Decision making mechanisms in Turkish family and the role of the wife

Keywords: Family, Wife, Status, Role, Labor Division, Decision Making and Factors Affecting Decision Making In thesis, named as "Decision Making Mechanisms in Turkish Family and The Role of Wife", we aimed at finding out the woman's status, role and involvement in the decison making process within the family and / or society looking at the period Turkish family structure has gone under from past to the present.time. For this purpose, the Turkish Family has been handled in three periods. The family structure in the Ancient Turks, Ottomans and the Turkish Republic, woman's status within the famly and / or society, factors determining this status, labor division, roles and the woman's affectiveness in the decision making have all been attempted to be find out. It has been seen that in the ancient Turkish family the woman's status had been quite high, the labor division and roles had not been strictly determined and the women had effectively partipaced in making not only in the family but olso in social, poltical and economical life In Ottoman Family. However, by the effect of Islam and Turkish traditions, a clear sex discrimination has been found. As a result of this the labor division and the roles of the man and woman have been differentiated and naturally decison making have also been separated as in and outside the home. Finally, in the Republican Turkish family women's status in family and society, status determiners and constitutional, cultural, social, economical and religious factors affecting their participation in decision making. This study, trying to find out the Turkish family structure and the woman's participation in he decision in the family depanding on their roles and status in this structure, has been carried out by a literary review and a questionnaire applied on the married women living in Istanbul with their husbands between Jan and June 2002 According to the research findings, when looked at the women's literacy status % 35.7 of them are either university or college graduate. %46 of them are housewives and %51.8 of them are working. % 43.3 of them got married after they had friendships with their husbands. % 98.5 of them have their first marriage. % 20.2 of them have been married for 6 to 10 years. The monthly income of %37.3 of women differ between 500.000.000 and 1.000.000.000 Turkishs Liras. The properties of %40.3 of women are legally possessed by their husband. %94.4 of the families are core family. %73.5 of families have 1 or 2 children. As soon as the literacy status and incomes of women increase and they take part in bussiness life, their status in the society increase and they take part in bussiness life, their status in the society increase and ratio of making decision by two people husband and wife increase in the tradional families. However, while the ratio of making decison by the man alone buying and selling real estate, car and deciding, on holidays and investments is increasing, the ratio of spouses making the decison together in decreasing