The gendered nature of career development of university professors: the case of Turkey

Journal of Vocational Behavior 64 (2004) 358–371

www.elsevier.com/locate/jvb

The gendered nature of career developmentof university professors: the case of Turkey

Mustafa €Ozbilgina,* and Geraldine Healyb,1

a Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations, University of Surrey,

School of Management Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XH, England, UKb Professor of Employment Relations, Business School, University of Hertfordshire, Mangrove Road,

Hertford SG13 8AZ, England, UK

Received 1 February 2001

Abstract

This paper examines the gendered nature of the careers of university professors in Turkey,

where 23% of professors are women. This proportion is relatively high compared to Western

Europe and the United States, indicating that Turkey is an important country in which to

study women and men�s professorial careers in academic institutions. The paper draws on ori-

ginal documentary sources and a qualitative study of Turkish professors. It demonstrates how

the interplay between state policy and the dominant family ideology has enabled and con-

strained both women and men�s careers, but in different ways. The paper also suggests that

the progress made towards women�s hierarchical equality may in the future be threatened

by the current transformation of the university sector in Turkey.

� 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Higher education; Career development; Professors; Sex equality; Gender; Universities;

Academic careers; Turkey; Europe

1. Introduction

The paper explores the gendered impact of political and social structures on aca-

demic careers and the career development experiences of Turkish professors. The

* Corresponding author. Fax: +44-0-1483-686301.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M. €Ozbilgin), [email protected] (G. Healy).1 Tel.: +44-1483-683091; fax: +44-0-1707-285455.

0001-8791/$ - see front matter � 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2002.09.001

mail to: [email protected]

M. Ozbilgin, G. Healy / Journal of Vocational Behavior 64 (2004) 358–371 359

Turkish experience is of international interest since the evidence suggests that Turkey

has the highest proportion of women professors across Europe and internationally

(Woodward & €Ozbilgin, 1998). This phenomenon is notable because contemporary

academic and policy research on academic employment has identified that women

academics continue to experience employment discrimination in the United King-dom (Bett, 1999; Farish, McPake, Powney, & Weiner, 1995; Heward & Taylor,

1992; Ledwith & Manfredi, 2000), in wider Europe (David & Woodward, 1998),

in the Middle East (Arabsheibani, 1990; Toren & Kraus, 1987), in Australia (Burton,

1996; Shoemark, 1996), and in North America (Konrad & Pfeffer, 1991). Table 1

provides comparative data on the proportion of women professors by country in

the 1990s and demonstrates unambiguously the apparently more favorable hierarchi-

cal representation of women in Turkish academia. Put in the context of their Euro-

pean and to a lesser extent, their North American counterparts, these data present acurious and perhaps unexpected picture.

This paper demonstrates that the explanation of Turkish academics� career expe-riences lies in an understanding of the social and political developments in Turkey.

Whilst the social and political developments are more likely to affect public sector

professional workers as Healy (1999) identified in her work on careers in education

in the UK, the role of the explicit dominant ideology that shaped and encouraged

women�s aspirations in Turkey�s recent history was distinctive. Mindful of the career

literature, the paper acknowledges that career may be defined as ‘‘the sequence ofemployment-related positions, roles, activities and experiences encountered by a

Table 1

Proportion of women professors by country in the 1990s

Country Proportion of women university professors

Belgium 7 [1]

Britain 9.8 [2]

Denmark 6 [3]

Finland 18 [1]

European Union 11 [1]

France 14 [4]

Germany 4 [3]

Spain 14 [1]

Sweden 7 [3]

Turkey 22.9 [5]

USA 18.7 [6]

[1] Eurostat (2001) Statistics in Focus: Women in public research and higher education in Europe,

compiled by Ibrahim Laafia and Anna Larsson at Eurostat, EU.

[2] HESA (2000) Individualised Staff Return 1998/1999.

[3] Ministry of Research and Information Technology (1998) Women and Excellence in Research,

Denmark: Ministry of Research and Information Technology. (figures for 1995).

[4] THES (Times Higher Education Supplement) (18 August 2000) �Female staff call for state support.�10.

[5] (€OSYM, 2000) 1998–1999 Academic Year Higher Education Statistics, Ankara: €OSYM.

