Dialog on Inequalities

UNDP Regional Meeting for Europe and CIS

İstanbul, 21-22 January 2015

Caring Labor

as a Source of Inequalities

İpek İlkkaracan,

Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Management

Presentation Outline

1. Summary of recent assessments by the UN

on gender inequalities (UNDP Humanity Divided +

Regional Poverty, Inequality, Vulnerability Report, UNECE

Beijing +20)

2. Allocation of time and caring labor as a

source of persistent gender inequalities

The case of Turkey

3. Policy implications

Recent Assessments by UNDP on

Gender as a Dimension of InequalitiesHumanity Divided

• Significant narrowing of gender gaps in critical capabilities like health and education;

• Yet this has not translated for women into equivalent reductions of inequality in access to income and jobs, and political participation.

• Women continue to lag behind in terms of labor force participation, remain disproportionately represented in vulnerable employment in segregated jobs and continue to earn significantly less than men.

• An important dimension of gender inequality is the uneven bargaining power of women and men at the household level.

• This is, in turn, a function of gender inequality in livelihoods and earnings, which determines fallback positions and therefore women’s ability to negotiate resources within the household.

• Gender equality in income is therefore key to leveraging changes in other domains.

• The state of the macroeconomy influences women’s bargaining power within the home since it affects women’s outside options.

Recent Assessments by UNDP on Gender as a Dimension

of Inequalities at the Regional LevelRegional Poverty, Inequality and Vulnerability Report

• Compared to other regions, women in the developing and transition

economies of Europe and Central Asia score relatively well in terms of

human development indicators.

• However, women in the region continue to face large inequalities vis-

à-vis men, particularly in terms of incomes and equal access to the

labour market.

• The gender dimensions of poverty and inequality in the region are

hard to generalize.

• The gender income gap in most of the region is below global

averages;

• While female labour force participation rates are below those of

men, ratios of female to male labour force participation and

unemployment rates in the region compare favourably with global

averages—especially in the former Soviet republics.

“Gender gap”: Ratio of female to male per-capita gross national income

(2013) (Regional Poverty, Inequality and Vulnerability Report)

0 10 20 30 40 50

Turkey

The Former Yugoslav Republic of…

Turkmenistan

Uzbekistan

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Kyrgyzstan

Albania

Armenia

Georgia

Tajikistan

Serbia

Montenegro

Ukraine

Belarus

Kazakhstan

Azerbaijan

Republic of Moldova

Gender Gap in Labour Force Participation, persons aged 15-64 (% points),

2012(UNECE Beijing+20 Review 2014)

Recent Assessments by UNDP on Gender

as a Dimension of InequalitiesHumanity Divided

• Narrowing gaps in key capabilities may not be sufficient to reduce disparities in other domains of human well-being, such as access to livelihoods and political agency The case of gender is demonstrative.

• This, in turn, points to the role played by other barriers, such as the cultural norms and discriminatory behaviour embodied in economic and social institutions, which directly affect the opportunities available to women.

• Cultural norms and discriminatory behavior???

• Feminist economics points rather to

The material conditions of reproduction (of caring labor)

and of production of commodities (labor market),

which together determine

The gendered allocation of time between paid versus unpaid (caring )labor

Unequal Allocation of Time between Paid vs. Unpaid

Caring Labor

Absence from the labor market or

Intermittent participation

patterns

Gender Employment

Gap

Shorter durations of

work experience

and job tenure

Gendered choices about jobs

by work hours, requirements re: over time work,

travel, work socializing, levels of responsibility

Gender Wage Gap

Horizontal and

Vertical Job

Segregation

Implications of Unequal Allocation of Time

• Time-use and unpaid work as a dimension and

source of inequalities

• Beyond gender gaps, caring labor generates

inequalities amongst women and households

by class, region, national and ethnic origin

• Time poverty beyond income poverty; care

deficits beyond income deficits

Time Use in Household and Workplace Work Hours, 2006 (İlkkaracan 2010)

Unpaid workhours(daily)

Labor market hours(daily)

Total work hours

(weekly)

Total workhours

W/M ratio

Unpaid work hours

W/M ratio

Average 15+ population

Women 05:17 01:08 451,22 6,22Men 00:51 04:27 37

Married Women 06:14 00:59 51

1,24 6,80Men 00:55 04:53 41

Never marriedWomen 03:36 01:44 34

1,13 5,68Men 00:38 03:11 30

University graduate Women 03:52 02:37 45

1,22 3,57Men 01:05 04:16 37

Primary schoolgraduate

Women 06:11 01:02 51

1,24 7,00Men 00:53 04:56 41

EmployedWomen 04:03 04:19 59

1,23 5,65Men 00:43 06:08 48

SwedenWomen 05:02 03:16 58

0,94 1,76Men 02:52 06:02 62

FranceWomen 05:18 03:07 57

1,15 2,29Men 02:19 05:00 53

SpainWomen 05:49 03:01 62

1,19 3,01Men 01:56 05:27 52

28

47.9

62.8

82.4

73.2

89.685

88.4

18.2 18.9

29.2

73.4

92.6 95 96 97.8

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

5-years primary orless

8 years primary high school university

La

bo

r F

orc

e P

art

icip

ati

on

Ra

te (

%)

never married women

never married men

married women

married men

Labor Force Participation Rates by Gender, Marital Status and Education,

Urban Prime Working Age (20-49), 2012 (İlkkaracan 2014)

Poverty Risks of Dual Earner

vs.

