A Comparative Analysis of Familialist Modernisation and Gender Inequality: Turkey and Japan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33831/jws.v20i1.54Keywords:
women’s status, modernisation, familialism, Turkey, JapanAbstract
Turkey and Japan are among the lowest-ranked countries in various gender gap indexes despite their economic achievement. To understand the phenomena, this study explores a question how the experiences of Turkey and Japan converge and diverge in the early struggles for modernisation and a new gender order through an interpretive comparative historical analysis. This study shows that notwithstanding geographical distance, cultural variances and different courses of industrialisation, Turkey and Japan have a number of common historical backgrounds which makes a comparative study interesting. Both countries played a leading role in its region in terms of modernisation, industrialisation and women’s emancipation between the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Yet in both countries women were emancipated but unliberated; they gained civil rights but their empowerment was controlled judicially and ideologically. The two countries also share a socio-demographically similar experience of “semicompressed modernity” which made them opt for familialism as a welfare model today. This familialism is both part of their neoliberalisation programme of social policy and their self-Orientalist response to global capitalist economy. This study argues that it is questionable if familialism secures the family. It is also questionable if women’s labour force participation in flexible employment contributes gender equality. Apart from the similarities in state policies, Turkey’s experience diverts from that of Japan. One of the most significant variances is that more women in Turkey tend to postpone labour force participation rather than childbirth while it is the opposite in case of Japan. In face of neoliberalising global economy, both Turkey and Japan have carried out drastic reforms since the 1980s yet again without liberating women.
References
Abadan-Unat N. (1998). Söylemden Protestoya: Türkiye’de Kadın Hareketlerinin Dönüşümü. In Hacımirzaoğlu A.B. (Ed.) 75 Yılda Kadınlar ve Erkekler. Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yayınları: 323-336.
Arun Ö. (2018). Türkiye’de Yaşlanmak Bir Armağan ya da Lanet? In, Arun Ö. (Ed.). Yaşlanmayı Aşmak. Phoenix Yayınevi: 23-54.
Beck U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage Pub.
Brown W. (2015). Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books.
Dalla-Zuanna G. & Micheli G.A. (2004). Strong Family and Low Fertility: A Paradox? NY: Kluer Academic Pub.
Dayıoğlu M. & Kırdar M. (2011). A Cohort Analysis of Women’s Labor Market Participation in Turkey. Economic Research Forum 17th Annual Conference: Politics and Economic Development. Antalya, Turkey. March 20-22, 2011: 1-27.
Dedeoğlu S. (2010). Visible Hands – Invisible Women: Garment Production in Turkey. Feminist Economics, 16 (4):1-32.
Dedeoğlu S. (2013). Veiled Europeanisation of Welfare State in Turkey: Gender and Social Policy in the 2000s. Women’s Studies International Forum, 41:7-13.
Erinc M. (2017). The Conflict between Education and Female Labour in Turkey: Understanding Turkey’s Non-Compliance with the U-shape Hypothesis. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 19 (5):571-589.
Ertürk Y. (1991). Convergence and Divergence in the Status of Moslem Women: The Cases of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. International Sociology, 6 (3): 307-320.
Gümüşoğlu F. (2013). Ders Kitaplarında Toplumsal Cinsiyet: 1928-2013. Istanbul: Kaynak Yay.
Iwai H. (2013). Sengo Nihongata Laifukoosu no Henyo to Kazokushugi: Suryoteki Seikatsushi Deta no Bunseki kara (A Change in Post-war Japan’s Life Course and Familialism: From an Analysis of Quantitative Data on Life History). In Ochiai E. (Ed.) Shinmitsuken to Koukyoken no Saihensei: Azia Kindai karano Toi (Reconstruction of the Private Sphere and the Public Sphere: A Question from Modern Asia). Kyoto: Kyoto University Press: 127-154.
Jansen M.B. (2000). The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge: Harvard Un. Press.
Jayawardena, K. (1986). Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. London and New Delhi: Zed Books.
