Entrepreneurship Policies through a Gender Lens

Turkey

By Duygu Uygur, Istanbul Bilgi University

Elif Bezal Kahraman

Background

Women in Turkey make a significant contribution to the economy, accounting for 33.2% of the labour force (TURKSTAT, 2018) and 7.5% of entrepreneurs (MIWE, 2018). Despite these contributions, a stark gender gap exists in wage levels and labour force participation, dynamics that are more pronounced in Turkey than in other OECD countries. These gaps are further exacerbated by regional disparities in GDP per capita, disposable income levels and employment rates (OECD, 2018).

More than 16% of women in Turkey have a higher education qualification compared to 21% of men (this equates to 32% of women and 31% of men in the age group of 25-34, whereas the OECD average is 50% of women and 38% of men in the same group) (TURKSTAT, 2017; OECD, 2018a). Higher education is an influencing factor for women with regard to becoming employers. For example, university education has been shown to increase the likelihood of an individual becoming an entrepreneur by a factor of eight for men and 29 for women (Okten, 2015). Data from twelve regions within Turkey show that the highest education levels can be found in Western Anatolia and the lowest in the South-eastern region. Regional entrepreneurship maps of Turkey show both the Western Anatolia and South-eastern regions to have the highest entrepreneurship index, however, a smaller number of women entrepreneurs are present in these regions (Karadeniz, 2014). This may be due to the fact that women represent 76% of unpaid family workers in Turkey; 90% of these women work on family farms mostly in rural areas in the South-eastern region. In urban areas, such as Western Anatolia, women are less likely to become employers compared to men. Urban areas, where there are more and larger firms, offer a greater number of paid employment opportunities. Women who are relatively risk averse can find jobs with a regular salary rather than starting their own business. This indicates the strong competition imposed by these larger firms, and puts women employers with small firms in a disadvantaged position (Okten, 2015). The caregiver role and related duties attributed to women in all regions are other important factors that inhibit their capacity to participate in the labour force (KSGM, 2018a; KSGM, 2018b). Accordingly, being a woman significantly decreases the probability of being an entrepreneur in both rural and urban areas.

The adoption of information and communication technologies is also a challenge, given that just 50% of Turkish women use computers, and only 65% use the Internet (TURKSTAT, 2019). While women are reasonably well represented within STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degree programmes (where they comprise 37% of students), they account for just 10% of STEM related jobs. Willingness to take on the risk of owning a business rather than to work for someone else is above the OECD average, with 56% of men and 47% of women indicating they would start their own business (OECD Insights, 2015). This suggests that, while personal aspirations and education are influential factors, they are not strong enough to mitigate cultural norms. In this regard, some of the most important barriers to women’s entrepreneurship in Turkey relate to culture, human capital and education. These include hindering gender roles and ascribed responsibilities; difficulties converting “potential” into “action” due to gender gaps in income level, financial and digital literacy, and a perceived lack of business literacy.

Policy issue: Culture, human capital and education

Women’s entrepreneurship in Turkey is prioritised both in the country’s 10th and 11th Development Plans set out for the periods 2014-18 and 2019-23, respectively (Presidency of Strategy and Budget, 2019). The 11th Development Plan foresees policies that provide women entrepreneurs with guidance and consultancy services for business development. Accordingly, policies include educational and financial supports for women entrepreneurs in both urban and rural areas of the country to strengthen the entrepreneurship culture. Digital literacy and e-commerce are to be provided to women entrepreneurs through seminars and training programmes (Presidency of Strategy and Budget, 2018)

Although policy makers acknowledge that women often have different motivations and intentions toward entrepreneurship (OECD, 2018b), and are less likely than men to be entrepreneurs, the gender gap in entrepreneurial activities has changed very little in most countries, including Turkey (OECD, 2017). Currently, Turkey’s women’s entrepreneurship policies focus upon vocational education; increasing the availability of care services, including those for children, the sick, people with disablities and elderly; improving regulations relating to parental equality in childcare; increasing social awareness of the factors hindering women’s participation in the labour market; and the provision of entrepreneurship education, financial resources and consultancy services to women (Presidency of Strategy and Budget, 2019; KSGM, 2018b; KSGM, 2021a). While all of these policies serve to strengthen the general entrepreneurial ecosystem, they could be perceived as treating women entrepreneurs as a homogeneous group, with similar levels of education and income; they do not always consider the diversity of women’s entrepreneurship, and often fail to account for differences in skill levels. They are generic policies that are not contextualised sufficiently to accommodate regional disparities, and it is difficult to determine whether they achieve their targets as there is no assessment or evaluation of results.

One example of a dedicated women’s entrepreneurship support in Turkey is the Women Cooperatives, which was formally initiated by the Ministry of Trade in 2013. These organisations focus on the economic empowerment of women by promoting entrepreneurship within a support network. The Cooperatives are required to have at least seven women in order to operate, which pushes the setup and organisational responsibilities onto the women entrepreneurs themselves. Since these organisations conduct economic and social activities simultaneously, they work as self-contained and self-generating units, providing members with a support network, financial resources, training and education, access to markets and financial literacy in ways that account for local conditions (Duguid et al., 2015; Uygur and Franchini, 2019). However, these organisations also experience drawbacks, including difficulties with coordination, irresponsiveness to market changes, general image problems, bureaucracy and red tape. Despite this, Women Cooperatives offer an alternative approach to supporting women’s entrepreneurship. Characterised by inclusion, a bottom-up approach, self-sustainability, flexibility and sensitivity to their local context, they have considerable potential to inspire new thinking with regard to future policy development. In 2018, the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and the Ministry of Trade initiated “The Cooperation Protocol on Strengthening Women's Cooperatives.” With regard to local applicability of the Protocol, the "Implementation Principles of the Cooperation Protocol for the Strengthening of Women's Cooperatives" was announced in the early 2020 (KSGM, 2021a). Since then, education and training workshops were conducted and work groups were formed in all 81 cities. In addition, 464 new women cooperatives have been established within the scope of this project (KSGM, 2021b).

Conclusions and recommendations

Gender roles and cultural norms continue to be acute barriers to women’s entrepreneurship in Turkey. Generic policies are not effective in addressing the needs of women entrepreneurs in the different regions of the country where women have differing backgrounds and needs. Therefore, flexible policies are needed to cater for contextual variations that demand customised solutions.

Recommendations for Turkey

• Generate policies that respond to the variety of women entrepreneurs as well as regional disparities, and that scale and customise resources according to the different aims and needs of women entrepreneurs.

• Generate women-focused entrepreneurship policies – including those related to training/education – that have clear objectives, measurable targets and specific evaluation time-frames.

• Promote and empower women’s entrepreneurship, especially within women cooperatives, in all regions and in all industries by creating visibility and raising awareness. This could be achieved by establishing exclusive labels and certificates for women-owned enterprises, as well as emphasising social impact.

• Increase the promotion of social entrepreneurship as a potential activity for women entrepreneurs.

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