Turkey’s Female Labor Force Challenge on Europe’s Development Agenda TEPAV Director Sak stated that low female labor force participation rate of Turkey stems from demand and supply problems of the labor market.

BRUSSELS – TEPAV Director Güven Sak talked about the situation of female labor force in Turkey in this year’s European Development Days, the prominent forum on international relations and development cooperation in Europe organized by the European Commission.

During the forum held in Brussels, Sak spoke at the panel session titled “Women Entrepreneurship to Reshape the Economy through Innovation in Middle East and North Africa” that was organized jointly by TEPAV, Info Dev and UN Women.  Güven Sak stressed that female labor force participation rate in Turkey was around 28 percent; almost half of that in Europe (50 percent) and less than half of the OECD average (65 percent). Commenting on the underlying reasons, he drew attention to the problems of labor supply and labor demand. He stated that women who migrated to urban centers with their spouses in the course of rapid urbanization lacked the skills required by the industry, which was a major impediment to women’s employment in Turkey. He added that cultural codes and conservative values which assign man the breadwinner role were other factors that discourage women from joining the labor force.

The panel moderated by John Hendra, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also hosted Heidi Hautala, Minister of International Development of Finland, Ghada Waly, Managing Director Egyptian Social Fund for Development, Marcus Cornaro, Deputy Director General of European Commission Directorate General for Development and Cooperation; Tara Dawood, Chief Executive Officer of Dawood Capital Management Limited; and Valerie D'Costa, Programme Manager at infoDev.

Please click here for a blog article on the meeting at blogs.worldbank.org.