[6] American Association of University Professors (2000) Salary Survey 1997/1998.

360 M. Ozbilgin, G. Healy / Journal of Vocational Behavior 64 (2004) 358–371

person’’ (Arnold, 1997, p. 16). This definition, which includes people�s subjective

experiences as well as their objective accounts, is valuable but it provides only a par-

tial and a contextual account. For Layder (1993) the concept of career spans the ob-

jective and subjective aspects of social life and allows the relationship between the

institutional and interpretive aspects of activity to be explored. Further, Layder ar-gues that the career perspective could capture the transitions and interrelations be-

tween personal and institutional power as they are arranged along dimensions of

time and space (p. 132–133). Melamed (1995) provides a gendered account of ca-

reers; his approach identifies three levels of influence in the opportunity structure

of careers; macro-societal, intermediate-organization, and micro-job levels. Mela-

med�s research indicates that the macro-societal opportunity structures are more

likely to assist men than women (1996) and studies on western women�s employment

demonstrate the importance of the dominant gender order (e.g. Walby, 1997). Mel-amed (1996) also highlights the importance of the organizational context and the

specific jobs under investigation. This paper first reveals the importance of macro-

social and historical influences on women�s careers in Turkey, second, the specific

context of higher education is explored, and finally, it shows the interplay of the

gender order with the structural context of this particular occupational group. This

analysis is broader than that of Melamed (1995, 1996). Influenced by Layder (1993),

it draws on wider historical, political and social structures and their impact on dom-

inant ideologies, the intermediate-organization level which determines the particularrules of career development and how these impact at the level of the individual.

The historical changes both in the higher education system in Turkey and wo-

men�s patterns of employment in the sector have followed a revolutionary, rather

than an evolutionary, path since the early 11th century. The foundation of the

new Turkish Republic in the early 1920s led to a series of higher education reforms

aiming to nationalize and secularize the higher education sector. The move from ear-

lier medrese and humayun systems to the contemporary university system embodied a

shift in emphasis from Turkish-Islamic, to westernized and from nationalist to inter-nationalist, respectively (G€uvenc�, 1997).

Women�s employment in the sector replicated the pattern of radical change in em-

ployment practices in the sector. Three phases of transformation could be identified

in the history of women�s employment in higher education. The first phase, from the

1920s to the 1930s, led to the entry of women in academic employment through a set

of principles introduced by Mustafa Kemal, who was named as Atat€urk, the ances-tor of all Turks, by the Turkish Grand National Assembly because of his military

and civil achievements in modernizing Turkey. These principles were consolidatedin the second phase of transformation from the 1940s to the 1980s, as the number

of women academics gradually increased (Y€OK, 1999). Relatively stable growth rate

of the university sector was replaced in the 1990s by a third phase of rapid expansion

of the university sector, with the emergence of a �new� university sector, which was

made up of privately owned universities in Turkey. These developments allowed a

shift away from the dominant bureaucratic career structure of old universities; this

has resonance with Peiperl and Baruch�s (1997) discussion on the disintegration of

organizational boundaries. Women�s access to academic work has widened; the


proportion of women academics in Turkey increased from 19% in 1960 (Acar, 1998)

to 34.6% in 1999. There were 7832 full professors in Turkish universities in 1999 of

whom 22.9% were women (€OSYM, 2000); this proportion gradually increased from

only 15% in the early 1980s (Do�gramacı, 1993).

In the last two decades, several researchers have attempted to explain the rela-tively favorable representation of modern Turkish women in professional positions

in comparison to their counterparts in other European countries (Kandiyoti, 1997;

