Women Education and Labor Enforcement

Women Education and Labor Enforcement in Turkey and Iran

The Republic of Turkey occupies today an area of 780, 580 sq km with a total population of almost 72 mi. people (CIA the World Fact Book). The Republic of turkey was founded under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, later called Ataturk (father of Turkey), in 1923. The new republic inherited parts of the former Ottoman Empire. The new leaders les by Ataturk prepared and implemented a set of reforms that brought Turkey on an irreversible way towards modernization. All sectors went through tremendous changes as a result of these reforms. Although the country was not free of military coups, they never succeeded to reverse its way towards modernity. Gender roles suffered dramatic changes, especially in the rapidly increasing urban areas, whereas the traditional gender roles in the rural part of the country remained essentially the same.

One of the most important reforms Ataturk's government set in place was that of the educational system. His words concerning the importance of this particular filed were: "our most important duty is to win a victory in the field of education." The 10% of the population that was literate before the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey increased overnight, male and female students alike, being offered a public system of schools. Primary education became compulsory and financed by the state.

Modern Industry and the service sector are two main providers of income for Turkey, along with agriculture that still holds an important role in Turkey's GDP, 35%. (CIA the World Fact Book).

The Labor Force Participation Rates (LFPR) of both women and men dropped in 1990, in Turkey, compared to the 1950s. Economic indicators show that economy is the main motif for the decrease in the LFPR. The transition from an economy that was relying heavily on its agricultural sector where most women were employed to an economy based on industry and services led to an increased migration of the rural population to the most profitable activities in the urban areas (Acar, Ayata, 2000).

To a certain extent, the evolution of women labor enforcement in Turkey after 1923 held similarities to that of the women in Iran after Reza Shah came to power and established the Pahlavi dynasty. The differences reside in the role the traditional middle class in both countries played. The Shia majority in Iran was much more conservative and constant in expressing its views on women's roles over the decades between the rise of the Reza Shah and the revolution in 1979, than the Sunni majority in Turkey.

While Iran was isolated from the western world during the 1980s, globalization made its way into Turkey without much opposition. Turkey, among other countries became a rich source of chap labour for the more fortunate partners in the western world. "Many of these sweaters and other clothing items in Europe and the United States were imported from Turkey, where they were produced primarily by women and children within a system of piecework labor and in small family ateliers that straddle the line between the formal and informal economies" (White).

In present times, education is, according to the law, available to everyone in Turkey, regardless of gender, race or religion. Theoretically, under the same circumstances, women have the same chances as their male counterparts in getting a school degree. According to the results of the 1990 Census, only 5.2% of the labour force had a higher education degree, 9.7% had a high-school diploma, and 7% had a junior high-school diploma. The remaining 78.1% consisted of primary school graduates or individuals with lower levels of education (Unesco).

Ataturk was very firm in affirming his beliefs that a free, democratic and viable society must be based on gender equality. Unlike Khomeini, he understood not only the importance of women in extreme cases, like revolutionary times, but also their crucial contribution to society as a whole, at all times.

A successful reform in education, in any country, leads to efforts to find meanings of creating opportunities all the levels of the population.

Comparative data shows the tremendous increase in female literacy between 1935 and 2000: In 1935...the literacy rate of Turkish women was just 9.8%, with the illiteracy rate, correspondingly, being 90.2%. By 2000, the literacy rate of Turkish women had risen to 80.6% while the illiteracy rate had dropped to 19.4%(Gelisli, 2004). In 2000, 85,5% of the Turkish women had finished eight years of primary school, 35,2% high school and those who finished schools higher than high school reached a percentage of 10.5. Whereas these number show that Turkish women are continually and steadily increasing their levels of education, the gap between the rural and the urban lifestyle and the way it affects women is still huge. Many girls living in the countryside are not even allow to attend primary school and the quality of the educational system differs greatly from city to village (idem).

Considering the women over the age of 12, although the total number of owmen occupied in the agricultural sector has decreased to a great extent, compared to the 1970s, there is an overwhelming number of women that are working in this sector (idem).

Complex and complicated family tradition and culture also plays an important role in the selection of education in the lives of young girls in big cities, such as Istanbul or Ankara. The small businesses such as family workshops are almost exclusively based on the labor force provided by the family members, women included. The family that was located in a rural area a generation ago is still functioning under the old patriarchal rules, although it changed appearances. Once they get married, women pass along with their working force to their husband's family. "The first things young girls in the squatter districts learn, then, are the labor skills through which they will express and maintain their personal and social identity as daughters, wives, and mothers" (White, 2004).

The old concept of child baring for the sake of securing old age is still largely valued by Turkish women. Cigdem Kagitcibasi conducted in the mid 1970s a study at a national level in Turkey that showed that 77% of the Turkish women were considering their offspring an old age security deposit (Kagitcibasi, 2002). The values of the traditional family were enduring into the second half of the twentieth century, even in the more modern urbanized areas.

Despite of the resistance of certain cultural aspects in the carrier choice of Turkish women, their presence in the vocational sector of the working force is stedily and constantly increasing over the years. The rate of educated women that lack employment in the cities is almost as high as their male counterparts'. Women have also the child bearing and child care as two additional factors that may keep them from working steadily for a job they are qualified for.

IRAN

The Islamic Republic of Iran proclaimed its independence in 1979, when the ShahMohammad Reza Pahlavi was forced to give up his leadership and flee the country. Iran became a republic and the Ayatollah Komeini was apointed its supreme leader.

