Unregistered Women Workers !!!!

Unregistered Women Workers in the Globalized Economy: A Qualitative Study in
Turkey
Author(s): Belkıs Kümbetoğlu, İnci User and Aylin Akpınar
Source: Feminist Formations , Fall 2010, Vol. 22, No. 3, Women in the Middle East (Fall
2010), pp. 96-123
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40980986
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Unregistered Women Workers
in the Globalized Economy:
A Qualitative Study in Turkey
Belkis Kiimbetoglu, Inci User, and Aylin Akpmar
In recent years, economic stagnation and the global economic crisis have subjected Turkish
women workers to conditions that are more difficult than ever. The existent lack of proper
controls and regulations has become even more pervasive during this period. Effective
de-unionization is another reason sustaining these negative circumstances under which
women workers are denied their legal rights. In this article, preliminary findings of field
research undertaken in five relatively industrialized provinces in northwestern Turkey are
presented. These findings reveal a variety of problems that unregistered women workers
face: Child labor; high rates of worker turnover; wages that are below the official mini-
mum and that are paid irregularly; harsh and unhealthy working conditions, including
extended work time and unpaid, compulsory night shifts; and ill treatment and sexual
harrassment by employers and foremen. The work histories of the 21$ participants of the
study, most of whom had started working at ages 12-15, indicate that a slaveAike system
has been operating for a relatively long time. Saying that this hidden labor is merely a
case of women workers not being registered greatly oversimplifies a complicated structure
that is in place and fails to represent its reality.
Keywords: invisible workers / subcontracting / unregistered employment /

women workers / work insecurity / working conditions
The majority of Turkish women workers are in the textile and food industries
and also in services that are at the lower levels of the labor market. These women
labor under precarious conditions. The so-called adaptability and flexibility of
the globalized labor force has been an advantage for investors of capital but it has
meant the loss of social rights and security for workers, with firms deliberately
©2010 Feminist Formations, Vol. 22 No. 3 (Fall) pp. 96-123

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Bellas Kümbetoglu, ínci User, and Aylin Akpinar • 97
dismissing workers in order to hire new ones for lower wages* During the previous
two decades, de-unionization and the loss of labor rights have worsened labor con-
ditions in Turkey. All these factors have contributed to establishing an economy in
the country that has large numbers of unregistered workers. The official estimate
of unregistered labor is that it represents 44.6 percent of the country's workforce
(TURKSTAT 2009).
Especially in developing countries, deregulation of the markets and structural-
adjustment programs have wrought low wages and poor working conditions for
workers, particularly those at the lower levels of the production system, which
includes microenterprises, subcontractors, and home-based workers (Beneria 2007).
In Turkey, subcontracting is widespread, even in the formal work sector; because
subcontracted workers are unregistered, they are deprived of both job security and
social insurance. Many women workers in Turkey are unregistered.
On the one hand, the entire process in Turkey is perceived as beneficial for
relative economic growth at the macroeconomic level (Nicholls and Sugur 2005),
but on the other, this growth has led to workers finding themselves in precarious
job situations without any long-term prospects. These workers keep moving from
one production workshop to another and shift between the formal and informal
work sectors. The risk of male workers being unemployed and the increasing pov-
erty of families are forcing female workers to accept positions in the unregistered
economy for wages that are below the official minimum and without job and social
security. Most often, these women work in the informal economy in temporary,
sporadic, home-based, seasonal, irregular, nonstandard, or piecework jobs. Due to
their restricted bargaining power in this gendered regime, these women are further
overburdened with other duties outside their paid labor. The predominant ideology
of the male breadwinner, the lack of affordable child-care services, the changing
nature of production toward flexibility, and the system of subcontracting all con-
tribute to the vulnerability of Turkish women in the labor force. This vulnerability
includes the use of female child labor, which is often utilized in the textile and food
sectors and in the service industry.
This article analyzes the preliminary findings of research on unregistered
Turkish women's working conditions in the textile, food, and service sectors. The
study aims to contribute to the understanding of the precarious nature of women's
employment by presenting from a gendered perspective the basic problems of
women workers in Turkey's unregistered economy and how they experience a lack
of employment security, low wages, harsh working conditions, and the absence of
social and legal protections.
The Unregistered Economy in Turkey
The unregistered economy comprises economic activities that are not recorded,
whether formal or informal, legal or illegal.1 In this article, this term "unregistered
economy" will be used to refer to legal economic activities that are not officially

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98 • Feminist Formations 22,3
recorded for purposes of tax evasion and reducing the costs of production. This
hidden economy is related to the structural characteristics of the capitalist system
as it is currently being practiced in Turkey, Within this system, workplaces become
smaller in scale, work gets fragmented, wages are reduced, de-unionization is the
rule, and the conditions of recruiting and terminating workers are arbitrary (Altug
1994; Ilgin 1999), These hidden economic activities are estimated to comprise
around 10 percent of total economic activity in developed countries and between
25-50 percent of the entire economy in developing countries like Turkey (Isik and
Acar 2003). These estimates are undoubtedly widely approximate, because the very
nature of hidden economic activities renders accuracy difficult,2
There are various approaches to the problem of the unregistered economy.
From the state s perspective, the unregistered economy problem is related to inef-
fective tax controls, tax fraud, and the regulatory principles of economics; the
unregistered economy is a concern because of its problematic relation to the GDP
and to monetary and fiscal policies. Another approach supported by both liberal
economists and right-wing politicians emphasizes the economic contributions of
the unregistered economy, pointing to such facts that it decreases production costs
and increases employment. From the perspective of employees' rights and needs,
however, the problems are the absence of jobs and social securities, the oppressive
work conditions, and the violation of labor laws (Altug 2008; Ansai 1997; Dedeoglu
2007; Gürsel 2008; Önder 2009; Us 2004).
Periodic structural crises in Turkey, such as the economic crisis of 2008,
reinforce various factors such as unemployment, loss of productivity, and economic
instability, which all bring about the hidden economy. Typically, such a crisis can
be gauged by the number of businesses that fail and the rising unemployment rate.
According to the Turkish social security records, there were 1,194,344 businesses
in the country in May 2008; by January 2009, that number had been reduced to
i>H3>5i7* This difference of 50,827 represents a closure rate of 4,25 percent. In Feb-
ruary 2009, the number of industrial workers covered by insurance was reduced by
1,200,669, In the textile industry, which is the major focus of this study and that has
been most adversely affected by the 2008 crisis, 8,594 firms closed down between
the period of May 2008- May 2009; the number of textile workers who lost their
jobs was 200,313, No other sector in the economy had a higher unemployment rate.
The textile industry had the largest number of laid-off workers; 21 percent of the
41,684 industrial firms that closed down during the 2008 crisis were in the textile
and garment industries (TURKSTAT 2009), According to the Institute of Labor
Law (2009), the Turkish unemployment rate in January 2009 was 15,1 percent, which
roughly corresponded to 3,600,000 individuals being out of jobs. Based on the
data of the Turkish Institute of Statistics (TURKSTAT) (2009), the labor unions
declared that the highest rate of unemployment since the foundation of the Turkish
Republic was during the period of the 2007-2008 economic crisis, when between
13,6-16,3 percent of all workers lost their jobs (Tes-ís 2009, 30), Almost nine million
of these people now work without being covered by any social security insurance.