Kamiya H. & E. Ikeya (1994). Women’s Participation in the Labour Force in Japan: Trends and Regional Patterns. Geographical Review of Japan, 67(1):15-35.
Kandiyoti D. (1987). Emancipated But Unliberated? Reflections on the Turkish Case. Feminist Studies, 13(2):317-338.
Kandiyoti D. (1991). End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism and Women in Turkey. In, Kandiyoti D. (Ed.), Women, Islam and the State. Philadelphia: Temple University Press: 22-47.
Kaymaz İ.Ş. (2010). Çağdaş Uygarlığın Mihenk Taşı: Türkiye’de Kadının Toplumsal Konumu. Ankara Üniversitesi Türk İnkılâp Tarihi Enstitüsü Atatürk Yolu Dergisi, 46: 333-366.
Keyder Ç. (2007). Giriş. In Keyder Ç. (Ed.), Avrupa’da ve Türkiye’de Sağlık Politikaları: Reformlar, Sorunlar, Tartışmalar. Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları: 15-36.
Lambert P.A. (2007). The Political Economy of Postwar Family Policy in Japan: Economic Imperatives and Electoral Incentives. The Society for Japanese Studies, 33(1):1-28.
Moghadam V.M. (1996). Developing Strategies. State Policies, and the Status of Women: A Comparative Assessment of Iran, Turkey, and Tunisia. In, Moghadam V.M. (Ed.), Patriarchy and Economic Development: Women’s Positions at the End of the Twentieth Century: 241-268.
Naikakufu (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan). (2018). Heisei 30nen Ban Danjokyodo Sankaku Hakusho: Summary (Summary from the White Paper on Gender Equality 2018). Retrieved from http://www.gender.go.jp/about_danjo/whitepaper/h30/gaiyou/pdf/h30_gaiyou.pdf. Accessed on 15.10.2018.
Nemoto K. (2012). Long Working Hours and the Corporate Gender Divide in Japan. Gender, Work & Organisation, 20(5):517-527.
North S. (2009). Negotiating What’s ‘Natural’: Persistent Domestic Gender Role Inequality in Japan. Social Science Japan Journal, 12(1):23-44.
NTVMSNBC (2008). Başbakan’dan Kadınlara ‘3 Çocuk’ Mesajı. Retrieved from http://arsiv.ntvmsnbc.com/news/438418.asp. Accessed on 25.10. 2019.
Ochiai E. (2013a). Azia Kindai ni Okeru Shinmitsuken to Koukyoken no Saihensei: ‘Asshuku Sareta Kindai’ to ‘Kazokushugi’ (Reconstruction of the Private Sphere and the Public Sphere in Modern Asia: ‘Compressed Modernity’ and ‘Familialism’). In Ochiai E. (Ed.), Shinmitsuken to Koukyoken no Saihensei. Kyoto Uni. Press: 1-38.
Ochiai E. (2013b). Azia no Teishusseiritsu to Kazokushugi: Hankinshukukindai toshiteno Nihon (Asia’s Low Fertility and Familialism: Japan as Semi-compressed Modernity). In, Ochiai E. (Ed.), Shinmitsuken to Koukyoken no Saihensei. Kyoto: Kyoto Un. Press: 67-98.
Ochiai E. (2014). Leaving the West, Rejoining the East? Gender and Family in Japan’s Semi-Compressed Modernity. International Sociology, 29(3):209-228.
OECD. (2018). Gender wage gap indicator. Retrieved from https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/gender-wage-gap.htm. Accessed on 2.11.2018.
Özbay F. (2014). Demokratik Dönüşüm Sürecinde İktidar, Kadın ve Aile. In, Boztekin N. (Ed.), Başka Bir Aile Anlayışı Mümkün mü? Istanbul: Heinrich Böll Stiftung Derneği Türkiye Temsilciliği: 106-112.
Özgören A.A., Ergöçmen B. & Tansel A. (2018). Birth and Employment Transitions of Women in Turkey: The Emergence of Role Incompatibility. Demographic Research, 39 (46):1241-1290.