Iran is a country that extends on a surface bigger than the largest countries in Europe, located strategically on the Persian Golf, rich in natural resources like natural gas, oil, coal and others, but also heavily tried by periodic droughts, floods, earthquakes and storms (CIA Factbook). The diverse relief form, like mountains, deserts and small plains along the coasts have always made transportation difficult in this country. The arable land represents 9,8% of the total (idem).

Reza Shah founded the new Pahlavi dynasty and ruled over Iran with an iron fist. Due to his determination to reduce the power of the clerics in the state affairs, his government was the first to introduce secular reforms and which also extended to women's rights and thier clothing. The chador was no longer complusory for women to wear in public spaces. Thus, it became the symbol of liberation from gender segregation. Although Reza Shah's leadership was dictatorial, his some of initiatives, actions and reforms were destined to bring Iran on the way of modernization. His unfortunate friendship with the Germans during WWII led eventually to his abdication, in 1941, in favour of his son (Kort, 2007).

Mohammad Reza Shah reigned until 1979 when his regime was overthrown by the revolutionary forces under the spiritual leadership of Komeini. The geostrategial position Iran held in the area made the Soviet Union, Britain and the U.S.A. continue the fight over controlling it, after WWII and it always resulted in major losses for Iran due to abrupt government changes. These added to the combination of welcomed reforms and bad economical policies.

After the prime ministers' Ali Amini's forced resignation in 1962, Mohammad-Reza Shah attempted to co-opt the drive for social change through his own "Revolution of the Shah and the People," better known as the White Revolution. This was based on six reform measures submitted to a referendum in January 1963. They included a watered-down version of land reform, nationalization of forests, privatization of state industries, a profit-sharing plan for workers, creation of a "literacy corps" to combat rural illiteracy, and the extension of the franchise to women (Daniel, 2001). His proposals received a strong opposition from the side of the religious leaders who were dissatisfied both with the fact that women were given the right to vote and the land reforms (idem).

After Khomeini was sent into exile, the shah's leadership, greatly supported by the U.S., became dictatorial. By choosing to put the country under an authoritarian regime with little or no real opposition, Mohammad-Reza Shah, like his father, almost a quarter of a century ago, signed his own end as a leader of Iran. Some of the reforms made during those years were restoring women's rights. The Family Protection Law, passed in 1967, brought women's issues related to marriage and divorce closer to the laws of the civilized world. but, the Shah was too much obsessed with building a huge military power, proving himself to the U.S. As the pillar of stabilization in the Middle East.

Iranian women had gained the right to vote and extended rights in marriage, and the custody of their children, but they still had a long way to go until reaching full equal rights and equal treatment. The situation in women employment had improved compared to that before the Pahlavi dynasty: 13.8% of total workers in Iran were women in 1976. The overwhelming majority of them, 84%, were employed in the lower ranks of the working forces, almost half of them counting as family workers who were unpaid (Nu-m"n," Behdad, 2006). Seven years after the revolution, their number dropped to 8.9% of the total workforce, but it doubled ten years later, reaching 12.1% in 1996 (idem). By 1986, the women who could afford higher education levels increased the upper working ranks, while the number of women working in unskilled jobs dropped. One of the causes for these fluctuations was the economic difficulties the country went through, such as a high rate of unemployment and inflation. Economic measures such as the ban on the export of woven carpets hit particularly the rural female working force.

During the Iranian Revolution, in 1979, followed by the declaration of independence, women were strong supporters of those who opposed the shah and his pro-American policies. Starting with 1979, the position of women in the public sphere changed. The spiritual and religious leaders were strongly supported by the traditional middle class that that had always promoted a restriction in rights for the women. The gender politics took women a step back.

Whereas the literacy in the case of Iranian women living in urban areas reaches a level of 82%, the situation for the women in the countryside is much worse. Only 62% of the women in the rural areas are literate. As previously shown, the large variation in forms of relief in a country that spreads over 1.636 million sq km (CIA factbook), makes transportation difficult even in modern times, especially for those who live in remote rural areas.

The traditional view on women encourages them to spend as much time out of the public sphere as possible and remain completely dependent on the men in their families. Only the women who were the only providers for the their families were considered motivated and socially accepted to work outside their homes. The majority of these women were working low skilled jobs, in factories or on the farms. Their intellectual and cultural development was reduced to a minimum both from the point-of-view of time and resources.

Times have changed though since 1979. An article's title published in 2006 by BBC news reads: "The number of women graduating from Iran's universities is overtaking the number of men, promising a change in the job market and, with it, profound social change" (BBC News). Fields of education that traditionally belonged to men, even in secular societies, were taken over by women in Iran at the dawn of the new millennium. More than half of the students at the Islamic Azad University in Teheran are women. Well over half of university students in Iran are now women. In the applied physics department of Azad University 70% of the graduates are women - a statistic which would make many universities in the West proud. It is a huge social shift since the 1979 Revolution: Iran's Islamic government has managed to convince even traditional rural families that it is safe to send their daughters away from home to study (BBC News).

The increase in the number of women acquiring higher levels of education and diplomas as skilled laborers produces a change in the number of women employed in the higher ranks of working force. Under the Islamic law, Iranian women need their husband's agreement to go to work outside their homes. The young women that are now graduating in Iran have broadened their views and their mentality when it comes to gender roles has suffered a tremendous change than those their parents used to have a few decades ago. They will postpone marriage until they find a husband who will fit their need to play an active role in society, making what once used to be a top priority for a girl: marriage, building a family, a matter of secondary importance to them. The attitude towards single working women who live alone or even toward working mothers is likely to change in Iran because women seized the opportunity to get educated while their male counterparts prefer to get out of school at an earlier age and start "making money."