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Bellas Kümbetoglu, ínci User, and Aylin Akpinar ♦ 99
According to the same source (Labor Union of Energy, Water, and Gas [Tes-îs]),
12,300,000 individuals now work in return for a wage or a daily fee; among them,
3,118,000 are unregistered workers* Of the 1,251,000 entities registered as employ-
ers, 358,000 of them are not registered for social insurance. The same situation also
holds for 3,062,000 of the 4,615,000 self-employed individuals. Bearing in mind
the fact that "official" records may not be precise indicators of even the registered
economy, as stated above, the official estimate of unregistered economic activities
in Turkey is 44,6 percent of overall activity (TURKSTAT 2009),
Women and Unregistered Work
The women workers who participate in hidden economic activities are assumed to
be poorly educated and unqualified and hence willing to do such worL Since they
are especially vulnerable to unemployment and poverty, these women are thought
to "voluntarily" give up searching for registered work and to gratefully accept what-
ever jobs they can find: "The workers who become part of the informal economy
are ready to accept inferior jobs, longer working time, and fewer extra payments
in order to be able to survive in the labor market" (Tutnjevic 2002, 2), Especially
in countries where structural-adjustment programs are imposed, there emerge
economies that depend on exports. Export-oriented industries such as textiles and
food provide growing numbers of jobs for women, but at the same time bring about
the institutionalization of harsh working conditions and very low wages. The cheap
labor of women enables such export-oriented sectors to become competitive (i6).
Some economists claim that unregistered activity is an economic necessity for many
very small firms because of the high costs of labor (Gürsel 2008), However, those
working in these sectors tend to regard factors such as increased productivity and
reduced costs as almost legitimizing the hidden economy:
The employers consider the costs of labor as the most serious costs of production.
This is why they tend to reduce the numbers of their workers, to avoid raising
the wages or not to register their employees, whenever there is a crisis. But in
fact, labor costs are one element in the overall costs of production. One should
also take into consideration the purchases, the stocks, the losses of time, the
leakages, the mismanagement, and the irrational organization all of which are
making up the costs of production. The management of these factors however is
not easy. It requires knowledge and skills. Those, who do not master the neces-
sary knowledge and skills, turn to what is most visible and familiar, that is the
workers. (Çaga 2008)
In Turkey, the problem of the precariousness of women's work exists despite

the fact that the country had signed a "Memorandum of Understanding" to
implement a national decent work program on 10 February 2009 in Lisbon at the
International Labor Organizations (ILO) Eighth European Regional Meeting
(ILO 2009),3 Within the program, priorities are given to address the child-labor

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ioo • Feminist Formations 22.3
problem, youth employment, improvement of women's employment, and gender

equality» "Decent work" is a term adopted by the ILO in 2000 to sum up "people's
universal and basic aspirations in work, which include adquate and stable income,
fair and equal treatment, safety at work, economic and social security in old age,
through ill health and in times of hardship, more opportunities to develop one's
creativity and potentials, voice and representation, and dignity, respect, and free-
dom at work" (Dejardin 2008, 2). Decent work should be considered not only as a
remedy for the hazards of globalization, but also as a strategy to promote women's
empowerment as welL As the United Nations' (UN) World Survey on the Role
of Women in Development suggests: "Economic growth is most likely to have a
positive impact on women's empowerment when it is mediated by explicit policies
promoting women s education, employment, human rights, and bargaining power"
(United Nations 2009, 85).
Turkish women's employment has been falling steadily since the mid-1950s,
decreasing from 70 percent to about 20 percent since 1955* According to the most
recent estimates, the female labor-force participation rate for ages 15 and above is
26,6 percent (6,995 women). The respective labor-force participation rates of women
and men are 26*6 percent and 70.5 percent. These rates are similar for total female/
male employment (including unpaid family agricultural labor), which are 23 percent
and 60.9 percent, respectively* The sectoral distribution of employment, however,
shows that these rates are different for the agricultural sector, where women out-
number men (43 percent versus 19 percent, respectively) ♦ But agriculture is not the
dominant economic sector: Almost double the number of employed individuals
in Turkey work in urban as compared to rural areas (65 percent versus 25 percent,
respectively) ♦ Fifty-seven percent of employed women in Turkey work outside of
agriculture (the male employment rate outside of the agricultural sector is 81 per-
cent). Despite the ratio of women working in urban areas, their rate of employment
there is still less than that of males (23 percent versus 72 percent, respectively).
Fifty-nine percent of employed persons have not received a secondary education and
59. 9 percent are casual employees. These figures indicate that, considering the aver-
age labor-participation rates in Turkey, one out of every four workers is a woman,
and also that while labor-force participation is higher in urban than rural areas,
women's share of this is almost 40 percent less than that of men's (TURKSTAT
2009). Moreover, it should be noted that "official" statistics consider unpaid family
labor working in the agricultural setting as "employed," and that most women in
rural areas of Turkey are unpaid family workers.
The fact that women's participation in the labor force has decreased from
70 percent to about 20 percent since 1955 is partly due to migration out of rural
areas. Ecevit (2008) underscores that during the long period of migration from
rural to urban areas, men's employment rates were not heavily affected, whereas
women seemed to have been "drawn back home" (that is, women are discouraged
from working in urban areas). This situation, Ecevit notes, should not be regarded
as women's choice, but more as a reflection of the labor-market conditions that

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Bellas Kümbetoglu, Inci User, and Aylin Akpinar ♦ ioi
dissuade women from working (123)» Starting during the 1980s, changing labor
trends emerged globally, such that precarious jobs were considered suited for
women and that increasing numbers of women were becoming deprived of social,
economic, and employment security (United Nations 2009, 27), As Beneria (2001)
argues, the "enormous increase in precarious employment and informal produc-
tion that has resulted from globalization and the implementation of neoliberal
policies needs to be understood within the context of the changes taking place at
the micro-level of the firm" (18),
The findings in this article will serve a number of purposes. First, they will
make visible the hard and exploitative circumstances under which these women,
mostly considered as unqualified, are working. Second, they highlight the gender
inequity in the Turkish labor market in which unregistered employers greatly profit
from the "hidden" work of women, who are forced to work to feed their children.
And last, these findings underscore how the Turkish government, forced by neolib-
eral policies to withdraw from the market, condones this widespread unregistered
employment to decrease the rising costs of production*
Methods Used in the Study
To understand the situation of women workers within this hidden economy, a quali-
tative field study was conducted in five provinces of Turkey.4 The researchers were
assisted by two colleagues and a group of undergraduates from the Department
of Sociology of Marmara University in Istanbul.5 Participants in the study were
selected according to the criterion of working or having worked as an unregistered
laborer in any one (or more) of the targeted sectors. No particular age group was
targeted. The specific tasks the women did on their jobs and their levels of educa-
tion and marital status were not regarded as important parameters. Women who
had lost "regular" jobs because of privatization of public firms in the service sector
and thus had been forced into an irregular and ambigious work situations were
also included.
The semi-structured interview guidelines were based on our preliminary field

research in May and June 2008 during which numerous recorded group meetings
and individual interviews were conducted with key informants in all the identi-
fied provinces. These included labor-union leaders, active members of workers'
associations and women's associations, bureaucrats in the regional department of
the Ministry of Work and in the Turkish Employment Organization, businessmen
and -women, labor lawyers, and heads of the regional chambers of trade, industry,
and crafts. From September 2008 to March 2009, our field research was conducted
during visits to these provinces, each visit lasting about ten days. The participants
in the study were 213 unregistered women workers in the textile/garment, food, and
service industries. Data were generated by means of in-depth interviews, which were
recorded and transcribed. Additionally, three focus-group discussions were held.
The preliminary data analysis was conducted during May- August 2009. A sample

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IO2 • Feminist Formations 22.3
of sixty-two interviews were randomly selected from among the larger study and
analyzed for the purpose of this article.
The demographics of this selected sample were as follows. The age range of
participants whose interviews were part of the preliminary analysis was 17-64,
with a mean of 33.8, The majority of the women participants had primary (« = 27,
43.5 percent) and some secondary {n = 25, 40.3 percent) education; a lesser number
had completed their secondary education (n = 10, 16 percent); and a few were either
illiterate (n = 2, 3 percent) or primary school dropouts (n = 2, 3 percent). The marital
status of the participants were as follows: The majority of women were married (n
= 34> 55 percent); being single was the next highest (n = 17, 27 percent); a smaller
number were divorced (n = 10, 16 percent); and one participant (2 percent) woman
who was widowed. At the time of the interviews, thirty-one (50 percent) of the
participants were working in the service industry, twenty-six (42 percent) in the
textile/garment industries, and five (8 percent) in the food industry. Participants
who had been employed in more than one of the industries related their perceptions,
ideas, and memories concerning each.
At the time when our research was planned (June 2007), the impact of the
looming economic crisis was, of course, not yet felt in Turkey. Therefore the
research did not aim to analyze the effects of the crisis, but instead its objective was
understanding how the dynamics of women's employment in the hidden economy
worked, and, further, how these dynamics were related to the working conditions
of the women. Because of our overall objective, we decided to concentrate on the
unregistered, low-paid, and irregular work that is now considered the almost inevi-
table kind of employment for women with low levels of education in Turkey. Most
scholars interested in studying female labor in Turkey tend to focus on this type of
employment. As our research proceeded, the impact of the economic crisis in 2008
began to be felt more intensely, soon becoming the most significant dimension of
the context of the study. It is a widely accepted fact that, during periods of major
economic crises, women are the group in society most adversely affected. Accord-
ing to reports of the ILO, the number of unemployed throughout the world will
increase by fifty-one million due to the present economic crisis, and twenty-two
million of these will be women (LABORSTA Internet 2009).
Turkish Women Workers Trapped in the Neoliberal Marketplace
In Turkey, a new dimension of the ongoing discussions about the inhumane con-
ditions of work concerns the so-called special employment offices, which actually
systematize the practice of subcontracting, thus legitimizing a slavery-like system.
In this system, employers are exempted from most of the responsibilities prescribed
by labor laws and hire workers on a temporary basis from these special employment
offices. This practice further decreases women's work security.
Our research findings show that at the intitial step of recruiting for the hidden
market, a number of legal violations take place. The phrase "You can start working