Single Male Breadwinner Households

• Female labor force participation determines household (HH) structure: dual earner vs. male breadwinner

• 41% of all non-agricultural HHs in Turkey are single male breadwinner HHs;

• Only 13% are dual earner HHs;

• Poverty risk of a dual earner HH, is 50% of a single male breadwinner HH after controlling for a variety of personal and HH characteristics;

• Poverty risk of a dual earner HH reduces to 28% of a single male breadwinner HH if the wife is employed full-time with social security.

(source: Değirmenci and İlkkaracan, 2013)

(source: Değirmenci and İlkkaracan,

2013)Population (in

1000's)

Median Income

(TL)

No. of Poor (in

1000's)**

Ratio of

Poor (%)

LESS THAN PRIMARY

Dual Earner 175 6,442 60 34.29

Single Male Breadwinner 1,170 3,803 857 73.25

Male Breadwinner with other Earner(s) 682 6,040 304 44.57

PRIMARY

Dual Earner 2,748 8,360 416 15.14

Single Male Breadwinner 10,706 6,317 3,767 35.19

Male Breadwinner with other Earner(s) 4,250 8,244 854 20.09

SECONDARY

Dual Earner 876 11,086 31 3.54

Single Male Breadwinner 3,458 7,333 787 22.76

Male Breadwinner with other Earner(s) 837 8,746 212 25.33

HIGH SCHOOL

Dual Earner 1,596 13,333 83 5.20

Single Male Breadwinner 5,914 9,236 709 11.99

Male Breadwinner with other Earner(s) 1,187 11,863 25 2.11

UNIVERSITY

Dual Earner 2,144 25,889 0 0

Single Male Breadwinner 3,410 14,235 76 0.53

Male Breadwinner with other Earner(s) 458 17,080 0 0

Time Poverty versus Income Poverty

A study using a time-income nexus to build a comprehensive poverty measure (Memiş, Masterson and Zacharias, 2013, supported by UNDP Turkey)

• Poverty lines are supposed to reflect the command over a minimum quantity of goods and services that is necessary for survival;

• A certain minimum quantity of time must be devoted to household production for the typical household to reproduce itself as a unit;

• The time requirement for household production must be explicitly taken into account because some households may not be able to meet that requirement and may not have sufficient income to purchase the requisite market substitutes;

• For such households, the standard poverty lines do not represent the command over a minimum quantity of goods and services;

• The study builds uses new measure of poverty LIMTCP – Levy Institute Measure of Time and Consumption Poverty.

Zacharias and Masterson (Levy Institute), Emel Memiş (Ankara

University)15

Actual and simulated official and LIMTCP

poverty rates for households (%)(Memiş, Masterson and Zacharias, 2013, supported by UNDP Turkey)

17

39

2426

51

35

4

23

11

17

41

25

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Urban Rural Turkey

Actual Official Actual LIMTCP Simulation Official Simulation LIMTCP

Zacharias, Masterson and Memiş16

Incidence of time poverty by weekly hours of employment and sex

(%)(Memiş, Masterson and Zacharias, 2013, supported by UNDP Turkey)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Less than20

21 to 35 36 to 50 51 to 60 61+

Urban Men

Rural Men

Urban Women

Rural Women

How to address inequalities caused by

caring labor and time allocation?

Policies to redistribute caring labor hours as a strategy to reduce inequalities by gender and class:

• Redistribution between private and public spheres

• SOCIAL CARE SERVICES

• Redistribution between women and men within the household

• CARE LEAVE – PATERNITY LEAVE REFORMS

• REGULATED LABOR MARKETS

• Enabling Macroeconomic environment

• DECENT EMPLOYMENT GENERATION AS CORE OBJECTIVE OF MACROECONOMIC POLICY

Pre-School Enrolment Rates, 2005- 2012

(UNDP Regional Poverty Report 2014)

Research based advocacy for expansion

of social care services

A study by ITU and the Levy Economics Institute supported by UNDP Regional and UNDP Turkey and ILO Turkey

Impact of Public Investments in Social Care Services on Unemployment, Inequalities in Employment and Poverty

• Initial results: Public expenditure on pre-school education bringing up Turkish pre-school enrollment rate to OECD average would generate 35% more jobs than an equivalent amount of public expenditure in the construction sector;

• Approximately two thirds of the newly generated jobs through expenditures on social care services would go to women vs. less than one fifth of the jobs generated through expenditures on the construction sector.