Neusel, 1994; €Ozg€uc�, 1998 ). They argued that improved representation of women

academics could be mainly attributed to three main socio-economic factors. First,

it was noted that the state was supportive of women�s inclusion in academic employ-

ment. The state policies were closely associated with the Kemalist principles of re-

publican secularism which upheld for over 75 years the value of sex equality over

and against a strong tradition of sex segregation originating from the Ottoman times(Acar, 1998; €Onc€u, 1981). Since the early years of the Turkish Republic, institutional

initiatives, which were strongly supported by state ideology and deliberate govern-

ment policy, were used as major mechanisms of change toward sex equality in the

country. Whilst the legislation in the field of sex equality in employment was rudi-

mentary in Turkey (€Ozbilgin, 2001; Woodward & €Ozbilgin, 1999), nevertheless

and of critical importance, the dominant ideologies of ‘‘modernization’’ and ‘‘west-

ernization’’ prioritized sex equality by calling for the elimination of overtly discrim-

inatory policies and practices from the formal processes of public employment.Second, Zeytino�glu (1999) and Kandiyoti (1997) noted that academic careers were

historically and socially constructed and sex-typed as ‘‘safe’’ and ‘‘proper’’ choices

for graduate women in Turkey. Turkish women were socially encouraged to take

up professional employment, as opposed to other entrepreneurial or commercial ca-

reers. Professional careers were viewed to be harmonious with the potent image of ‘‘a

respectful Turkish woman’’ which was effectively used to demarcate women�s careersin ‘‘safe,’’ ‘‘secure’’ and ‘‘esteemed’’ forms of professional employment. Third, €Ozg€uc�(1998) suggested that traditionally male graduates pursued career opportunitieswhich offered them better financial prospects outside the university sector and that

male graduates displayed growing disinterest in taking up academic careers due to

their lower financial benefits; this has resonance with the Reskin and Roos� (1990)gender queues argument, which elaborated that men, due to changing market condi-

tions, may leave the competition for certain jobs and women take over their place in

the queue, leading to the gendering of those previously contested jobs.

However, the transformation of the political and social landscape in Turkey

threatens to reverse these equality gains in academia. There are three underlyingdrivers for this reversal. First, since the 1980s, Turkey has been following a neo-

liberal economic system, which has loosened the government policy on labor market

regulation. This has diluted the traditional sex equality discourse of the republican

ideology pursued by the state. Second, there was an emergence of political parties

and economic institutions that advocated sex segregation in clear opposition to

the principles of secularism. These two changes led to a shift in social attitudes. Thus,

the image of republican Turkish women, who were expected, with a strong nation-

alist sentiment, to ‘‘self-sacrifice’’ and ‘‘pioneer’’ for the advancement of the Turkish


nation in every branch of civilization has lost its influence between a generation of

young women graduates and their families (€Ozbilgin, 1998). It could be argued that

similar to their counterparts in other European countries, many women in modern

Turkey perceive their careers with more individualized aspirations than with a collec-

tivist sense of fulfilling a national duty. Thus, as the nationalistic and republican sig-nificance of women�s employment in non-traditional disciplines is declining in

Turkey, traditional methods of eliminating sex-typing and segregation of academic

careers are following suit in the higher education sector. Finally, the expansion of

the university sector since the early years of the 1990s created greater opportunities

of career mobility for women and men academics. Today, in Turkey, the higher (ter-

tiary) education sector recruits students through a highly competitive national exam-

ination system, after they complete 12 years of formal schooling. In 2002, there are

72 universities in Turkey; 43 of these were established in the 1990s, engendering anincrease in the number of academic staff from 28,114 in 1989 to 60,129 in 1999, and

professorial posts from 2772 to 7832 in the same period (Y€OK, 1999). The skills

shortages, which were experienced subsequent to this expansion, enabled increased

access for women and they were also largely responsible for mobilizing the upward

progression of otherwise relatively stable careers of many academic staff in this sec-

tor. Expansion of the sector was experienced alongside a deterioration of pay and

conditions in the ‘‘old’’ universities, i.e., the state owned sector, as compared to

the ‘‘new’’ privately owned universities.The above discussion regarding the social and political context of Turkish aca-

demic careers highlights the importance of macro-social structures in understanding

careers. Following Sikes, Measor, and Woods (1985) the adult career is viewed as a

product of this dialectical relationship between self and circumstances (p. 2).

2. Research method

To understand the complexity of gendered nature of professors� careers, the paperdraws on a multifaceted approach: first, the data on gender distribution of staff in

academic employment in Turkey and Europe were obtained in a raw format from

the Directorate General of Women�s Status and Problems in Ankara, and Eurostat,

the statistics agency of the European Union. The data were then compiled and tab-

ulated by the researchers. Second, documentary data were obtained from Y€OK, the

governing body of the Turkish higher education sector, on the policies and regula-

tions on conditions of advancement to full professorial posts. Finally, a qualitativestudy, based on 38 semi-structured interviews with Turkish full professors, was un-

dertaken. The research was limited to ‘‘full’’ professors, who were defined as aca-

demic workers in professorial posts at universities subject to Y€OK�s progression

criteria (see page 6).

