Yesterday, just two days before the celebration of International Women’s Day on 8 March, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) presented its latest annual report on the situation of women in Turkey, which, under the title ‘Women in Statistics, 2024’, offers a detailed overview of the situation of Turkish women, with data on education, employment, demography and gender inequalities, among others.
According to the report, the population of Turkey is almost equally divided between men and women, with 49.98% women and 50.02% men, although this apparent balance changes with age because women have a higher life expectancy. For example, while women make up 52% of the population in the 60 to 74 age group, they represent 69.1% of people aged 90 or over.
Life expectancy at birth in Turkey is 77.3 years, although it increases to 80 years among women compared to the 74.7 years that Turkish men live on average. However, if we analyse healthy life expectancy – that is, the number of years that a person is expected to live without health problems that limit their daily activity – it is 59 years among men and 56.3 years among women, with an average in Turkey of 57.6 years.
The data presented by TÜİK highlights notable improvements in the level of education of Turkish women; if in 2008 67.5% of women aged 25 or over had completed at least one level of education, in 2023 that rate was already 87.8%, also increasing among men from 82.8% to 96.8% in that period. The average duration of education among women aged 25 or over also increased from 6.4 years in 2011 to 8.6 years in 2023, rising from 8.3 years to 10.1 years among men.
Wage gaps remain
Significant improvements can also be seen in higher education. Thus, the rate of people aged 25 or over with a university degree or doctorate increased on average in Turkey from 9.1% in 2008 to 24.4% in 2023; in the case of women, in 2008 7.1% had higher education qualifications compared to 11.2% of men: but by 2023 that percentage had increased to 22.7% for women and 26.2% for men.
Despite these improvements, the participation of women in the labour force remains low, and in 2023 it was only 35.8% for women compared to 71.2% for men. Furthermore, Turkish women continue suffering significant differences in salary, earning less than their male counterparts for similar occupations. The so-called gender pay gap – the percentage difference in women’s earnings in relation to men’s salaries – is more acute among women with higher education, where it reaches 17.4%, while among women with primary education or lower the pay gap is reduced to 13.2%.
The statistical report also highlights the prevalence of part-time work among women: in 2023, 16.1% of women who were working did so on a part-time basis, compared to only 7.3% of men. Furthermore, among people aged 25 to 49 with one or more children under three years of age, only 27.1% of women were employed compared to 90.1% of men.
Improved political and academic representation
Finally, statistics on the representation of Turkish women in leadership positions are improving, although they still show notable differences. For example, in the political sphere, the proportion of women ambassadors increased between 2011 and 2024 from 11.9% to 26.9% of the total, while the representation of women in the Turkish parliament increased from 9.1% in 2007 to 19.9% nowadays, although still below the percentage of the population that women represent in Turkey.
With regard to the academic world, while in 2011 women represented 27.6% of the total, that figure increased to 34.6% in 2024; at the same time, the proportion of female associate professors in universities increased from 32.2% to 42.1% in the same period.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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