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Belkis Kümbetoglu, înci User, and Aylin Akpinar ♦ 103
right now if you don't demand social security" appears to have replaced any legal
contract, which defines the rights and responsibilities of both employers and
employees and is an important means of legal protection» Since 2003, according to
the new Turkish Labor Law (no, 4,853), a written work contract is compulsory, with
each party retaining a copy of it* In the unregistered workers' scenario, employers
let workers sign contracts, but the latter are not provided with copies* Women
workers are not informed of their right to retain a copy.
Even though the Turkish Labor Law prohibits employment under age 15,
many of the participants started working while still very young (namely, between
ages 10-12), Young girls work in seasonal agriculture, as well as in the food, service,
and textile industries. In the service sector, shops prefer hiring sales girls below age
18 (and as young as 15 or even younger). In the textile industry, these young girls are
called "errand girls" and there is no proper job description for them, though they
are expected to run around the shop floor all day long, carrying things, cleaning
the floor, making tea, and helping the older workers. To acquire skills like how to
use machinery, they need to remain in the factories for many years to persuade
older workers or foremen that they deserve learning so as to earn a little more.
Working as an errand girl also means being subjected to various kinds of abusive
and humiliating treatment. In most cases, such girls need to persist for at least
six or seven years until they are considered finally to have sufficient experience
to work with, for example, sewing machines. The machines in textile production
have different degrees of complexity; one by one, the girls are allowed to learn to
operate them, starting with the simplest one and progressing in complexity. Only
the women who have been given the chance to work with all five of the most widely
used machines are considered to be "indispensable" workers. Women who operate
machines typically have worked in various workplaces and have had a number of
undesirable duties.
The majority of companies in the textile industry are either of small or medium
size. According to official statistics, 60 percent of textile employees work in firms
of between one and nine employees (TURKSTAT 2009), Most of the participants
in our research either were or had been working in a shop known as "atelier under
the staircase," which refers to a shop established within the vault of a building or
in a decrepit hut formerly used to raise poultry,6 These small ateliers, which are
always threatened by bankruptcy and closing down and opening again, constitute
the hidden face of the textile industry. The visible part of industry is comprised of
large firms and factories. Workers know very well that salaries and insurance are
offered regularly at these large firms and factories, but such desirable jobs are very
hard to obtain. As long as they continue working "under the staircase," workers
know that they have no job security and quite often employers claim that they are
not able to pay salaries even as production continues. In such cases, workers either
stay at home and wait for another offer by the same employer or else they look for
another place to work.
As one of the women participants - a textile worker, unmarried, age 21 - noted:

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104 * Feminist Formations 22.3
Now, let me say ♦ . . the place I am working [in] now is like a place in the under-
ground world« Because it is quite below the ground floor. I mean, if that building
should collapse, there would be no rescue for us. Or if there is a fire, you can't
get away by any means. It is underground. It has no windows, but only a door.
There are fans above. I mean, you get in there while it's raining outside and when
you leave, the sun shines again, but you haven't noticed [the changing weather].
There is no fresh air [in the workshop]. All that dust comes into your mouth and
you inhale it and you are short of breath.7
Even though food production is not carried out under the staircase, the
physical conditions of work are not much better than in the textile ateliers. As one
food-industry worker (married, age 55) said:
[While gathering mushrooms] you have to put on gloves. If you don't put on
gloves, your hands get infected. There is a lot of soil on the mushrooms, you know.
... I had bad pains in my feet. It was rheumatism due to the humidity [in the
workplace]. [My friend] did not put on her gloves and there was a horrible allergic
reaction on her hands. They were swollen and red hot. She has been working for
three years. This year she cannot come here and work everyday. The doctor has
told her not to work in a humid place. He has told her she will be a crippled if she
continues to work. . . . The pain becomes intolerable [in the evening] when you
are back home. This place is humid. The floor is bare and wet all the time. And
you have to stand the whole day.
During our research, many observations were made in the districts that were
known to house firms engaged in production under the staircase. These were located
in the vaults of old, shabby buildings. The typical firm operated in a dark and dirty
room with a few sewing machines, where ten to fifteen very young women worked
under the supervision of a foreman. There would typically be very loud music play-
ing on the radio and the women had to work ten to twelve hours per day, producing
all kinds of textile goods. The breaks they were allowed were half an hour for lunch
and usually two tea breaks, about a quarter of an hour each. All key informants in
the study agreed that such workplaces were hardly ever controlled by the official
labor inspectors.
Production in such small shops involves much more than is indicated by the
simplistic "low levels of qualification will be poorly paid; this is the reality of the
labor market." These are work conditions that are detrimental to workers' well-
being, let alone their human dignity. The participants in our study frequently
emphasized their feelings of discontent and hopelessness, declaring that they felt
compelled to accept these conditions to comply with what they considered to be
their fate. While working without any social security insurance and for very low
wages and even, at times, not being paid at all, these workers felt humiliated, but
could not oppose the abusive behaviors of their employers and foremen because
they feared losing their jobs.

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Belkis Kümbetoglu, înci User, and Aylin Akpinar • 105
When asked whether she was promised social security insurance when she
took her job, an unmarried texile worker, age 20, responded as follows:
There is no mention of social security in the garments industry. You are directly
invited to come and start working. They [employers] know that we are ignorant,
we won't complain, we can't defend our rights even if we aren't paid, we are doomed
to work under these circumstances. . ♦ ♦ Never mind the social security. A lot of
new textile ateliers are established in ... [the] district. There are really too many
uninsured workers there.
Women workers in the industries studied here have no hope of retiring from
work* Even the companies that register their workers and hence provide retire-
ment benefits expect new registrants to wait at least four to six months before their
registration is activated. A married textile worker, age 42, said that
[e]ach time I found a new job, I tried to tell the employers how badly I needed
the social insurance and that I was working in order to be entitled to receive
retirement benefits. They seemed to agree, but each time I had to wait three or
four months. I have lost so much time. I mean, I worked, because I had to work.
Then I quit and looked for other jobs, but the same things happened again and
I lost another five months or so.
Another study participant, a married service-industry worker, age 40, said: "Well,
it's a dream. I don't think I'll ever get retired, I mean if things go on like this. But if I
do, I have just one dream. ... I wish to live in a small town at the coast . . . and to fish."
While having major impacts on the finance and real-estate industries of devel-
oped economies, in Turkey the economic crisis of 2008 most strongly affected the
textile and service industries, in both of which women workers predominate. Even
though prior to the crisis the reserve labor pool was large and costs of production
were low, many large firms complained of the high cost of insurance premiums
and the overall costs of production. Presently, such firms either closed down or
decreased their number of workers. During the past five years, investments amount-
ing to a value of US$730 million have been taken out of Turkey. This perhaps sug-
gests that some investors have turned the crisis into opportunities for additional
profits (Önder 2009). Indeed, a number of firms have moved their operations to
countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria, Bulgaria, Russia, and
Moldova, with the consequence that workers in Turkey are forced to accept wors-
ening conditions in which they labor. This explains why many of our participants
have never had the courage to ask for social security insurance, the most important
thing being to find jobs and retaining them. Such economic crises as this recent one
force workers to mind their daily bread and not their labor rights. Moreover, this
oppressive situation is in no way peculiar to the present crisis; periodic financial
calamities are endemic to the Turkish economy, and the present one erupted even
before the finance and banking crisis of 2001 could be forgotten.

