‘Only 2 out of every 10 young women can work in Turkey'

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) İstanbul MP Züleyha Gülüm has addressed a Parliamentary question about women's poverty to Minister of Family, Labor and Social Services Zehra Zümrüt Selçuk.

"Class inequalities caused by capitalism are intertwined with the gender inequality caused by patriarchy," Gülüm has noted in her question and shared a series of recent statistics about women's unemployment.

Referring to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) Labor Force Statistics for February 2020, she has cited the following figures:

'Young women are affected the most'

"According to the TurkStat February 2020 data, the number of unemployed women is 1 million 773 thousand. While the women's unemployment rate was 13.4 percent (1 million 383 thousand women) in 2017, it increased to 16.6 percent (1 million 755 thousand) in 2019.

"Economic indicators show that young women are affected by unemployment most severely. Only two out of every 10 young women can work. While the young women's unemployment rate is 30.3 percent in agricultural sector, it has reached 36 percent in cities."

Against this backdrop, Gülüm has reiterated that "the intertwinement of class inequalities caused by capitalism and gender inequalities caused by patriarchy could mean low wages, informal and precarious employment for the women who could find the opportunity to participate in the workforce."

She has also noted that unpaid family work is more common among women. While this rate is 2 percent among men, it is around 31 for women.

'Their broad unemployment rate is 45.3 percent'

Further in her Parliamentary question, Züleyha Gülüm has said, "It is known the problems caused by the sexist regime of exploitation have deepened with the outbreak and, in addition to women's poverty and unemployment, it has increased the workload of women inside the household."

Referring to the data of Gender Equality Monitoring Association (CEİD), Gülüm has raised concerns that three quarters (439 thousand) of women who entered the workforce between 2016 and 2019 (612 thousand) have lost their jobs in the pandemic process.

Lastly, citing the statistics shared by the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey Research Center (DİSK-AR), Gülüm has noted that the broad unemployment rate among women has hit 45.3 percent.

'Do you evaluate these policies in terms of gender?'

Within this context, HDP MP Gülüm has asked a series of questions to Minister Selçuk, including the following:

"Are the policies developed to tackle the effects of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis on women's unemployment and struggle against the pandemic evaluated in terms of gender?

"As informal work has been excluded from the scope of Unemployment Fund and Short-Time Work Allowance, several segments of the society, ranging from seasonal agricultural workers to domestic workers, have been left face to face with hunger, with almost no income. In that sense, will special measures be developed to address the problems of women who have suffered losses of job and income?

"Are you planning to give economic and social support to regular and irregular migrant women, who are most severely affected by the outbreak due to their working and living conditions and among the vulnerable groups?

"Is there any statistical work documenting the extent to which women have benefited from the monetary measures, financial incentive packages and supplementary social assistance arrangements?

"How many applications were made for unemployment pay in Turkey in the last year? What is their distribution by month, province and sex?

"The problem of unemployment, which is one of the most important problems of Turkey, has become more grave due to the pandemic. What kind of measures are taken to prevent women's poverty and unemployment? (AÖ/SD)