Abstract

In this paper, we examine the process of feminisation of rural work in a case study of women's employment at a seafood-processing factory in Western Black Sea Turkey. We explore the significance of women's nonfarm employment to their household economy and how intra- household relations are affected when women participate in paid work. In order to understand the household characteristics and dynamics in relation to the work status of female household members, mixed methods were used for data collection--semi-structured interviews with 218 women and in-depth interviews with 27 women. The data indicate the significance of women's paid work to rural household economy and also how the paid work has transformed the father-daughter relationship in particular. Recent rural transformation in the context of neoliberal agricultural policy, agricultural decline, and out-migration increased women's workload. Today, rural household heavily depends on unmarried daughter's labour regardless of her work status. Daughter's participation in paid work however makes her labour visible and considerably undermines the authority of father who had already lost control over son's labour. Yet we contend that daughter's labour may be liberated from a traditional form of patriarchy; her participation into labour market results in an integration into not only market economy but also a modern form of patriarchy.

Keywords: feminisation of labour, rural transformation, rural women, women's employment, feminisation of agriculture, intra-household bargaining.

Oz

Bu calismada, Bati Karadeniz Bolgesi'rideki kirsal kadinin istihdam edildigi deniz urunu isleme fabrikasinda yurutulmus bir vaka calismasi uzerinden kirsal emegin kadinlasmasi sureci irdelendi. Arastirmada, kadinin tarim disi istihdama katiliminin hane ekonomisine katkisi ve bu katkinin hane ici iliskileri nasil etkiledigi sorgulandi. Devingen hane halki ozelliklerinin kadinlarin calismalariyla nasil donustugunu anlamak icin 218 kirsal kadinla yan yapilandirilmis ve 27 kadinla derinlemesine mulakatlar gerceklestirildi. Bulgular, neoliberal tarim politikalari kapsaminda yasanan kirsal donusumun tarimi onemsizlestirdigini, kirdan kente gocu tetikledigini ve tum bu yapisal degisimler sonucunda kirsal kadinin ev ici ve ev disi isgucunun arttigini yansitti. Kadin istihdaminin kirsal hane ekonomisine onemli gelir saglamasi ve ucretli emegin "baba -kiz cocuk" iliskisini donusturmesi ise diger onemli bulgulardi. Arastirma, yoksul kirsal hanelerin genc kiz emegine bagimli hale geldigini gosterdi. Ancak, kizlarin ucretli emek surecine katilmasi onlarin emeklerinin gorunurlesmesi ve hanede goreceli olarak erkek cocuk emegi uzerindeki kontrolu kaybeden babanin otoritesinin de zayiflamasi anlamina geliyordu. Hatta bu durum ataerkilligin geleneksel bicimini kaybettigini; ancak hanedeki genc kizlarin ucuz isgucune katilmalariyla ataerkilligin yeni bir form aldigini yansitiyordu.

Anahtar Kelimer: emegin kadinlasmasi, kirsal donusum, kirsal kadin, kadin istihdami, tarimin kadinlasmasi, hane ici pazarlik gucu.

Introduction

In this paper, we examine rural women's employment at a seafood-processing factory in a case study of Dikmen in the Western Black Sea region of Turkey. Since Boserup's book, Women's Role in Economic Development, was published in 1970, an impact of rural transformation on women's subordination has been discussed in various socioeconomic and cultural contexts including Turkey. Nearly half-century discussions tend to suggest negative consequences: marginalisation from modernised agriculture, intensification of women's work, and women's integration into exploitative off-farm work. In rural studies in Turkey, the last case has not been explored fully yet. Thus, we explore an impact of rural women's off-farm wage work, in particular, on intra-household relationships from a sociologically informed feminist perspective in order to provide new evidence from current neoliberal rural transformation with classical works of rural transformation in Turkey.

Agricultural decline and demographic change have deepened poverty in this mountainous area as the country's agricultural policy shifts from direct support for farmers to market-oriented support for products. In fact, rural communities in many parts of the world have gone through significant transformations over the last decades as they are integrated into globalizing market economy and neo-liberal policy-making communities. While villages in some regions prosper by producing agricultural commodities profitable in global market, many rural communities whose economies once heavily relied on governmental subsidies suffer agricultural decline and impoverishment. One of the development policies against rural poverty that are increasingly implemented in recent years is a creation of nonfarm employment opportunities. In many cases, they are the manufacturing jobs of agricultural raw materials for products like processed foods, of which demand is growing globally (WB, 2007). A case of seafood-processing factory workers we examine is part of this global trend.

