regression. It has
been a matter of concern for the government of Turkey that the issue of gender inequality is
increasing rapidly instead of decreasing, which is reflected from the increasing instances of
violence and discrimination against the women and girls and inequality in their representation
before the judicial bodes. The major example of the regression in the society is the amendment
bill of 2017 for the Population Services Law of Turkey. The amendment bill violates the
principle of secularism, along with the Constitution as well as the Civil Code and would lead to
establishment of several legal frameworks, as various aspects of the human rights of the women
is severely violated on religious grounds rather than the legal rules. The bill proposes that the
criteria of marriage, like, age limit, having suitable health, holding marriage license and marriage
not being held among close relatives will not be determined as per the law, rather will be
determined on religious ground. Thus, this law is extremely regressive for the women and young
girls as well as for the entire society.
The increasing discrimination against women in Turkey is a big barrier in the path of
sustainable development for the nation. As highlighted by Elveren (2018), gender inequality has
become one of the major issues of the economy as the instances of discrimination in the social,
economic, cultural, and in the political spheres are increasing quite rapidly and significantly in
Turkey and the violence against women and girls has become extremely common and regular
and the masculine culture is rapidly evolving.
According to a report by Hürriyet Daily News (2019), in 2017, the rate of women
employment in Turkey was less than half than that of men as per the record of the Turkish
Statistical Institute (TÜİK). 28.9% women above 15 years has employment while it is 65.6% for
men. The labor force participation rate is directly associated with the educational level of

4GENDER EQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT IN TURKEY
women. 15.9% for the illiterate women, 27.7% for women with less than secondary level of
education, 42.6% with vocational high school degree, and 72.7% for women with university
graduation degree. However, only 17.3% women has got the executive positions in the
companies, which is very low in compared to the men. The employment rate of women is
maximum in the service sector with 56.1%. In the academics, 31.2%, 38.8% and 50.2% women
are professors, associate professors, and lecturers respectively in 2017-18. 22.1% women are
working as ambassadors in 2018. The average age for first marriage is 24.8 for women while
27.8 for men. The Gender Gap Index by the World Economic Forum (WEF) shows that Turkey
holds the rank of 130 out of 153 countries with a score of 0.635 (weforum.org, 2020). Although
it is world’s 17th largest economy, yet, the country lies far behind in terms of gender equality and
that is an obstacle for achieving the overall development for Turkey.
Gender equality is a crucial factor for the overall development of the countries. It has a
fundamental impact on the growth of the economies and societies. The development and
deployment of minimum one half of the available talent of the world has significant bearing on
the competitiveness, future-readiness and growth of the businesses and economies across the
world. The Gender Gap Index by WEF measures four dimensions, namely, Economic
Participation and Opportunity, Political Empowerment, Health and Survival and Educational
Attainment. Thus, it implies that gender parity is a crucial factor for development, which is
dependent on the above mentioned aspects of the economy and society (World Economic Forum,
2020).
The government of Turkey integrated the SDGs with the National Development Plans
(NDPs) and sectoral strategies to achieve an overall long term development.
Sustainabledevelopment.un.org (2020) reports that Turkey has achieved mostly medium level of
progress (40%-60%) in the policy strategy formulation, institutional framework, project
inventory and implementation for SDG 5 and achieved only medium advanced (60%-80%)
progress in legislation. The policy framework to achieve SDG 5 comprised of the following:
1) Achievement of 100% rates for schooling and graduation through the elimination of
the gender differences in different regions and provinces; 2) increase in the employment of
women while ensuring that the workplace is safe, the job is good with equal payment and
facilities for both male and female workers; 3) providing work life balance to women for

