Social protection for women in working life: Turkey comparison of EU countries

Depending on many factors such as economic, socio-cultural and social values, women continue to exist in working life from primitive societies until today. However, women face many problems depending on the gender factor in almost every field, especially working life, as a result of the role that society imposes to women. Gender roles imposed on women; it brings along various negative attitudes such as discrimination based on gender in the working life, inequality of opportunity, being behind the men in terms of access to resources and representation at higher ranks. All these factors cause women to be in the disadvantaged group. From this point of view, social protection is seen as the most important tool in preventing all kinds of gender-based discrimination faced by women in working life, ensuring gender equality, improving equal opportunities and negative conditions, and plays a key role in this regard. Many social protection programs are designed and implemented for women working in European Union countries and almost all over the world including Turkey. This thesis study examines the basic problems that women face in working life and investigates what social protection practices are in order to overcome these problems and ensure sustainable development, and in particular how social protection practices affect women's work lives. In this respect, in Turkey and in the EU, social protection programs that applied for working women are assessed by comparison. This study is a descriptive research, make use of literature review in the study and references published in the related field are taken as reference. As a result of the study, it is seen that gender-based discrimination is the basis of the problems women face in working life. In this regard, it is possible to say that awareness about the importance of gender equality and the female workforce has increased both globally and in Turkey and in this context, many social protection policies / programs are implemented. Although all these programs and policies implemented both in the EU and in Turkey improve the position of women in working life, it is observed that gender equality is not fully achieved and women's employment does not reach the desired level. Keywords: Women in Working Life, Woman Labor Force, Social Protection, Social Security, European Union.