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io6 • Feminist Formations 22.3
Many workers are not aware of the possibility of signing job contracts with
employers» Even if they knew about such contracts, they would not have the cour-
age to ask for them» One participant, an unmarried food-industry worker, age 29,
explained this idea by saying: "No, Because in general contracts are not made»
Because the employer does not say 'We will hire you» So let s make an agreement
and let's sign your papers if we can get along with each other and if you work well»'
No, there is no contract. I've never seen one»" The absence of job contracts not only
obscures workers' job definitions, but it also enables firms to create ambiguity in
relation to other issues such as work hours, vacations, overtime payments, and
when and how wages are paid»
Many of the participants in our research complained that even though work
starting times were strictly determined, times to finish were never known» The end
of the workday changed depending upon the amount of work to be completed at
a given time, and occasionally workers had to work throughout the night» Some
unregistered workshops were busy only at night, and workers there said they would
be immediately fired if they tried to complain about this» An unmarried textile
worker, age 21, said:
It was also a firm that produced linenware. It was producing for export» We had
to work very intensively. I mean, sometimes we had to work every night for an
entire week. Sometimes we entered the workshop on Thursday and could not
leave before Saturday. I mean, it was hard. A human body I mean . . . sleepless
for so many days. We could not go [home]. Only when it was Saturday, we could
leave. It was incredibly hard work.
Since women workers have a "second shift" of domestic chores at home,

extended work hours are a problem for them. Late working hours outside the home
lead to family conflicts and frequently are the reason why women quit their jobs» A
divorced textile worker, age 32, summarizes this issue by saying: "They work from
eight in the morning to eight in the evening anyway, and then it is impossible to go
home and continue working» Many of them quarreled and quit work, many things
happened» » » » As I said, many divorced for this reason»"
Employers and foremen not only force these women to work extended hours,
but they also attempt to increase production by frequently exhorting the women to
work faster, sometimes becoming quite abusive» Women are aware that they have
two bosses, that their status at work is not much different than their status at home,
and that they have to save energy for their responsibilities at home» One woman
participant (a married service-industry worker, age 38) noted that "I am furious to
the spouse rather than to the employer» If you ask why»' If your spouse does not
feel pity for you, why should the outsider! Even if I am quite strong I know times
[when] I feel tired» Why should I be exhausted? What did I do to feel exhausted?
But if you are given a job, you have to fulfill it» Then the body is exhausted as well
as [the] brain»"

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Belkis Kümbetoglu, ínci User, and Aylin Akpinar • 107
Another problem that the women in our research complained about was
malnutrition due to the brevity of tea and lunch breaks and the poor quality of
food served, especially during the night hours. Many women noted that they were
hungry while working, but demands or complaints concerning this could well
result in being fired. Typically, if one worker feels bold enough to complain, the
others remain silent and do not support hen Even though the country's labor laws
are supposed to protect the fundamental rights of workers, the actual situation is
far otherwise. Since women workers are not organized in any systematic way, they
have no voice to demand decent work conditions.
The Issue of the Minimum Wage
During our research we frequently wondered whether the labor laws were actu-
ally meant to protect workers' rights. One major factor behind this question is the
issue of the minimum wage, which appears to be a fundamental right of workers,
one that they are informed about though hardly ever able to achieve.8 As a result
of employers' insistance that the costs of production be reduced, the majority of
unregistered women workers receive wages that are lower than the official minimum
wage. A participant in the study describes this situation by saying that "No, I had
no insurance, to be sure. I worked one month and I had to struggle for about three
months to receive my wage. And then, it was only 250 liras [TL (Turkish lira),
equivalent to about US$168]" (unmarried textile worker, age 20).
Similar complaints were frequently expressed by the participants. They repeat-
edly explained that their monthly wages were far below the minimum wage, were
often paid later than when due, and sometimes were not paid at all. Wages are
personally handed out by employers, without any banking procedures. A divorced
textile worker, age 44, said: "Then I started working in another textile firm. There
we worked for six months without being paid. The man [employer] kept saying
'just try to manage a little more/ but who could manage that? There was the rent
to be paid and the electricity and water were cut off. The landlord was about to
remove us. I kept working but there was no money. I couldn't buy diapers for my
twenty-day-old infant. Why?"
Another complaint of women workers in our research concerned the unequal
pay scales among workers doing the same jobs within the same companies. One
participant quit her job because of this inequity and the sexual harrassment she
received based initially on better pay:
When I started working, I received less than the minimum wage
told me I would receive ten or fifteen liras [US$7 or $10] more. I wond
I should receive more [than the other workers]. My friends kept say
been working for a longer time than you. Why should you be paid bet
some said that he had bad intentions. So I asked him why I was rece

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io8 ♦ Feminist Formations 22.3
and he said "You talk so nicely. You are so sweet and naive. This is why I pay you
more." (married service-industry worker, age 35)
A number of problems related to wages being paid were mentioned in the

interviews. Wages were delayed for two or three months and sometimes for even
longer. Many workers received wages far below the minimum wage, and sexual
harrassment is widespread. Most participants preferred to talk about what hap'
pened to "an acquaintance," though some were brave enough to reveal their own
experiences of harrassment. Since there is a cultural tendency in Turkey to blame
victims for sexual harrassment, women remain silent and therefore cannot receive
any support from their families and friends. Sexual harrassment is a real issue for
a number of women that takes a variety of forms, including not only inequity in
wages, but also verbal and physical harrassment. Women workers are ashamed
of talking about the sexual harrasment they have experienced, so they generally
relate the situations faced by their friends. As one women, an unmarried textile
worker, age 18, said:
I had a friend and she complained about her uneasiness she felt because of the
foreman's behavior. I asked "Why?" She said: "He disturbed me while passing by.
He was touching, I felt his hand." Sometime later, another friend said: "He was
touching my legs. In general sexual harrasment is prevalent, widows are disturbed.
Now I am a widow, I lived and heard about these in my vicinity. I heard about
young girls who suffered harm and even caused death."
In some cases, pay for overtime work is not made - in others, owed wages are
deduced for insufficient reasons. Some workers are forced to sign wage contracts
saying that they are receiving the minimum wage, even though they are not. The
worst form of labor exploitation is when individuals are forced to assume multiple
work responsibilities. Despite their low wages, they often have to take on extra work
that could normally only be completed by three or four people, which inevitably
leads to their spending more hours in the workplace. As one woman complained:
Then I took that job [cleaning a primary-school building]. But I desperately

needed that job. I was to receive 250 liras (US$168) and no lunch, no insurance,
alright? I was the only one to take care of all the storys. They said they would hire
two more people, but I was tired to death. I had so many pains and I could hardly
walk on my swollen feet. Imagine the exhaustion, the little money. . . . And then
no insurance, no lunch, nothing. The closing hour was not fixed either. . . . My
little daughter waiting for me. (married service worker, age 35)
Often the positions are given such strange names that workers themselves
cannot tell what their jobs entail. A good example of this is the practice of naming
a more experienced or competent worker as an "office person." This implies that the
worker has been promoted to a higher position, that she is now doing something
more important than other workers. These women continue with their former