In her systematic review, Lastarria-Cornhiel (2006) identifies that rural work has been feminized especially in small holder agriculture and non- traditional agricultural export production. In a broad sense, this "feminisation of agriculture" refers to an increase in either women's participation rates or the rate of female labour force relative to men in rural economy (Lastarria- Cornhiel, 2006: 2). The process has been observed in rural societies worldwide since the 1980s in a wide range of agricultural production from farming and animal husbandry to off-farm processing and packing. In small-scale farming, gender-based division of labour became blurred and farm work was feminised often as women left behind took over farming after men entered non-farm employment and/or labour-intensive cash crop production was introduced. Meanwhile, non-traditional agricultural export production is typically gender segregated. In this competitive sector, women are preferred as labourer for their readiness to take lowpaid, temporal and flexible jobs while the limited number of men is employed for the permanent positions in supervisory and management and the tasks which require strength and involve machinery.

Feminisation of agriculture is discernible in Turkey too (Ucecam Karagel, 2010). Its impacts are assumed to be diverse in different aspects of social life as well as different socioeconomic contexts of regions. Dikmen is one of many areas which has experienced the process in the course of male labour migration, a rise and fall of traditional cash crop production, and women's off- farm employment mostly at sea snail factories. In order to shed light on ongoing rural transformation and its social impacts, we explore a set of particular questions in this paper: women in what socioeconomic position participate in factory work; what is the significance of women's paid work to rural household; and how intra-household relations are affected when women participate in paid work. Firstly, we review the impact of the previous rural transformation on intra-household power relations in the late-twentieth- century in Turkey to provide sociohistorical background of our case study. Secondly, we illustrate socioeconomic changes in Dikmen during the last two decades and the context in which women participate in factory work. Thirdly, we examine the way in which women's paid work affects intra-household power relations. We argue that feminisation of wage work has transformed the father-daughter relationship in particular. Rural daughter continues to be expected to labour for her father regardless of her work status. However, daughter's participation in factory work liberated her labour from rural household and considerably undermined the authority of father who had already lost control over son's labour. We further contend that daughter's labour may have been liberated from a traditional form of patriarchy, yet her direct participation into labour market results in integration to not only market economy but also a modern form of patriarchy.

Rural transformation and intra-household relations in Turkey

Agricultural modernisation in the second half of the twentieth century instigated the changes of intra-household relations in rural Turkey. Sociologists who investigated rural transformation consistently observed an increasing number of nuclear household in the late 1960s onwards (Yasa, 1969; Aksit, 1985; Ozbay, 1985; Tekeli, 2011). Customarily, rural household splits among brothers after the death of their father (Sterling, 1965). Sterling mentions in his classic work, Turkish Village (1965), about a potential threat of the newly emerged non-agricultural source of income to the authority of household head. Yet he simultaneously expresses his astonishment about the fact that sons and young brothers still handed over to their fathers or elder brothers their earnings in 1950 when he was conducting research (1965: 96-97). Within twenty years, however, an increasing integration of rural household into market economy, growing family disputes over distribution of financial resource and emerging opportunities for paid work impelled adult sons, especially of smaller-scale farming households, to separate from their fathers' houses and become the heads of their own families. Paid work liberated labour from the patriarchal family, yet paid labour was socially selected by age and gender (Ozbay, 1985: 1995). It was young men who benefitted from this process. As son's responsibilities in household economy reduced due to the mechanisation of male tasks in agricultural production while women's freedom of movement remained socio-culturally restricted, it was seen to be "natural" that sons benefit from scarce opportunities for education, migration and employment (Ozbay, 1995: 101).

The process of liberation of son's labour was by no means without tension and conflict (Kiray, 1964). It caused "serious deterioration of the relations of domination among men" (Ozbay 1995: 100). Father's authority was challenged and the economic solidarity of father and son was undermined. It has a considerable consequence for daughter who remained in village because of her socially restricted mobility. Many rural households rely all the more on daughter's labour in agricultural production, subsistence and/or care work in addition to an increasing demand of labour-intensive women's task in cash-crop farming since they can no longer expect the labour of son and his wife.

