The Tenth Development Plan and an Old Question: Can Women Boost Turkey’s Growth? | An Evaluation Note by Güneş A. Aşık

"Promoting women’s employment is a major issue that will come to the fore in international economic platforms in the near future. With the tightened global liquidity and reduced chances for growth driven by cheap foreign funds, developing countries in particular will have to quest for new sources of economic growth. Female labor force participation rates (FLPR) vary between 60 and 80 percent in the majority of developed countries, while the rates are below 50 percent in developed countries. The FLPR of Turkey is around 31.5 percent, whereas the OECD average is 62 percent. Mexico has the second lowest FLPR among OECD, with 47.8 percent.

Female labor force is important because it is one of the major sources of supply-driven economic growth given that the pool of male labor force is tapped almost completely and that developing countries have limited innovative infrastructure and capacity. In a previous study, we stressed that the $25,000 GDP per capita target is not consistent with the targeted FLPR of 38 percent.3 Under the assumptions that in the short-term i) Turkish lira will not appreciate considerably, ii) foreign demand will not be remarkably more buoyant, and iii) Turkey, as an “inventor-deprived” country, will remain so and not be able to make a breakthrough in creating new products and markets, Turkey needs to significantly increase the female participation rates to OECD levels in order to achieve the $25,000 GDP per capita goal..."