Survey shows women worse off than men except in longevity

Women in Turkey do not fare better than women in the world when it comes to employment and other issues, a new survey published ahead of today's International Women's Day revealed.

Figures by state-run Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) say there are a greater number of illiterate women than illiterate men and the female employment rate - in 2015 - was less than half of the male employment rate. Still, women can apparently cheer that they are expected to live longer than men as life expectancy at birth for women is 80.7 years, compared to 75.3 years for men, based on 2015 figures.

TurkStat figures say every four out of five men found it appropriate for females to work according to a 2016 survey, but the female employment rate - for 2015 - was only 27.5 percent. The number of women joining the labor force is apparently in line with their level of education, as women with higher education are more inclined to join the labor force, 2015 figures show.

Another section of TurkStat's Women in Statistics report stated that women are still viewed as the sole responsible half of married couples for household chores. Women did "continuous" chores like cooking, washing the dishes, doing the laundry, cleaning and ironing while men's work at home was limited to repairing and painting the house as well as paying the bills. "Cooking was done by females with the proportion of 91.2 percent and by males with 8.8 percent," the TurkStat report shows, while it points out that 80.4 percent of the painting jobs at homes are undertaken by men.

All these give little reason for women to celebrate the day but the figures show women at least found happiness in marriage as TurkStat figures show the number of married women declaring their happiness was higher than those who were not married.

Another little solace for women may be their increased role in politics. Though their numbers are still lower than men in politics, at least now, women have more seats than their predecessors in the Turkish Parliament. In more than 80 years of the Republic, women's proportion in the Grand National Assembly increased 14.7 percent. Yet, they still have only one minister in the cabinet as of 2017.