Exploring recipes for higher female labour force participation in Turkey: insights from Southern Europe with a qualitative comparative analysis
Author(s)
Advisor
Date
2019-04Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece achieved remarkable increases in their FLFP rates
as of the 1980s. Turkey, however, experienced constant decline for decades, and is
still featuring sluggish rates. With such sluggish rates, Turkey has by far the lowest
FLFP level for a very long time in Europe. Hence, with a configurational
comparative analysis and comparative-historical case analysis, I aim to derive
lessons for Turkey from other South European countries for the achievement of
higher FLFP levels. I do so by relying on traditional common traits shared by these
five countries of Southern Europe. Owing to the comparative advantage of exploring
multiple configurational causation based on small-n comparison with the suitably
comparable cases, this dissertation, consequently, unravels the South European
pathways for a steeper FLFP rise. Such exploration relies on the application of the
Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) as a method in this study.
Following the analysis, I show that there exist two causal pathways to rising FLFP in
Southern Europe. Either strong left party rule (Pathway I) or increasing childcare
enrolment and university education among women and an expanding service sector (Pathway II) can bring about steeper rise of FLFP in Turkey. This study shows the
role of left parties in rising FLFP in Southern Europe, which has been rarely featured
in the literature. Additionally, this research, relying an analysis on complex causal
conjunctures, also shows the necessity of presence of conditions existing together to
pull more women in the labour force.
Keywords
Female labour force participationQualitative comparative analysis (QCA)
Service sector employment
Social care
Tertiary educatione