Saito Y. (2012). Shikiji-nouryoku/Shikiji-ritsu no Rekishiteki Suii: Nihon no Keiken (A Historical Change in Literacy: An experience of Japan). Kokusai Kyoiku Kyouryoku Ronshu, 15(1):51-62.
Sancar S. (2012). Türk Modernleşmesinin Cinsiyeti: Erkek Devlet, Kadınlar Aile Kurar. Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları.
Saraceno C. (2004). Keynote speech at Symposium of Facing Super-low Fertility-Questioning Way of Life and Policy. May 2004, Tokyo, Japan. Retrieved from http://www.asahi.com/sympo/syousika/index.html. Accessed on 12.10.2018.
So A.Y. (1990). Social Change and Development: Modernisation, Dependency and World-Systems Theory. Newbury Park and London: Sage Publications.
Topgül C., Adalı T., Çalvin A. & Dayan C. (2017). Sisteme Değil, İsteğe Bağlı Hizmet: Sağlı Çalışanları Gözünden İstanbul’da Kürtaj ve Aile Planlaması Hizmetlerinin Durumu. Ankara: Türkiye Aile Sağlığı ve Planlaması Vakıfı.
TÜİK (2014). Gender Statistics 2013. Ankara: Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu, 2015.
Doğum İstatistikleri 2010. Retrieved from http://www.tuik.gov.tr /PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=8615. Accessed on 1.11. 2018.
TÜİK (2018). İşgücü İstatistikleri, Şubat 2018. Retrieved from http://www.tuik.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=27688. Accessed on 1.11.2018.
Ueno C. (2007). Kindaikazoku no Seiritsu to Shuen (The Formation and End of Modern Fmily). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
Ulusoy D. (2014). Kadınların Ücretli-Ücretsiz Emek Kıskacı: AKP’nın Aile Politikaları ve Yeni Muhafazakarlık. In, Boztekin N. (Ed.), Başka Bir Aile Anlayışı Mümkün mü? Istanbul: Heinrich Böll Stiftung Derneği Türkiye Temsilciliği: 112-120.
Ulutaş Ç.Ü. (2014). Türkiye’de İş ve Aile Yaşamının Uyumlaştırılması Mı? Esnek Kadın İstihdamı Mı? In, Boztekin N. (Ed.), Başka Bir Aile Anlayışı Mümkün mü?
Istanbul: Heinrich Böll Stiftung Derneği Türkiye Temsilciliği: 80-90.
WEF (World Economic Forum). (2018). The Global Gender Gap Report 2018. Geneva: World Economic Forum.
Zakaria R. (2016). Forward: Saving Solidarity. In, Jawardena K. (Ed.), Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. London and NY: Verso.
Arun Ö. (2018). Türkiye’de Yaşlanmak Bir Armağan ya da Lanet? In, Arun Ö. (Ed.). Yaşlanmayı Aşmak. Phoenix Yayınevi: 23-54.
Beck U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage Pub.
Brown W. (2015). Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books.
Dalla-Zuanna G. & Micheli G.A. (2004). Strong Family and Low Fertility: A Paradox? NY: Kluer Academic Pub.
Dayıoğlu M. & Kırdar M. (2011). A Cohort Analysis of Women’s Labor Market Participation in Turkey. Economic Research Forum 17th Annual Conference: Politics and Economic Development. Antalya, Turkey. March 20-22, 2011: 1-27.
Dedeoğlu S. (2010). Visible Hands – Invisible Women: Garment Production in Turkey. Feminist Economics, 16 (4):1-32.
Dedeoğlu S. (2013). Veiled Europeanisation of Welfare State in Turkey: Gender and Social Policy in the 2000s. Women’s Studies International Forum, 41:7-13.
Erinc M. (2017). The Conflict between Education and Female Labour in Turkey: Understanding Turkey’s Non-Compliance with the U-shape Hypothesis. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 19 (5):571-589.
Ertürk Y. (1991). Convergence and Divergence in the Status of Moslem Women: The Cases of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. International Sociology, 6 (3): 307-320.