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work, but now being "promoted," they are assigned extra tasks without any raise
in wages. The desire of workers to be recognized as having special qualifications
and responsibilities is often exploited by employers to get more work out of them
for no additional pay. As one participant, a married textile worker, age 42, recalls
her experience of this:
"Sister, can you take care of the kitchen?" he said. "I promise there is nothing
difficult," he added. "I shall also have another employee to aid you because of
your age. You can clean up, wash the glasses, and go. But you will have a salary
of 500 liras cash," he said. I said, "Okay, it is better for me, I can clean up." . . .
He had me collect garbage. He had me carry sacks on my back to the second or
third floor, even though I told him I had [a] hernia. He gave me 385 liras salary,
believe me he gave me only 385 liras salary.
Often, additional responsibilities do not just accompany titles like 'office person."
When hard-working women are complimented with such statements as "You do
it better than the others," they often find themselves rewarded by being given
additional work, more than for one person.
In the food industry, a woman may serve as cook in addition to being dish-
washer, cleaner, and waitress. Women workers are typically expected to not only
do their actual jobs, but also to do all kinds of errands traditionally considered
"women's work." These multiple responsibilities are not only exhausting, but also, in
most cases, they create the illusion that women workers are not like other employ-
ees but are special and close to their bosses and foremen. Such illusions weaken a
worker s conscientiousness and her tendency to cooperate with coworkers in their
struggles to attain their rights. Since the typical workplace is frequently a venue
for employers' offensive and humiliating behaviors, such commendations as "You
are better than the others" and "We can trust you only" provide little comfort
because the worker will be then expected to work two or three times harder than
her coworkers, without any additional pay.
Unregistered economic activity - the main focus of this article - manifests
itself in the high number of uninsured workers within the textile, food, and service
industries. To find subjects for our research, we often asked people whether they
knew women workers who didn't have social security insurance. The responses we
received were typically affirmative - for example, "Yes, there are a lot of them in this
district. You can find them in the chocolate factory over there" and "Then there are
the small textile ateliers, the salesgirls also have no social security." Key informants
in labor unions and workers' associations confirmed this; the participants themselves
often related this same account about being hired: "The employer said, "You want
a job? Well, you may start immediately, if you don't demand social security [insur-
ance]." One women tells of being recruited, though without social security insurance:
When I started there without insurance, some fellow workers who had been
there for five years were still without social security [insurance]» How can one

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no • Feminist Formations 22.3
work without insurance for five years? Did they never get ill? Did they never
have to see the doctor? Then I realized that the factory had a special deal with a
nearby private hospital. The hospital charged the factory owner very little money
[for health services]. It was so obvious. Those people steal both our money and
the money of the government. They do so because we let them do [it], (divorced
textile worker, age 44)
Another participant, a married service-industry worker, age 35, complained about

the conditions of working without social security insurance by saying that "I've
had two jobs. In both I worked without insurance. ♦ ♦ ♦ And I was just a little girl. I
didn't know what insurance was. If I did, I would not work otherwise. Well, after
all, I was making my living. They told me, 'We'll try you for three months and then
you'll have your insurance.' But [it] was neither three months nor a year. I worked
for a whole five years without insurance. That is, I was cheated."
There are various reasons for young women accepting and continuing to
work under such adverse circumstances: Sometimes her father dies or is too sick
to work himself; sometimes her husband is unemployed and hence, by necessity,
she becomes the sole breadwinner. Fears that no other jobs will be available or
hopes that at least the wages, though low, will be paid on a timely basis or that
unpaid premiums will be added to net wages deter these women from shunning
unregistered employment.
These employers violate the legal rights of workers one by one, often viewing
the violation of one right as an excuse for violating the next. Consequently, the
workers are forced to remain silent because of overt threats that they will lose their
jobs. Due to the large surplus of workers in the labor force, such coercion is very
credible. Under these circumstances, employment without insurance has almost
become the norm and the exploitation of female labor constitutes a major part of
the system of production. Very young girls of families who have recently migrated
to large cities in hope of finding employment are forced by their parents or close
relatives and later by their husbands or in-laws to take jobs in garment ateliers,
hairdressing shops, or small firms that are close to the neighborhoods in which
they live. In most cases, the establishments in which these young women work are
owned by individuals that are personally acquainted with their families. When
they are hired, these young women know little about their labor rights; in many
ways, their working conditions are determined not by themselves, but by others.
One woman summarized this idea by noting:
I mean, it was not up to me. If I had the choice, I would go and look for a nice
job. My mother-in-law found a job for me and made me work there; I went where
she told me to go. Had it been my own will to work, I would have known about
insurance and the like. . . . Now we are living in a bigger city and I know what
insurance means. My older sister says the same, "Previously, we didn't know what
insurance was." (married service worker, age 35)

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Belkis Kümbetoglu, ínci User, and Aylin Akpinar • in
A widespread practice in the food and service industries is that of hiring unreg-
istered women on a short-term basis, their wages being paid daily, in workplaces
that also have registered women workers» These short-term, unregistered women
workers are brought in when there is extra work to be done, such as helping sales-
women before religious holidays when business is heavier than usual or helping in
food production when demand is high» These women are called the "daily paid"
and they work without any security or insurance»
Employing people without insurance is illegal» There must be enforceable
legal measures in place to prevent such illegal activity»9 During our field study, we
were often left to wonder whether the authorities truly intended to enforce such
legal measures to prevent hidden work. When asked about their encounters with
labor inspectors of the Ministry of Work and Social Security, participants talked
about experiences that add an ironic dimension to this study» These experiences
explain how such large numbers of women can continue working as unregistered
for so many years» Participants were first asked whether the firms they worked for
had ever been inspected» We did not identify the organization responsible for such
auditing» The answers we received were ambiguous and included such generalities
as "men from the Ministry of Finance," "tax officials," "inspectors," and "auditors»"
The women appeared to be not very well informed about who should be inspecting
and for what purpose» Some answers were very significant, in that they indicated
that not only the workers, but also the firm as a whole were unregistered.
With the help of key informants, some of our research team visited a district
in the city Bursa where this kind of hidden work is widespread» A number of
under-the-staircase ateliers were observed and the noise emanating from some of
them could be heard in the streets» As a consequence, these observations led us
to question the existence of any systematic attempts to inspect workplaces»10 One
participant in our study said that "the room we were working in had no open win-
dows anyway» We never got any fresh air» The two windows were always kept shut,
because the firm was not licensed» No, they [the inspectors] wouldn't come, because
they didn't know we were working there» Nobody could notice that vault» And my
machine was a very silent one» It could not be heard [from the outside]" (divorced
textile worker, age 32)» Another participant, who lost her job when the firm closed
down, said that "afterwards he [the owner] registered the machinery in the name
of his brother-in-law, who was working somewhere else» In two or three months the
firm started working again» A couple of friends went there and saw some of their
former fellow workers laboring there" (married, unemployed textile worker, age 42)»
While visiting the district in Bursa we asked an important question: What
would happen to a worker if she did not do what she was supposed to during an
inspection? An unmarried, unemployed textile worker, age 20, provided an answer:
Actually, they told us when they were expecting an inspector» They said "[put
on] make up carefully, put on some nail polish/' One day people came with a
camera and filmed the place. You should see, how they [the employers] serve

88.245.196.157 on Tue, 18 Apr 2023 22:57:35 UTC
112 • Feminist Formations il,'}
these men. How kindly they talked to them. If they were always like this, always
so nice, everybody would wish to work here. Then the voice recording stopped.
The inspectors walked around the place stopping by one worker or the other and
pretending that they were interested in what was going on, but in fact they didn't
care. [Question: "Didn't they see the small children working there?"] Indeed they
did, but they did not care. Nobody seems to care about his duty. And the children
were told to lie in case they would be asked about their ages. They were told to
say they were eighteen or nineteen.
Regarding the issue of how to behave in front of inspectors, another participant

said that "they would send us to the empty upper floor and tell us to stay there until
we could return to work. . . . We would sit on the bare floor that was so cold and
wait until they [the inspectors] went away" (unmarried food-industry worker, age
29). The following is another perspective from one of the participants about the
repercussions of not behaving during an inspection:
The firm had about 700 workers. I think it was quite a big firm. One day I suddenly
saw all the people preparing to leave the place and asked "What's the matter?"
They said inspectors were coming and I replied "So what? Let them come. If they
ask me questions, I know how to answer. You've been keeping our documents in
your drawers. If you had registered us, we would have the card [the document
necessary for obtaining free medical services]." And I was working at a corner very
close to the entrance. Nobody was able to remove me because I am stubborn. So
they surrounded me with older workers who were all insured. They hoped that the
inspector would ask a couple of people whether they were insured and then stop
it. The day after this event, they registered me. (divorced textile worker, age 44)
The high frequency of similar responses reveals the different strategies of

employers to evade taxation and other fiscal obligations. Women who reject the
idea of taking a day s leave of absence because there will be an inspector visiting
are threatened with being terminated on the spot. A group of women interviewed
in Bursa described the variety of ways of hiding workers. One employer gathered
all his unregistered employees in his van and took them on a tour of the province,
where they visited all the mosques and sacred places. Another employer sent his
unregistered workers on a picnic. In all cases, though, these workers did not receive
wages for the days of inspection during which they couldn't work.
In the absence of eíFec tive controls and also of organizations working toward
improving labor rights, women workers can fight back against oppression and
threats of losing their jobs only so much and for only limited periods, which is
why the rate of worker turnover is high. Sometimes a woman changes jobs three or
four times in a year; sometimes she quits work for a while or tries to make a living
by doing piecework or cleaning houses while waiting for a better job opportunity.