5GENDER EQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT IN TURKEY
handling their personal and professional life, developing infrastructure for accessible, high-
quality and widespread care service for increasing participation of women in the economy; 4)
Promotion of women’s entrepreneurship; 5) Increasing the rates of digital literacy of women and
girls; 6) raising women’s ratio in politics and decision making system; 7) measures taken to
address and prevent violence against women and girls in all dynamics and enhancing capacity of
institutions working in this particular field; 8) implementation of legislation and penalties for
preventing forced and early marriages to women and to mainstream the services of family
education and increase their efficacy; and 9) increasing media awareness regarding their
responsibility against violence against women in the society.
The legislations for protecting the rights of the women comprise of comprehensive
regulations, which include The Constitution, Turkish Civil Code, Turkish Criminal Code, Law
on Family Protection, Labour Law, and Preventing Violence Against Women in regards to
establish gender equality on marriage, work and family life, prevention of abuse and violence
against women and girls, forced and early marriages, women empowerment through education
and employment opportunities and their right to property and inheritance (Buğra, 2018).
Turkey has been taking various measures for implementing the policy frameworks for
increasing women empowerment. Education and employment opportunities have increased. In
the politics and decision making systems, number of female has increased significantly.
According to Dashboards.sdgindex.org (2020), there are still major challenges remain in Turkey
in terms of achieving the SDG of Gender Equality. In 2019, the total score of performance is
only 45.3. Only the target for Gender Wage Gap (% male wage) has been achieved with a score
of 6.9, however, in the aspects of Demand for family planning satisfied by modern methods (%
women married or in unions, ages 15-49), Female years of schooling (% male), Female labor
force participation (% male), Women in national parliaments (%) and Gender gap in minutes
spent per day doing unpaid work (minutes), the scores and trends show that Turkey still has
major challenges and stagnating growth rate, and the target is quite far.
The assessment of SDG 5 is based on the following four dimensions: 1) Elimination of
all forms of discrimination against women; 2) Prevention of violence and abuse against women;
3) Promotion of opportunities for women to participate in social, political and economic spheres;
and 4) Reproductive health and rights. Regarding the first dimension, Turkey has shown

6GENDER EQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT IN TURKEY
substantial progress in the last two decades. The Equal Opportunities Commission was founded
in 2009 for addressing the issue of equal opportunities for women and men at legal
implementation level and ensuring the effective parliamentary supervision. The rights to property
during marriage have been made equal for women and men. Various measures have been taken
for the eliminating gender discrimination at the labour market in terms of employment contract,
wages etc. (Sustainabledevelopment.un.org, 2020).
In regards to the second dimension, Turkey was the first nation to sign and approve the
Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and
Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention). In 2012, Law on Family Protection and Preventing
Violence against Women was formulated and adopted, and by 2014, some important
amendments were made to reduce crimes against women. As of June 2019, there are almost 80
Violence Prevention and Monitoring Centres (SONIM) to provide support and monitoring to
women through preventive and protective measures (Sustainabledevelopment.un.org, 2020).
Women participation has increased substantially in the past decade. In the General
Elections of 2018, there were 104 female deputies and 17.45% was the ratio of female deputies
in the parliament. 492 and 82.55% were this number and ratio for the male deputies respectively.
As of February 2019, the rate of women’s participation in labour force was 34% and in
employment was 28.3% for ages 15 and above, and these rates differed by education level. The
highest participation rate of labour was 73% for university graduates. Ratio of women in
management raised from 12.2% in 2012 to 16.7% in 2019, however, it is still less than one-
fourth of male managers. Projects were undertaken to improve the condition of rural women.
Training programs have been arranged to increase the skills and knowledge of the rural women
working in agriculture and other sectors. In 2018, 95,185 female farmers were given socio-
economic development training and 2,881 female farmers were given training on cooperative
system in scope of 12,273 activities meant to empower rural women to enhance their economic
and social status and for ensuring that they no longer remain unpaid family workers. As of
January 2019, 49 Agricultural Development Cooperatives were founded by women with mainly
female partners. Entrepreneurship training was provided to rural women under the programme
for Strengthening Women Entrepreneurship in Agriculture since 2015
(Sustainabledevelopment.un.org, 2020).

7GENDER EQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT IN TURKEY
Regarding the fourth aspect, various laws and regulations have been developed and
implemented as it has been observed that the rate of marriage of girls at 16 and 17 years
officially decreased from 7.2% in 2008 to 3.8% in 2018. Birth rates among the girls of 15-17 age
groups have decreased over years and adolescent fertility rate reduced from 0.31% in 2012 to
0.19% in 2018 (Sustainabledevelopment.un.org, 2020).
Lack of awareness, patriarchal and masculine attitude and wrong judgment of the religion
are some of the major challenges that created problems while implementing the SDG 5. Along
with that, lack of funding and economic growth in many regions in Turkey also contributed in
the obstacles towards achieving development (Yenilmez, 2017). There have been growth in
terms of the SDG dimensions, however, the target of gender equality has not been achieved yet.
Conclusion
Turkey has invested time and capital for identifying the issues around education,
violence, health, and gender discrimination in the labour market. Aid from the United Nations as
well as the capital of the nation have been allotted to take measures for reducing gender
inequality in economy and in societal practices. Policies and laws have been formulated and
implemented to increase the opportunities for education, employment, equal wage, better
healthcare facilities, preventing violence and crimes against women. Improvements have been
achieved, however, Turkey should also focus on men for bringing reforms in the society and
changing age old religious traditions to fully achieve the gender parity and make progress to
attain the target for SDG 5.

8GENDER EQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT IN TURKEY
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