Summing up – An agenda for advocacy

• Improve visibility of unpaid work and caring labor

• Time-use data essential!

• Household Satellite Accounts

• Explore its connections to gender inequalities in the labor market and inequalities amongst male breadwinner vs. dual earner households

• Research based advocacy for expansion of social care services - explore the economic and social rationale for public investments in social care services

• Research based advocacy for care leave and labor market regulation with a view to work-life balance

• Explore connections to macroeconomic policy – inclusive growth

The Purple Economy: A Call for a New Economic Orderbeyond the Green

… as a response to the Crisis of Care and the Crisis of Inequality, for sustainableeconomy

Ilkkaracan, in Röhr, U. and C. van Heemstra (ed). 2013. Sustainable Economy and Green Growth: Who Cares? , Berlin: LIFE e.V./German Federal Ministry for the Environment; pp. 32-37

accessible at http://genanet.hostingkunde.de/fileadmin/downloads/Green_Economy/workshop_care-eco_web.pdf.

Familization

of Care

Masculinization

of Labor

Market

Increasing

Conservatism

in Political

Discourse on

Gender

Female electorate dominated by full-time homemakers who demand

policies favoring their domestic roles

Policies for home-based care, women’s home-based and part-time

work, increased fertility, …

Female labor supply constraints esp. for low skilled

Long working hrs, gender and class segregated labor

markets, organized labor pushes male agenda

Adverse Path Dependency

Vicious Cycles

Adverse Path Dependencies of Care Regime, Labor Market Inequalities and

Increasing Conservatism of Political Discourses

Huge gender gaps in time-use

CRISIS OF INEQUALITY

Deepening gender and class inequalities –

Social polarization

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

35 hrs or less 40-49 hours 50 hours ormore

(60-71 hours) (72+ hours)

Married women (41 hrs)

Single women (48.5 hrs)

Married men (53 hrs)

Single men (53.5 hrs)

Distribution of Labor Market Hours by Gender and Marital Status

Source: Compiled from HHLFS micro data, 2011

Legislators & Managers

Personal service workers

Plant &machine operators

Artisans

Sales&Services Elementary workers

Office clerks

Associate Professionals

Agricultural workers

Professionals

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

35 40 45 50 55 60

Share of Female Employment (%)

Occupational Distribution of Female Employment versus Average

Occupational Work Hours, 2011

Source: Occupation distributions have been compiled from the TÜIK website, HLF database.

* Weekly average working hours indicate the normal work hours at the main workplace, and

the are derived from TÜİK HHİA 2008 micro data.

Ratios of female to male labour force participation rates (1990-2012)

Elementary schooling or less High school and above

Women Men Women Men

% of votes Employed Home

makers

Employed Not in

Employment

Employed Home

makers

Employed Not in

Employment

AKP 44.7 51.8 47.0 46.4 22,2 38,3 35.2 28.1

CHP 17.0 11.7 13.5 17.3 34,5 22,0 20.4 24.2

MHP 5.9 4.5 10.6 7.7 7,5 7,5 13.4 12.9

BDP 3.2 4.7 6.4 4.6 2,1 1,6 3.6 4.9

Undecided 17.9 19.1 13.2 14.2 19,4 19,6 14.9 16.0

Other 11.3 8.2 9.3 9.8 14,3 11,0 12.5 13.9

TOTAL 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

No. of

observations 2,819 27,290 16,387 10,905 4,815 5,678 15,518 8,322

Table 2: Conservative AKP Votes by Gender, Education and Labor Market Status

Source: Calculated from Konda’s Barometer Database with pooled data for the 2002-2012 period.

The bold italics indicate differences are statistically significant at the 5% level.

Regression with

Gender dummy

Regression with

Homemaker dummy

B s.e. Exp(B) B s.e. Exp(B)

Female ,00013 ,014 1,000 -,293 ,020 ,746

Homemaker -- -- -- ,442 ,022 1,556

Age18-28 ,154 ,019 1,166 ,144 ,019 1,155

Age29-43 ,166 ,016 1,181 ,147 ,016 1,158

High school -,564 ,017 ,569 -,522 ,017 ,594

University -1,031 ,024 ,357 -,928 ,025 ,395

Student -,463 ,030 ,629 -,345 ,031 ,708

Unemployed -,341 ,032 ,711 -,241 ,033 ,786

Kurdish -,154 ,020 ,858 -,167 ,020 ,846

Alevite -2,584 ,064 ,075 -2,578 ,064 ,076

LowHHIncome ,047 ,014 1,048 ,025 ,015 1,025

Metropolis -,110 ,018 ,896 -,114 ,018 ,892

Urban ,002 ,019 1,002 -,001 ,019 ,999

Constant -,011 ,021 1,166 -,029 ,021 ,971

No of

observations100,786 100,786

Table 3: Regression Results on Gender and Labor Market Status as a Determinant of

Conservative Voting Behavior