Gümüşoğlu F. (2013). Ders Kitaplarında Toplumsal Cinsiyet: 1928-2013. Istanbul: Kaynak Yay.
Iwai H. (2013). Sengo Nihongata Laifukoosu no Henyo to Kazokushugi: Suryoteki Seikatsushi Deta no Bunseki kara (A Change in Post-war Japan’s Life Course and Familialism: From an Analysis of Quantitative Data on Life History). In Ochiai E. (Ed.) Shinmitsuken to Koukyoken no Saihensei: Azia Kindai karano Toi (Reconstruction of the Private Sphere and the Public Sphere: A Question from Modern Asia). Kyoto: Kyoto University Press: 127-154.
Jansen M.B. (2000). The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge: Harvard Un. Press.
Jayawardena, K. (1986). Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. London and New Delhi: Zed Books.
Kamiya H. & E. Ikeya (1994). Women’s Participation in the Labour Force in Japan: Trends and Regional Patterns. Geographical Review of Japan, 67(1):15-35.
Kandiyoti D. (1987). Emancipated But Unliberated? Reflections on the Turkish Case. Feminist Studies, 13(2):317-338.
Kandiyoti D. (1991). End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism and Women in Turkey. In, Kandiyoti D. (Ed.), Women, Islam and the State. Philadelphia: Temple University Press: 22-47.
Kaymaz İ.Ş. (2010). Çağdaş Uygarlığın Mihenk Taşı: Türkiye’de Kadının Toplumsal Konumu. Ankara Üniversitesi Türk İnkılâp Tarihi Enstitüsü Atatürk Yolu Dergisi, 46: 333-366.
Keyder Ç. (2007). Giriş. In Keyder Ç. (Ed.), Avrupa’da ve Türkiye’de Sağlık Politikaları: Reformlar, Sorunlar, Tartışmalar. Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları: 15-36.
Lambert P.A. (2007). The Political Economy of Postwar Family Policy in Japan: Economic Imperatives and Electoral Incentives. The Society for Japanese Studies, 33(1):1-28.
Moghadam V.M. (1996). Developing Strategies. State Policies, and the Status of Women: A Comparative Assessment of Iran, Turkey, and Tunisia. In, Moghadam V.M. (Ed.), Patriarchy and Economic Development: Women’s Positions at the End of the Twentieth Century: 241-268.
Naikakufu (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan). (2018). Heisei 30nen Ban Danjokyodo Sankaku Hakusho: Summary (Summary from the White Paper on Gender Equality 2018). Retrieved from http://www.gender.go.jp/about_danjo/whitepaper/h30/gaiyou/pdf/h30_gaiyou.pdf. Accessed on 15.10.2018.
Nemoto K. (2012). Long Working Hours and the Corporate Gender Divide in Japan. Gender, Work & Organisation, 20(5):517-527.
North S. (2009). Negotiating What’s ‘Natural’: Persistent Domestic Gender Role Inequality in Japan. Social Science Japan Journal, 12(1):23-44.
NTVMSNBC (2008). Başbakan’dan Kadınlara ‘3 Çocuk’ Mesajı. Retrieved from http://arsiv.ntvmsnbc.com/news/438418.asp. Accessed on 25.10. 2019.
Ochiai E. (2013a). Azia Kindai ni Okeru Shinmitsuken to Koukyoken no Saihensei: ‘Asshuku Sareta Kindai’ to ‘Kazokushugi’ (Reconstruction of the Private Sphere and the Public Sphere in Modern Asia: ‘Compressed Modernity’ and ‘Familialism’). In Ochiai E. (Ed.), Shinmitsuken to Koukyoken no Saihensei. Kyoto Uni. Press: 1-38.
Ochiai E. (2013b). Azia no Teishusseiritsu to Kazokushugi: Hankinshukukindai toshiteno Nihon (Asia’s Low Fertility and Familialism: Japan as Semi-compressed Modernity). In, Ochiai E. (Ed.), Shinmitsuken to Koukyoken no Saihensei. Kyoto: Kyoto Un. Press: 67-98.
