Women's employment matter through women's perspective

The (actual or perceived) obstacles that prevent uneducated women living in urban areas from seeking/finding jobs are studied in this thesis, with the purpose of understanding the effects on these women's labor market participation behavior of 1) active labour market policies currently pursued in Turkey and 2) various social assistance programs. Based on the arguement that in order for social policies aiming to increase women's employment to be successful, women should not be considered as a homogenous group, and focuses on uneducated women living in urban areas to contribute to the identification of the most appropriate social policies to promote the employment of this disadvantageous group. The study has adopted a qualitative approach. Embedded theory has been chosen for the exploratory research and the data have been collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews. The interviews have been conducted with 12 women from Tekirdağ, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep and Kocaeli. As the result of these interviews, four factors were found to have marked effects on the labor supply behavior of the women in the sample: The level of self- confidence of the individual; whether the individual has professional skills; the level of household income and marital status. The research findings also hint that disadvantagous women may not be fully aware of the vocational training programs available to them implying that stronger collaboration between İŞKUR and Local Social Assistance and Solidarity Foundation offices is needed. Furthermore, labor supply behavior of the women in the sample does not seem to be (negatively) affected by the availability of social assistance programs. Key words: Female labour force, Women's employment, Social policy, Social assistance, gender