The interview schedule of this study consisted of 32 semi-structured questions,

which allowed the participants a degree of freedom to determine the issues they

would like to discuss within a broad framework of sex equality, career development,

and higher education in Turkey. The interview schedule explored issues of sex


equality in career development in the higher education sector as viewed by the par-

ticipants and examined their personal experiences of and opinions on sex equality

and discrimination in the sector. It also explored the socio-economic and institu-

tional profiles of the survey participants. Interviews were undertaken in Turkish

and transcripts translated in to English.The professors were drawn from six old universities in Istanbul, representing a

wide range of academic affiliations, as well as different age groups. One male and

one female participant were retired. Average age of starting paid employment be-

tween the participants of both sexes was 23. Istanbul is the main university-city in

Turkey with 21 of the country�s 72 universities based there (Y€OK, 1999, 1998). Thus

by situating the study in Istanbul, insight was gained into a group of professors who,

theoretically, will face fewer structural constraints associated with their career mobil-

ity. The analysis of the interview data was influenced by a critical realist account(see Layder, 1993), which encourages an uncovering of the subjective experiences

of careers and their interplay with structural conditions. This paper focuses on

participants� perceptions and experiences of the dominant social values and

domestic roles in order to understand the gendered enablements and constraints that

interrelated with the wider structural context.

3. Results

The findings of the study are organized in three themes: first, a review of hierar-

chical representation of sexes is provided; second, the policy documents on progres-

sion to professorships are evaluated; finally the interaction and gendered nature of

dominant social values and domestic roles with career development of professors

are explored.

3.1. Occupational segregation in academia

Despite the more favorable international position of Turkish women academics,

research (Acar, 1983, 1998, 1993) demonstrated the national prevalence of vertical

and horizontal sex segregation in the sector. While women constituted 34.6% of

the academic staff in Turkey, they were underrepresented at higher grades of the ac-

ademic hierarchy, making 28.7% of assistant professors, 29.4% of associate profes-

sors and only 22.9% of the full professors. They were also disproportionately

represented in specialist roles, such as language tutors, specialists and translatorsin 1999 (see Table 2).

Nevertheless, there were considerable improvements in women�s representation in

the ranks of academic management in Turkey over the last two decades. The gover-

nance of the university sector has been transformed from a decentralized system in

the 1970s to a centralized governance system, embodied by Y€OK, in the 1980s and

the 1990s. Y€OK and its various policies, which were often considered gender neutral,

had a different, yet significant gendered impact on female professors� careers in

Turkey. The particular changes in Y€OK legislation that directly impacted career

Table 2

Academic employees in the university sector in Turkey by grade and sex

Academic grade Sex Numbers Percentages

Professor Total 7832 13.0 in Total

Women 1790 22.9

Men 6042 77.1

Associate Professor Total 4487 07.5 in Total

Women 1321 29.4

Men 3166 70.6

Assistant Professor Total 8289 13.8 in Total

Women 2380 28.7

Men 5909 71.3

Tutor-Instructor Total 8299 13.8 in Total

Women 2738 33.0

Men 5561 67.0

Language Tutor Total 5193 09.0 in Total

Women 2796 53.8

Men 2397 46.2

Research Assistant Total 23805 39.6 in Total

Women 8853 37.2

Men 14952 62.8

Specialist Total 2177 04.0 in Total

Women 932 42.8

Men 1245 57.2

Translator Total 19 - in Total

Women 9 47.4

Men 10 52.6

Education and

Training Planner

Total 28 - in Total

Women 7 25

Men 21 75

Total Total 60129 100 in Total

Women 20826 34.6

Men 39303 65.4

Source: €OSYM (2000) 1998–1999 Academic Year Higher Education Statistics, €OSYM, Ankara.


development of academic staff, Article 1750 and 2547, addressed performance crite-

ria and career mobility requirements which regulated professorial promotions.

