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Gender, Women and Precarity: Examples from Turkey

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Women, Migration and Asylum in Turkey

Part of the book series: Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship ((MDC))

Abstract

Migratory status influences men and women differently and there is a class position which interacts with gender and migratory dynamics. Following that it becomes important to focus on the intersection of gender, migration and class dynamics. This chapter utilizes the term ‘precarity’ to understand how class dynamics (mainly understood as labor and associated life conditions) relate to gender and migratory status. Precarity is mainly used to refer to insecure labor conditions, which are not homogenous and emerge in various forms as depicted through a gendered understanding of precarity. This chapter thus seeks to answer two questions: (1) which distinct forms of precarity develop out of the intersection of gender and migration? and (2) what are the conceptual/theoretical implications of this intersection in understanding precarity and precariousness? In answering these questions, in particular the first one, the chapter draws on existing research on migrant women in Turkey.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Currently, the official statistics on labour for 2018 report the unemployment rate as 11% (above the age of 15) and the youth unemployment rate (15–24 years) as 20.3%. The sectoral distribution of those who are employed are the following: 18.4% in agriculture; 19.7% in industry; 54.9% in services and 6.9% in construction. Employment rate for men is 72.7% whereas the employment rate of women is stated as 34.2%. The rate of informal work (people who work without any registration in the social security system) is reported as 32.2% for February 2018. The report on these data is available on the website of the Turkish Statistical Institute http://www.tuik.gov.tr/HbGetirHTML.do?id=30677

  2. 2.

    Here the model refers to the well-known categorization of Esping-Anderson of welfare regimes in his book titled Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (1990).

  3. 3.

    Habertürk Internet newspaper, 28.10.2014, “Neden Suriyeli Gelin” (Why Syrian Bride?), available at https://www.haberturk.com/gundem/haber/1003940-neden-suriyeli-gelin, accessed on March 27, 2019.

  4. 4.

    KADAV, “Göçmen Kadınlarla Dayanışma” (Solidarity with Migrant Women), available at http://www.kadav.org.tr/gocmen/, accessed on March 29, 2019.

  5. 5.

    Kadın Kadına Mülteci Mutfağı (Woman to Woman Refugee Kitchen), Facebook page, available at https://www.facebook.com/kadinkadinamultecimutfagi/?eid=ARAtc7GWVhTP2Mp0GBFnHokv7qjN7iPjjYMvZwNt1jxkf2dANUoPeWXVAiyPD538AuacYRyWTiCRBYE-, accessed on March 29, 2019. Also, see the article by Nilay Vardar (2017), Woman to Woman Refugee Kitchen, Bianet. Available at https://m.bianet.org/bianet/women/182834-woman-to-woman-refugee-kitchen, accessed on March 29, 2019.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Başkent University, Ankara, Turkey

    Nazlı Şenses

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  1. Nazlı Şenses
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Correspondence to Nazlı Şenses .

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  1. School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Lucy Williams

  2. Düzce University, Düzce, Turkey

    Emel Coşkun

  3. Marmara University, İstanbul, Turkey

    Selmin Kaşka

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Şenses, N. (2020). Gender, Women and Precarity: Examples from Turkey. In: Williams, L., Coşkun, E., Kaşka, S. (eds) Women, Migration and Asylum in Turkey. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28887-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28887-7_3

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