The Determinants of Women’s Empowerment in Turkey: A Multilevel Analysis

Abstract

This article analyses the state and determinants of women’s empowerment in Turkey, based on an extensive and representative survey with more than 100,000 participants. It creates an original index of women’s self-perceived empowerment, which incorporates empowerment measures on health, education, income, social life, and personal care and conducts multilevel analysis that integrates effects of individual-level factors with contextual, locality-specific forces. Multilevel analysis confirms the nested nature of women’s empowerment in Turkey, which depends on both individual attributes and on the locality in which a woman resides. The Turkish case analysed in this article offers insights for the state of women’s empowerment in societies replete with patriarchal norms and neoliberal policies.