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Belkis Kümbetoglu, ínci User, and Aylin Akpinar ♦ 113
The Working Conditions and Meaning of Work for Women
There is a stereotype in Turkish society about how women consider marriage a

means of making a living, and therefore they usually have jobs until they get mar-
ried« Research on women's employment conditions since the 1990s has shown that
many employers are (mis)using this stereotype in order to justify their discrimi-
nation against women (Lordoglu and Minibas 1999; Çenesen, Pulhan, and Özar
2000). Our research for this article indicates that there is much exploitation of
workers' rights in the workplace when employers change employees frequently in
order to absolve themselves of any legal, financial, and social responsibilites. The
degradation, insult, force, harrasment, and threats that women workers are sub-
jected to cause them to feel inferior and place them in difficult situations* In such
circumstances, many women withdraw and become silent; when one tries to defend
her rights, she is called a troublemaker - with possible negative repercussions.
Research conducted by Eyiiboglu and colleagues (2000) shows that the average
duration of women's employment is six to seven years. Many women quit working
after getting married, but many others leave their jobs because of harsh working
conditions. Also, many women are fired by employers who wish to avoid their
responsibilities to employees. A participant in our study explained why she quit
several jobs, and why she could not stay too long in one workplace:
I quit high school after [my] first year. Then I worked for two years without insur-
ance and with a very low wage. I could not find any workplace [that] would suit my
expectations. My family would not let me work everywhere. I had worked at my
last workplace [because] it was close to home. I quit after two years and I started
working at my new workplace a month-and-a-half ago. Hopefully, they will start
my insurance procedure soon, (unmarried textile worker, age 18)
Employers, of course, like women that will work under any condition, that are
ignorant, that can be easily persuaded, that are silent and conciliatory, and that are
willing to ask for the same jobs even after being fired. When our participants were
asked what a suitable job was, all insisted that it was a "decent job/' Such jobs are
the most important element in retaining women workers. Women are well aware
of their harsh working conditions and their employers' abuses. As one of our
participants, a married, unemployed textile worker, age 35, said:
A woman has to work at home as well as at her job. If you have a child, there is
a shift. A woman must do such jobs as child care, housecleaning. My sister has
been doing cleaning for years. Does she have an insurance? No. She has to leave
her job because she has an infant. There is a nursery at the factory but you cannot
rely on [it] because employees are changed every year. You have worked for a year
and a half and they make you give [it] up so that they will not [have to] pay you
any compensation.

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114 * Feminist Formations 22.3
Another woman explains further that "there is much quarreling with the fore-
man when one does not stay [to work] overtime. He takes you to the director to
ask why you don't stay* ♦ ♦ ♦ At most textile workplaces they say 'Don't come back
tomorrow morning if you go now/ If the person is timid they use force" (divorced
textile worker, age 32).
Furthermore, many women are forced to find jobs because their workplaces
have shut down; others hope to find better working conditions by changing work
sectors. Women do not consider work in the family's fields or gardens as work at all
because, in the words of one participant, "there is no patron in the garden/' Another
described the difference between rural and city work: "We used to do our own work
in the village. There is an order of the city and if you stay there you have to adapt to
working conditions or if you can't, you quit your work" (married service-industry
worker, age 38). High labor turnover partly reflects the survival strategies of young,
female migrant workers in cities. The participant quoted above is a good example,
because in her twenties she migrated from a village to a city and in twelve years
has worked at six different places, most often without social security insurance.
Many women start working when they are children, usually between the
ages of 11 and 15 and sometimes along with an individual already known to their
family. One participant noted that "I started working when I was 11 for a person
who was close to my family. They were sewing curtains. I used to do the embroi-
dery on curtains. I worked there [for] more than seven or eight years. Then I
worked at a shop for a week but I did not like the conditions they dictated to
me. They would not pay insurance. Then I had to start working again. I worked
as a sales person from 1976 to 1979" (widowed textile worker, age 48). As this
vignette indicates, the availability of social security insurance varies job by job,
and few women have been covered throughout their working careers. Almost all
women are very pessimistic about being able to retire, despite their having been
employed from an early age.
Given all these conditions in the workplace and the difficulties that working
women endure, when participants in our research were asked "How did working
affect your life?" many women answered that they had gained self-confidence.
Therefore, marriage as the means of maintaining a living is being challenged by
women, but real changes will come about only when women derive satisfaction from
their work and are offered opportunities to improve their skills. Labor unions are
important institutions for improving working conditions but their effectiveness has
been systematically checked in Turkish economic life, especially after the military
coup of 1982. Also, being members of labor unions can cause problems for employ-
ees. When asked whether they knew what a labor union was, many participants
said that they had never heard of the concept, while others stressed that they had
nothing to do with such an institution. These latter were also afraid of being fired
if they became members. As one woman, a divorced textile worker, age 32, stated:
"In textile work you are fired if it is revealed that you are a member. They did not
know that I was a member while I worked in textiles. I was concealing it. At my

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last job, I could only work for four days because the employer called me and in a
bad manner fired me« Some insider information had reached him/'
Hie Working Conditions and Health Status of Unregistered Women
An important social and environmental influence on health is job occupation. Low-

status jobs, as well as dangerous and/or unhygienic work settings, are among the
major health-risk factors* Work that creates health hazards cannot be considered
decent work as defined by the ILO. The constant threat of unemployment, low
level of control over one's work, poverty, poor housing conditions, poor access to
health care, and inadequate nutrition are also known to compromise people's health
(Locker 2000; Syme and Berkman 1982). The physical conditions of work within
the hidden economy and the health status of participants are important parts of
our research. Both our observations in the provinces where hidden work takes
place and the descriptions of participants in our research reveal circumstances that
are incompatible with the basic requirements of human health. The section below
explores these unhealthy conditions that women workers are exposed to.
To keep production hidden and to reduce the costs of it, ateliers in the textile
and garment industries establish workplaces in the cellars of old, decrepit, and
damp buildings. In these, workers complain of the lack of light and fresh air. It
is customary in these workplaces to play loud music, which is supposed to hinder
workers from talking with one another, which would result, of course, in decreased
productivity. But this blaring music, in addition to the din of the machines, is
regarded as a serious stress factor by workers. In all three sectors examined in this
article, the participants noted how they have to remain standing almost for the
entire workday and to also carry heavy loads. A problem specifically relevant to the
textile industry is the presence of dust, paint, and other chemicals. In most cases,
masks are not available to prevent inhaling these toxic substances and, moreover,
no special gloves are worn. Many of these women work as cleaners and hence are
constantly in contact with all kinds of detergents. One of our participants, an
unmarried textile worker, age 29, summarized these working conditions in the
following way: "They were working in the textile factory and well, in almost all
textile ateliers you constantly swallow dust [and] don't see the [dayjlight. There is
no air conditioning, you don't see the sun, it's cold in the winter, hot in the summer
. . . the air is extremely bad."
Married women workers complain of their second work shift at home. Since
their wages are very low, they can only afford extremely poor housing conditions.
Most of them live in shanties and have large families that require a lot of care.
Since the unregistered firms do not provide any child-care facilities, mothers are
frequently unable to work until their children are old enough to attend school, and
when they try to return to work, the circumstances they have to accept are even
worse than what they experienced previously. Most women workers with families
work eighteen to twenty hour days, both in the workplace and at home.

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nó • Feminist Formations 22.3
The social environment of the workplace is also a significant factor of health.

