Working women in Britain and Turkey: worlds apart?

Working women in Britain and Turkey: worlds apart?

Do dominant understandings of gendered forms of employment discrimination have an ethnocentric bias? What insight can be gained by studying gender equality in employment from cross-national and comparative perspectives? Why has progressive legislation in Britain failed to plug the gender gap in employment? What are the prospects for mainstreaming gender relations in Turkey?

A paper by the University of Hertfordshire Business School Working Paper Series reviews the legal framework, national machinery and organisational approaches to gender equality in Turkey and Britain. Exploring how changes towards gender equality could be achieved in both countries, it shows that women in Turkey and Britain share a common position as disadvantaged employees – notwithstanding the socio-economic and cultural differences between the countries.

In Turkey the Constitution guarantees equality of rights, and the enhancement of the position of wo...