Ochiai E. (2014). Leaving the West, Rejoining the East? Gender and Family in Japan’s Semi-Compressed Modernity. International Sociology, 29(3):209-228.
OECD. (2018). Gender wage gap indicator. Retrieved from https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/gender-wage-gap.htm. Accessed on 2.11.2018.
Özbay F. (2014). Demokratik Dönüşüm Sürecinde İktidar, Kadın ve Aile. In, Boztekin N. (Ed.), Başka Bir Aile Anlayışı Mümkün mü? Istanbul: Heinrich Böll Stiftung Derneği Türkiye Temsilciliği: 106-112.
Özgören A.A., Ergöçmen B. & Tansel A. (2018). Birth and Employment Transitions of Women in Turkey: The Emergence of Role Incompatibility. Demographic Research, 39 (46):1241-1290.
Saito Y. (2012). Shikiji-nouryoku/Shikiji-ritsu no Rekishiteki Suii: Nihon no Keiken (A Historical Change in Literacy: An experience of Japan). Kokusai Kyoiku Kyouryoku Ronshu, 15(1):51-62.
Sancar S. (2012). Türk Modernleşmesinin Cinsiyeti: Erkek Devlet, Kadınlar Aile Kurar. Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları.
Saraceno C. (2004). Keynote speech at Symposium of Facing Super-low Fertility-Questioning Way of Life and Policy. May 2004, Tokyo, Japan. Retrieved from http://www.asahi.com/sympo/syousika/index.html. Accessed on 12.10.2018.
So A.Y. (1990). Social Change and Development: Modernisation, Dependency and World-Systems Theory. Newbury Park and London: Sage Publications.
Topgül C., Adalı T., Çalvin A. & Dayan C. (2017). Sisteme Değil, İsteğe Bağlı Hizmet: Sağlı Çalışanları Gözünden İstanbul’da Kürtaj ve Aile Planlaması Hizmetlerinin Durumu. Ankara: Türkiye Aile Sağlığı ve Planlaması Vakıfı.
TÜİK (2014). Gender Statistics 2013. Ankara: Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu, 2015.
Doğum İstatistikleri 2010. Retrieved from http://www.tuik.gov.tr /PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=8615. Accessed on 1.11. 2018.
TÜİK (2018). İşgücü İstatistikleri, Şubat 2018. Retrieved from http://www.tuik.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=27688. Accessed on 1.11.2018.
Ueno C. (2007). Kindaikazoku no Seiritsu to Shuen (The Formation and End of Modern Fmily). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
Ulusoy D. (2014). Kadınların Ücretli-Ücretsiz Emek Kıskacı: AKP’nın Aile Politikaları ve Yeni Muhafazakarlık. In, Boztekin N. (Ed.), Başka Bir Aile Anlayışı Mümkün mü? Istanbul: Heinrich Böll Stiftung Derneği Türkiye Temsilciliği: 112-120.
Ulutaş Ç.Ü. (2014). Türkiye’de İş ve Aile Yaşamının Uyumlaştırılması Mı? Esnek Kadın İstihdamı Mı? In, Boztekin N. (Ed.), Başka Bir Aile Anlayışı Mümkün mü?
Istanbul: Heinrich Böll Stiftung Derneği Türkiye Temsilciliği: 80-90.
WEF (World Economic Forum). (2018). The Global Gender Gap Report 2018. Geneva: World Economic Forum.
Zakaria R. (2016). Forward: Saving Solidarity. In, Jawardena K. (Ed.), Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. London and NY: Verso.
Downloads
Published
2019-05-29
How to Cite
Suzuki Him, M. (2019). A Comparative Analysis of Familialist Modernisation and Gender Inequality: Turkey and Japan. Kadın/Woman 2000, Journal for Women’s Studies, 20(1), 101–122. https://doi.org/10.33831/jws.v20i1.54
Issue
Section
Articles
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work [6 months] after publication simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access)