Women workers' social interactions, as they are described by our participants, are
not of a desirable quality* Due to the problem of pervasive unemployment that
promotes hidden work, without social and employment security, these women are
frequently threatened with being fired, which makes it impossible to overtly resist
the abusive behaviors of employers and foremen. Employers and foremen consider
it normal to verbally offend women. Since most of these women are also subject to
domestic violence, they feel powerless against their employers' abuses.
Another negative aspect of their interactions at work is their competitive nature.
Since any organized resistance on the part of the workers is very much feared by
employers, they deliberately foster this competition by treating their workers in dif-
ferent ways or by paying them unequally. The lack of employment security and high
rates of worker turnover also render it very difficult for women workers to establish
solidarity. Despite all the negative circumstances, many workers regard the workplace
as a means of socializing. Still, the "social" environment under the staircase is not
conducive to alleviating stress or developing workers' identities and consciousness.
The relationship between these work conditions and the hidden economy
is obvious. Unregistered workers have no social rights or protections, and they
themselves must come to terms with any circumstances created by employers.
Such circumstances are greatly detrimental to women workers' health, though
the participants in our research appeared to have very limited knowledge of health
issues. Most of them defined such issues in ambigious terms when speaking about
their past and present health problems.
The concept of occupational accidents appeared to be familiar to the women.
Almost all participants had themselves either witnessed such accidents or else had
heard about them and their outcomes. However, not all of them knew their legal
protections and compensations. The experiences of the participants concerning
workplace accidents have been relatively harmless and inconsequential, which is why
they remained employed, of course. The most frequent kinds of accidents in textile
and garment shops were cuts and other injuries to the hands and arms, because
these women constantly work with scissors, needles, and sewing machines. For such
accidents, usually all that is required is simple first aid. If the injury appears to be
more serious, then the workers are taken to doctors. Most employers have special
arrangements with private practitioners or clinics through which they can avoid
official registration of their workers and pay less than in clinics that service social
security insurance claims. Needless to say, there are no infirmaries, doctors, or
nurses in under-the-staircase workplaces. In cases of minor accidents and injuries,
employers generally cover the costs and permit the workers to resume work as soon
as they have recovered. Major accidents involving more intensive treatments and
expenses and leaves-of-absence are far more problematic because, in these cases,
employers do not accept responsibility for the injured and such women are left to
fend for themselves, leading to a subsequent life of dependency and poverty.

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As indicated above, the participants' understanding of job-related health issues

is quite limited. Some of them even think that the term "occupational disease"
refers to some kind of psychological disorder characterized by a compulsion to
work* Upon further questioning, however, most participants discussed a number
of health complaints such as injured joints, chronic pain in the extremities and
back, rheumatism, allergic skin problems, and problems of the respiratory system.
They thought all these were related to the physical conditions in their workplaces,
to the heavy loads they had to frequently lift, and to standing on their feet for long
hours. Moreover, some women cited cases of cancer as being related to the "squalor
of work." One unmarried service-industry worker, age 22, said that "before I started
here, I had no problems with my veins. Probably it's due to running around. I guess,
occupational diseases are different for everyone. I mean, some sit at the table and
have problems with their back, and we [have problems] with our legs. . . . I've lost
weight after starting to work here."
Because food production is carried out under adverse conditions, the women
workers have to clean the workplaces for the production of products as well as for
their own health-related issues. This means that they are forced to do two jobs
simultaneously: Food production and cleaning. Obviously, there is no additional
pay for this double duty. One participant who works in mushroom production
and who at the same time cleans the workplace noted that "we would clean the
workplace. Unless you keep the place very clean, the fertilizers cause a great mess.
Also, lots of fleas would gather and we would try to keep them away, washing the
place again and again. The male workers would use insecticides. We [women] had
to do the cleaning" (married food-industry worker, age 55).
"Stress" was a word frequently cited by the participants. They complained of a
great deal of work- and poverty-related stress, and also tended to attribute to it most
of their illnesses. Some of them admitted to presently receiving, or having received
in the past, psychiatric treatment, and the vast majority said that psychologically
they were not feeling well.
These women are expected to continue working when they are stricken with
minor illnesses. Occasionally, workers faint in the workplace; when this happens,
they are given a short rest and then are expected to resume working. If a worker
insists on having a day off for rest or seeing a doctor, she is not paid for that day.
More serious and longer-lasting illnesses are cause for losing one s job. The ateliers
under the staircase have no specific arrangements for nursing mothers or day care.
Many pregnant women quit working only at a late stage of their pregnancy, and
then they stay at home with their children until they are of school age. When these
women return to the labor force, they must contend with even worse work arrange-
ments than before due to the increased competition from a larger and younger labor
pool. Many participants regard a status of "housewife and mother only" as natural
and desirable, and if given the choice, they would gladly remain at home; however,
poverty forces them to return to the workplace.

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ii8 • Feminist Formations 22.3
Summary and Conclusions
This article described the plight of women working in various sectors (textile,
food, and service) of the hidden economy in some urban centers in Turkey. Our
research was conceived prior to the 2008 global recession, which eventually was
felt in Turkey* The article shows how poverty forces unskilled women into jobs in
the hidden economy. Such jobs, however, do not alleviate their poverty; instead,
the jobs expose these women to a continuous cycle of low wages, abuse, and health
hazards. Additional findings of our research highlight the following in women's
employment in Turkey:
♦ It is widely asserted that unregistered employment is a condition that women

willingly accept. Our research indicates that is incorrect; however, women
do not do so willingly, but are forced to accept this condition in the face of
widespread unemployment and poverty.
♦ Because these women are working in the unregistered economy, employers
are therefore free to make them labor under the most adverse working condi-
tions. In Turkey, labor laws and workers' rights, if they exist at all, are not
consistently enforced.
♦ The problem is not only structural, but also gender-related. The fact that
women workers are more docile and complying is abused by employers; work
conditions are much harsher for women than for men.
♦ The large number of women workers who are prepared to accept the most
adverse work conditions in order not to lose their jobs reinforces the attitude
of some employers that it is possible to hire women workers for even half of
the official minimum wage.
♦ Almost all participants who shared with us their work-related problems have
emphasized their helplessness and despair.
These conditions result because of the absence of labor organizations protect-

ing workers' rights - a situation that forces women workers to remain silent. Studies
such as this present one provide these women with a chance to make their stories
known and to express their needs and demands. But a far more effective method
would be through enforceable labor laws. Hence, the importance of labor organiza-
tions and legal protections needs to be reemphasized. Our detailed findings reveal
that unregistered women workers in Turkey are deprived of the most basic rights
granted by the country's labor laws. The fear of unemployment restrains them from
negotiating better situations, let alone from rebelling against it. Silently suffering
as they do from job insecurity, poor work conditions, and poverty, these women
remain invisible within the country's economic system.
Our reseach shows the humiliations these women workers must endure just
to hold onto their poorly and irregularly paid jobs within the textile, food, and
service industries. The aim of the study was to reveal the adverse work conditions

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in which many women workers presently labor in Turkey* These require urgent
action to ameliorate their situation. Turkish women's participation in the labor
force has been decreasing since 1950 (KEÍG 2008); it is argued that factors such
as those presented here have contributed to this trend* Policies aiming to reverse
this trend need to address the problems identified in our research* Researchers
need to emphasize the importance of challenging Turkey s hidden economy and
the negative conditions it creates for working women (Ecevit 1998; KEIG 2008,
2009; Toksöz 2007)*
During the past two years, while Turkey was facing the impact of the global
economic crisis, the prevailing discourse has emphasized the increasing numbers
of businesses shutting down and the consequent rising unemployment. This dis-
course, which has been widely embraced by the Turkish media, does not reflect the
actual problems and coping strategies of the unemployed. There is little mention
made of the multiple jobs many women simultaneously hold simply to earn enough
to roughly correspond to the country's official minimum wage. The statistics so
often currently cited do not even reflect the actual rates of unemployment, because
unpaid family labor is regarded as employment. And while women are struggling
to subsist under these adverse working conditions, their employers and employers'
subcontractors are steadily increasing their profits.
Today in Turkey there is the Initiative for Female Labor and Employment
(KEIG). This initiative demands that coverage for employment security be
expanded, that there should be incentives for registering small-scale businesses,
that wages should be increased in women-intensive industries, that work hours
should be adjusted to harmonize with the demands of family life, and that child-
care facilities should be provided on a larger scale. The work-related problems of
the participants in our research reveal once again how realistic and urgent the
KEÎG s demands are.
Acknowledgment
This project was supported by the Marmara University Scientific Research Com-
mittee. Project no. T SOS-B-030408-0085, 2008.
Belkts Kümbetoglu received her BA in social anthropology from Istanbul University,

her MA in sociology from Bogaziçi University, and her PhD in sociology from Marmara
University in Istanbul. Since 2004 she has been the head of the Department of Sociology
at Marmara University. She is the director of the Marmara University Research Center
for Women's Labor and Employment, the former president of the Turkish Anthropology
Association, and a member of the Association of Social Sciences of Health. Kümbetoglu
teaches courses on sociology, social anthropology, and methodology, and has published
a book on qualitative research methods and articles on methodology, migration, gender
issues, and women's employment. She can be reached at bkumbetoglu@marmara.edu.tr.