3.2. Centralized rules on professorial appointments

At the national level, the promotion system in the Turkish higher education sector

has a high degree of transparency. Primary documentary evidence reveals that

Y€OK�s regulations require professorial vacancies to be advertised in one of the five

daily newspapers in Turkey. Candidates are asked to provide a portfolio including


their r�esum�es, details of their scientific publications, their educational and training

activities, supervision of research degrees, and their overall contribution to their cur-

rent institution (see 1991 amendment to Y€OK regulations). Three conditions are

sought for a successful promotion to full professorship (1986 amendment): first,

the applicant should have five years or longer service at the associate professor gradein a discipline closely associated with the professorial program for which he or she is

applying; second, the applicant should have a portfolio of original research publica-

tions produced at an international level, and third, the applicant should be selected

for a professorial post (Y€OK, 1998). These regulations do not make any implicit or

explicit reference to sex equality issues such as direct or indirect discrimination in

promotion or selection processes.

Nevertheless, this standardized system of recruitment is more open and theoreti-

cally provides greater equality of access to full professorial posts than in many coun-tries in Western Europe and North America, where such standardization is rare.

Indeed, the appointment of professors in Europe and the USA is characterized by

multiple systems, many of which are obscure and allow different criteria for appoint-

ment and often rely on internal labor markets. The most open systems rely on the

requirement of similar attributes as the Y€OK system where there is a high degree

of comparability between the systems. Yet it is also the case that whilst it may be

tempting for western academics to assume that their professorial appointments are

of an equal or superior academic level to those of other countries, such assumptionsare rarely questioned and may be ill founded. Nevertheless, in the Turkish system, it

is important to recognize that despite the undoubted greater levels of transparency, it

is also the case that competition for posts in particular universities and organiza-

tional politics will mitigate against universally equitable outcomes. In this, Turkey

shares a common experience with Western European and North American university

systems.

Whilst women academics benefited from the transparency of Y€OK policies, rules

such as the required employment mobility to gain a full professorship in the 1980s,had a considerably negative impact on women academics� careers, as they failed to

recognize different social and domestic expectations placed on women and men�s ca-reer mobility in Turkey. This rule had a significant gendered impact, as shown below,

and was later withdrawn.

Y€OK had hindered my career considerably. The assistant professors have been banned from

becoming professors in their own universities between the years of 1981 and 1988. My pro-

fessorship has been delayed for five years since I couldn�t leave my family and go to a uni-

versity in another city (female professor).

3.3. Dominant social values and domestic roles

Analysis of the interview data indicates that marriage and family formation im-pacts on career choices of women and men, but in different ways. The socio-cultural

expectation that Turkish women should marry upward in the socio-economic ladder

of hierarchy makes upward marriage more difficult for women who achieve career


success prior to marriage. Indeed in our sample men were more likely to be married

than women, reflecting national statistics in the sector (Acar, 1996). Whilst, the

inclusion of women in professional employment has a history of over 75 years in

Turkey, the traditional family ideology, which assigned carer and domestic roles

to women and breadwinner roles to men, continues to be the main social frame ofreference (see, for example, Peker, 1996). One female professor explained this

paradoxical situation:

I believe that there is equality between sexes. However, once you enter the academic profes-

sion, the difficulties they [women and men] face are different. However much men help,

responsibilities of caring for the family and children are expected of women. . .It is very

positive for a woman to have an academic career. It has high social status. It is not impor-

tant if she earns less. However, if men earn less, they are victimized (female professor).

Female participants recognized gendered structural constraints for men and sug-

gested that the ‘‘financial responsibilities of being a man’’ and ‘‘compulsory military

service’’ are the main hindrances for men�s career advancement in the sector. In the

study, one male professor stated that barriers to career development exist only formen, while other male participants argued that marriage and child care constituted

two important barriers to women�s career development.

These contradictions are often manifested through families. Families, often con-

sidered as the pillars of the Turkish social cohesion, appear to be common sources

of influence in the career development of academic workers. The parental family

as well as the partners plays a significant role in supporting or obstructing the career

choices of academics.

My mother and father supported me both in material and spiritual ways until I lost them.

