Gender Inequality in Businesses: Woman Managers and Resilient Gender Norms

Women’s full integration into the labour market has been a crucial indicator of sustainable economic development and social welfare. Despite the adoption of several legislative changes made in recent years, female labour force participation in Turkey remains still low compared to the OECD countries average. It turns out that the country has failed to internalise and implement these norms. The aim of this chapter is to reveal the process of adoption and application of the EU’s gender equality norms in Turkey through the use of interest-driven and norm-driven approaches. The evidence suggests that women are still confronted with certain challenges in business life, like the gender pay gap and the glass ceiling, as well as the patriarchal mindset that evaluates women as care providers and homemakers. Thus, the adoption of norms fostering gender equality could only have successful results when there is a harmonious collaboration of formal and informal institutions such as the government’s inclusion and mediating policies reinforcing the demand for female labour and encouraging more women to enter the labour force, as well as the leadership of business groups and non-profit organisations by implementing women-friendly corporate policies and gender-equality-focused diversity management.