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I2O ♦ Feminist Formations 22.3
tnci User received her BA in psychology and MA in sociology from Bogaziçi University,
and her PhD in sociology from Marmara University in Istanbul She is an associate pro-
fessor in the Department of Sociology at Marmara University and a board member of the
Marmara University Research Center for Women's Labor and Employment She teaches
courses on sociology, psychology, and research methods. Her main areas of research and
publication are in the sociology of health and illness; social problems; sociology of disas-
ters; gender and women's studies; and the psychosocial problems of Turkish workers and
migrants in Germany. User is the vice president of the Turkish-German Association
for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosocial Health (Dtgpp-e.V) and a member of
the Association of Social Sciences of Health, the Turkish Sociology Association, and the
Turkish Anthropology Association* She can be reached at eyuser@superonline.com.
Aylin Akptnar is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Marmara

University in Istanbul. She received her PhD in sociology from Uppsala University in
Sweden and has conducted research mainly on migration and gender issues. Her latest
research is on Islam, gender, and social change in Turkey. She contributed the chapter
"Discourses of I slam/ Secularism and Identity-building Processes among Turkish Univer-
sity Youth," in Muslim Diaspora: Gender, Culture and Identity (ed. Haideh Moghissi
[2006]). Akptnar is a board member of the Marmara University Research Center for
Women's Labor and Employment, and a member of the Turkish Sociology Associa-
tion and the Turkish Anthropology Association. She can be reached at aylinakpin@
gmail.com.
Notes
1. "Hidden economy/' "invisible economy/' "irregular economy/' "black economy/' and

"shadow economy" are some of the terms widely used in this context.
2. A very general definition of the hidden economy is: "economic transactions that
are either not registered at all or registered using false documents and partly or totally
unregistered so that they cannot be controlled by the government or by other business
actors" (Altug 1999, 257).
3. According to the ILO: "Decent work sums up the aspirations of people in their
working lives. It involves opportunities for work that is productive and delivers a fair
income, security in the workplace and social protection for families, better prospects for
personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns,
organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives, and equality of opportunity
and treatment for all women and men" (ILO 2009).
4. The five provinces are Istanbul, Bursa, Kocaeli, Adapazan, and Düzce, all of which
are located in the northwestern region of the country. This region is more densely populated
than others in Turkey and the largest share of nonagricultural activities is concentrated here.
5. The assistant researchers were: Zeynep Bespinar Karaoglu, PhD candidate and
lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Marmara University; and Bahar Kiriker, MA
student in sociology. The undergraduates on our research team were: Arzu Arslan; Burcu
Görgün; Elif Yalçin; Fatma Demirbas; Fulya Aydemir; Gözde Gözüm; Hilal Kurt; Mine

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Belkis Kümbetoglu, înci User, and Aylin Akpinar ♦ 121
Çarikçi; Nilay Basar; Selda Bay tas; Sinem Atan; and Tugba Canbulut. Before the field study,
all research assistants underwent special training in in-depth interviewing.
6. "Atelier" is Turkish vernacular for "shop floor."
7. All quotes by participants in this study are from interviews by the authors (2009).
8. The Turkish Labor Law (paragraph 39) states that "for the purpose of regulating
the economic and social statuses of all working people who are working with a contract no
matter whether or not they are covered by this law, the lowest limits of the wages will be
determined at least biannually by the Commission of Minimum Wages of the Ministry
of Work and Social Security/' Presently, the official minimum wage in Turkey is 693 liras
(US$465), the net amount received by workers being 546*48 lira (US$390). When the share
of the social security premium is added in, the minimum wage rises to 835.07 liras (US$566),
which means that employers have to pay a monthly minimum wage of 693 liras (US$465),
plus 142.07 liras for social security (US$101). Even though the net amount received can at
best prevent the worker from starving, the minimum wage is considered to be too costly
because of the social security premium and taxes. Therefore, unregistered employment is
preferred by business owners.
9. In October 2004, a national action plan was established by the goverment, prompted
by the EU-ILO Project, to abolish the country's hidden economy. The plan was initiated
in 2005 in three provinces (Heyes 2008). The project suggested measures for developing
policies to expand employment and improving control over the workforce by lessening the
impact of taxes. At both the local and national levels these measures were: 1) to maintain
cooperation between interested parties like employer associations, labor unions, and local
employment offices; 2) to establish workshops for raising workers' consciousness about their
social and economic rights; 3) to encourage labor associations to participate in campaigns
for extended education, presentation, and raising awareness; 4) to call on employers to
control the employment conditions of wholesalers, suppliers, and subcontractors; 5) to
allow labor-union representatives and members to educate unregistered workers about the
disadvantages of being informally employed; and 6) to make known to those looking for work
the existence of local employment offices and to encourage the unemployed to utilize them.
The effectiveness of this action plan depended upon the goodwill efforts of all interested
parties; based on our research observations in Bursa, it appears not to have been successful.
10. In some cities, telephone hotlines have been established to enable people to report
unregistered firms. Some participants, however, said that they had attempted to report
such abuses, but received responses like "Thousands of people like you keep complaining.
We cannot check your case."
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122 ♦ Feminist Formations 22.3
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Unregistered Women Workers in the Globalized Economy: A Qualitative Study in

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40980986

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Belkis Kiimbetoglu, Inci User, and Aylin Akpmar

Keywords: invisible workers / subcontracting / unregistered employment /

©2010 Feminist Formations, Vol. 22 No. 3 (Fall) pp. 96-123

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The Unregistered Economy in Turkey

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Women and Unregistered Work

In Turkey, the problem of the precariousness of women's work exists despite

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problem, youth employment, improvement of women's employment, and gender

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Methods Used in the Study

The semi-structured interview guidelines were based on our preliminary field

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Turkish Women Workers Trapped in the Neoliberal Marketplace

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Since women workers have a "second shift" of domestic chores at home,

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The Issue of the Minimum Wage

When I started working, I received less than the minimum wage

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A number of problems related to wages being paid were mentioned in the

Then I took that job [cleaning a primary-school building]. But I desperately

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Another participant, a married service-industry worker, age 35, complained about

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Regarding the issue of how to behave in front of inspectors, another participant

The high frequency of similar responses reveals the different strategies of

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The Working Conditions and Meaning of Work for Women

There is a stereotype in Turkish society about how women consider marriage a

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Hie Working Conditions and Health Status of Unregistered Women

An important social and environmental influence on health is job occupation. Low-

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The social environment of the workplace is also a significant factor of health.

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As indicated above, the participants' understanding of job-related health issues

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Summary and Conclusions

♦ It is widely asserted that unregistered employment is a condition that women

These conditions result because of the absence of labor organizations protect-

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Belkts Kümbetoglu received her BA in social anthropology from Istanbul University,

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Aylin Akptnar is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Marmara

1. "Hidden economy/' "invisible economy/' "irregular economy/' "black economy/' and

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Journal of the School of Economics and Administrative Sciences 15: 257.

Resistance). Görüs 14: 56-58.

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of Technological Development on Women's Employment in Industry: Technological

and Gender Dimensions, Geneva: ILO Press.

(Globalization, Structural Adjustment and Changes in Women's Labor a