Search

The headscarf ban in Turkey has provoked heated debate both in and outside the country. A great deal of research considers the broader philosophical, political, historical, and social implications of the ban but to this point, no large-scale study has focused on the social and economic implications for the women themselves. This study addresses this issue, arguing that the intensification of the ban after the 1980s served the exclusionist aims of the elite to protect their privileged positions and to slow social and regional mobility. Using data collected in 2007 from 1,206 women, we show that women have been affected negatively in a variety of ways. Veiled women have a significantly lower level of education and are substantially more likely to be unemployed than unveiled women. Veiled women from cities where the ruling party argues for banning the headscarf in the public domain have lower levels of education and a higher level of unemployment than veiled women in cities where the ruling party is against the ban. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study compares the social mobility and status attainment of first- and second-generation Turks in nine Western European countries with those of Western European natives and with those of Turks in Turkey. It shows that the children of low-class migrants are more likely to acquire a higher education than their counterparts in Turkey, making them more educationally mobile. Moreover, they successfully convert this education in the Western European labor market, and are upwardly mobile relative to the first generation. When comparing labor market outcomes of second generations relative to Turks in Turkey, however, the results show that the same level of education leads to a higher occupation in Turkey. The implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]