Since I got married, my husband has been supporting me by being understanding about my

work and exchanging ideas with me (female professor).

While only five male professors acknowledged the support of their immediate

families, five of them cited the support they received from their colleagues. Femaleprofessors acknowledged the home/work interface and the support of their immedi-

ate families, friends, and colleagues. The majority of them (19 female professors)

identified the support of their families and friends as important sources of encour-

agement during their careers, and 11 female professors also identified the support

of their colleagues as relevant. The role of significant others, particularly partners,

is a recurring theme in the literature on women�s achievement (see, for example,

Healy & Kraithman, 1996; Ledwith, Colgan, Joyce, & Hayes, 1991).

I was supported by my family as they made life easier for me at home, and by my colleagues

as they decreased my lecture hours to help me (female professor). My family and the faculty

members supported and encouraged me by acknowledging and praising my career success

(male professor).

Therefore career success for academic workers was often associated with the sup-

port they received from their families, in overcoming negative effects of the dominant

gender order. A female professor explained how the interplay of enabling circum-

stances in family and institutional networks facilitated her career:


My colleagues and the head of subject group helped me in rectifying my relative lack of

experience and knowledge, and in finding me a professorial position, while the members of

my family helped me by taking on much of my domestic responsibilities (female professor).

Interestingly, the perception of gendered disadvantage was not high in the sam-

ple group. When asked about barriers that the participants faced as academic work-

ers, their responses showed a gendered variation. While 12 male academics statedthat they have not faced any disadvantages or barriers to their career development,

three of them identified institutional constraints through management processes

involved in career decisions. While 13 female professors argued that they had not

experienced personal barriers to their career development, 10 female participants

offered reasons, such as lack of support from family and friends, undergoing a

divorce, having a child with a disability, and administrative obstructions, which

constituted barriers to their career advancement. Whilst men and women experi-

enced constraints in their career development, for men these tended to be perceivedas institutional, whereas for women they were more likely to be perceived as familial

constraints.

A consideration of career aspirations and achievements of academics of both

sexes from different generations reveals that divergence of career patterns by sex

emerged in the later years of participants� academic employment and particularly af-

ter they established their first domestic partnerships. It is also important to note that

emulating male academics� career patterns, female academics fail to challenge the

work cultures, which disadvantage women who continue to assume more importantroles in the domestic sphere. The new generation of female academics seem to dis-

play a traditional male pattern of seeking professional and commercial success both

within and outside the university sector. For example, young female academics were

showing interest in employment in the ‘‘new’’ private university sector and newly

emerging business consultancies. Thus we are seeing a picture of a highly centralized

bureaucratic career operating alongside elements of the portfolio career through

consultancies and other commercial activity.

4. Conclusions

Turkey is an important country in which to study women�s academic careers be-

cause the state ideology has traditionally promoted inclusion of women in profes-

sional life in Turkey and this has left an important legacy of greater

representation of women at different levels in the labor market. Further, Turkey

would appear to have the highest proportion of female university professors in widerEurope. This achievement should not be underestimated in the context of limited

progress in other European countries. However, it is also the case that shifts in po-

litical and economic values are now putting this progress at risk.

This paper has presented the three main arguments offered in the literature

for women�s relatively favorable representation in the Turkish higher education

sector. This study suggests that whilst they offer insights, they provide only a

partial account. State policies emanating from the Kemalist principles of republican


secularism provided an equality ideology which enabled women�s access to profes-

sional employment as part of a national plan for westernization and modernization

(Kandiyoti, 1997; Neusel, 1994; €Ozg€uc�, 1998). Arguably, this ideological approach

has been more effective than the legalist framework found in the UK and the

USA. However, to suggest that the favorable conditions proffered by the State deter-ministically resulted in the better representation of Turkish women at high levels of

academic institutions would be too simplistic. Such deterministic explanations con-

ceal gendered processes at the institutional/organizational, micro-occupational and

domestic levels, where both enabling and constraining structural conditions shape

the environment of the aspiring Turkish academic.

