Unilever workshop seeks solutions to boost women's participation in the economy
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Getting more men involved in domestic and care work – largely unpaid work currently overwhelmingly done by women – would free women for paid work and increase their full economic participation in Turkey, participants said at a recent workshop organised by Unilever Turkey.
Saying that inadequate child care services were a barrier to women’s participation in Turkey’s economy, participants said companies should introduce paternity leave and make adequate child care facilities available for their female – and male – employees.
They also called for more research to produce data to support the creation of women-friendly and non-discriminatory workplaces.
Held in Istanbul, Turkey, the workshop brought together about 120 opinion leaders from the private and public sectors, civil society, academia, media and UN Women, UNDP, the Delegation of the European Union to Turkey and other international organizations to discuss gender equality, agriculture and climate change.
Turkey’s gender gap places it 130th of 145 countries, according to the 2015 Global Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum. It ranks 131st in economic participation and opportunity. Turkish women’s employment rate is 26.7 per cent, compared to 64.8 per cent for men – last among OECD countries. According to UN Women’s Progress of the World’s Women report, in Turkey, women can expect to earn 75 per cent less than men over their lifetimes.
Ms. Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir, UN Women Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia and Representative to Turkey, highlighted the need for governments and companies to take action to correct the gender pay gap: “I have seen a lot of progress, but we need to do more, now. If we leave things as they are in the gender pay gap, it will take 118 years to get equality between men and women – and we cannot wait 118 years.”
Close partners in Turkey, UN Women and Unilever are developing a joint program targeting young women aged 18-27 that aims to improve women’s economic empowerment in Turkey, which has the lowest labour force participation of women in Europe.
UN Women works to increase women’s leadership and participation within business and private sector in Turkey through advocating Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a joint initiative of the UN Global Compact and UN Women. WEPs guides signatory companies in creating more gender sensitive work places and in reviewing existing policies and practices—or establishing new ones—to empower women.
There are signs of a bright future, however, noted UN Women’s Ms. Gisladottir: “Turkey is now in fourth place regarding the number of companies signing the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) and there a lot of companies willing to work in this area.”
Unilever Turkey signed the WEPs in 2015, committing to empowering women in the work place and launched UN Women’s HeForShe campaign internally. Unilever is one of the global HeForShe Impact champion corporations and has made a commitment to progress gender equality and drive concrete actions to empower 5 million women by 2020 across the world.
“Governments, companies, universities, business organizations and civil society should act together to translate our commitments to gender equality into action today!” said Mr. Mehmet Altınok, CEO of Unilever Turkey, Central Asia and Iran, at the workshop.
Mr. Altınok said companies should use special measures like quotas to increase the participation of women in the business life: “Unilever Turkey’s board of directors is now 9 men and 5 women. At the end of 2012, women held 45.9 per cent of manager or higher positions; by May 2016, this rose to 48.4 per cent – with 55 per cent of our company directors women by the end of 2015.”