The argument that academic careers were socially constructed and sex typed as

�safe� and �proper� choices for graduate women does not acknowledge that only a

proportion of privileged Turkish women, most of whom were educated in the urbancenters of Turkey, were socially encouraged to take up academic careers. The social

encouragement they received could be overstated if it is assumed that all Turkish

women enjoyed this level of support for their education and careers. Turkish wo-

men�s unfavorable level of representation in other sectors and in overall economic

activity, in comparison to their European counterparts, also confirms the relatively

elite and privileged status of academic women in Turkey. Nevertheless for this elite

group, this study shows the importance of significant others (both partners and

parents) in sustaining an academic career at different times in the career cycle. Suchsupport was crucial to women but less so to men; or at least men felt less need to

acknowledge such support. In some cases, familial support interrelated with colle-

gial ‘‘mentors’’ in contributing to career development. Evaluation of participants�employment experiences in the higher education sector revealed that the employ-

ment systems were structured in a way which is based on separation of social and

work life, so that social and domestic issues do not impinge on employees� academic

performance. This suggests that gendered structural constraints continue to limit

women�s choices and to require those who succeed to act as ‘‘surrogate men’’(Crompton & Le Feuvre, 1996).

Our analysis has demonstrated the interplay between broader macro-societal ef-

fects of dominant state and familial ideologies. The particular nature of the domi-

nant ideology in Turkey and the similarities in the gender order with Western

European and North American countries together highlights the distinctive nature

of Turkish academia. This country specific case of Turkey opens theoretical avenues

to a more explicit focus on the dominant state ideologies in particular countries.

Whilst this case study would support Melamed�s (1996) study that men are morelikely to benefit from macro-societal influences, this is only partly relevant to this

study. What is interesting here is that women academics in Turkey are able to

achieve greater access to career resources (or in Melamed�s terms opportunity struc-

tures) than their Western European and North American sisters. The study does in-

dicate that the gender order in Turkey may paradoxically be sharing characteristics

evidenced in North American and Western European literature on women�s careers(e.g. Healy, 1999; Melamed, 1996; Walby, 1997). Yet, this analysis, which explores

the interplay between different levels and acknowledges the importance of history


(Layder, 1993), shows that educated women�s career opportunities have been the

outcome of the interrelationship of the dominant Kemalist ideology with the domi-

nant gender order and social values, which resulted in an enabling and more favor-

able environment for women in this study.

The university sector in Turkey has experienced major expansion which offeredboth opportunities and constraints for women. The conventional hierarchical route

remains, but it is supplemented with multi-layered career opportunities through con-

sultancy and research. Turkish professors� careers are framed by highly centralized

bureaucratic rules of Y€OK, but supplemented by opportunities for work in the

‘‘new’’ universities and outside academia. In the Turkish context, therefore, entry

to professorial appointments rests on a core of bureaucratic centralized control.

However, paradoxically this core interrelates with flexible patterns more as an ad-

dendum rather than a substitute, as characterized with the conception of work asso-ciated with ‘‘new capitalism,’’ e.g. see Sennett (1998). Indeed if neo-liberalism

continues and intensifies, the impact may lead to a weakening of highly centralized

university governance in Turkey. Whilst the transformation of the Turkish higher

education system will lead to more opportunities for men and women, the increasing

differentiation of the system between state and privately run universities may lead to

a sex typed system that may paradoxically devalue the career gains women have

made. Indeed, increasing economic liberalization and westernization, may lead to

a dilution of the value of service to the state and its associated ideology of equality,allowing the gender order to become strengthened.

The shift from the dominant Kemalist ideology to a neo-liberal approach may re-

verse the progress that has been made. It may be necessary to bolster declining ideo-

logical support with new means of institutional regulation in the form of legal

intervention to outlaw direct and indirect discrimination. The pressures for these

changes lie in Turkey�s current status as a candidate for European Union member-

ship. These pressures provide some push for legislative and structural reform. How-

ever, the experience of the UK would suggest that whilst legislation is necessary, itdoes not on its own challenge institutional discrimination (Kirton & Greene, 2000;

THES, 2000). Further, the slow pace of change in social and domestic structures

bodes ill for radical transformation towards greater equality. Notwithstanding this

potentially cautious interpretation of Turkish women academics� future, it shouldnot be forgotten that their career achievements have been far greater than their

academic sisters� in the rest of Europe.

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The gendered nature of career development of university professors: the case of Turkey