Many studies of the late twentieth-century rural Turkey confirm Boserup's (1970) argument that apparently gender neutral agricultural modernisation often enhances gender gap. They shed light on contradictory consequences of modernisation on gender relations in rural community (Erturk, 1995; Gunduz-Hosgor, 2011). In the 1980s onwards, many researchers of rural transformation reported an intensification of women's work load and an increase of men's control over women's labour power in the villages which initiated labour- intensive cash crop (Ozbay, 1982 Cited in Berik, 1995; Kandiyoti, 1984 Cited in Berik, 1995) while large-scale farming households often opted to employ wage labourers for non-mechanised tasks and female household members often withdrew from agricultural production (Ozbay, 1985; Erturk, 1995; Tekeli, 2011). Morvardi, for example, explicates rural household's increasing reliance on women's labour in North Eastern Turkey in relation to neoliberal agricultural policy. A farmer said to Morvardi, "My father used to say that the luckiest people are those who have lots of sons, but I say that the more girls you have the luckier and wealthier you are" (Morvardi, 1993: 92). The farmer's words are based not on a liberal ideal, but on microlevel economic reality. Liberalisation of agricultural policy started out in the early 1980s in Turkey although the process was reversed from time to time in later years (Keyder, 2013). Despite the prevalence of smallholders which were hardly possible to survive without public assistance, a series of cutbacks on agricultural subsidies and price support were implemented to reduce the farmer's dependency on the state (Morvardi, 1992). A rising price of inputs and restricted access to credit further distressed small-scale farming households and this forced household heads to maximally exploit the only resource he can control, that is, women's labour. The villages Morvardi studied produce cotton and sugar beet as cash crops. Their cultivations necessitate non-mechanised hoeing and harvesting which are culturally assigned as women's work. Morvardi (1992) observed that the average age of marriage had risen in the villages as fathers delayed their daughters' marriage and tried to keep their labour for a longer period of time.

Carpet weaving was another income-generating activity which rural households in many parts of the country engaged around the 1980s and the 1990s. It was again women's work. Berik (1995) conducted a comparative study of commercial carpet-weaving villages in Central and Western regions in the early 1980s. She examined carpet-weaving women's control over their own labour. Berik found that kinship and work relations were almost identical in all the villages she examined. Kinship-based work relations enabled men (father, husband or father-in-law) to control women's labour power and product effectively although the degree which male relatives exercise control over labour process differed in accordance with types of agricultural production, household structure, and gender division of labour. Berik also draws attention to the fact that women's participation in cash-earning activity did not reduce their household responsibilities; it actually eased men's workload in a way that they could afford not to migrate and stay unemployed.

Many studies indicate an intensification of women's labour in rural economy after the introduction of neoliberal economic policy. At the same time, they reveal the continuing subordination of women within rural household because their labour is mostly unpaid and seen as part of "mere" housework. In recent years, however, an increasing number of rural women participate in off-farm paid work. Its impact on gender relations in rural household is hardly studied yet. In the following pages, we examine rural women's factory work in Western Black Sea Turkey and its impact on intra- household power relations to fill the gap in the study of rural transformation and feminisation of labour in rural Turkey.

Research Method

This research used case study to shed light on the impact of feminisation of labour on rural household. The approach does not provide generalizable findings but helps to illustrate complex social phenomenon within context and allows a nuanced interpretive analysis of intra-household negotiations. A research was conducted at a seafood-processing factory and the surrounding rural area in Dikmen District of Sinop Province. Mixed methods were used for data collection. Initially, we visited the factory owner and village headmen for their role of "gatekeeper" in the field. We conducted semistructured interviews with them in order to obtain general information about the factory and the villages.

After their permissions for the research were obtained, data regarding rural women and their life circumstances were collected by structured and in- depth interviews in 2013 and 2014 respectively. After a pilot study, structured interviews were conducted with 84 women workers at the factory and 134 non-working women in the villages in order to identify the socioeconomic status of women who engage in paid work, understand their similarities and differences from the other village women, and evaluate an implication of employment for women's life. We interviewed all the women workers who came to the factory on four days we conducted interviews. The non-factory working interviewees were selected by purposive sampling from the women who were above 15 years old and resided in five villages where most factory workers also lived. We tried to balance the number of interviewees according to the female populations of those villages (667) and the number of women factory workers in each village which was obtained from the factory owner as well as each village's adult female population. We also paid attention to include the different age groups of women so that data allow us to compare different generational groups of women and understand the impact of social changes on their lives. We asked women questions about household structure and economy, factory work, domestic division of labour, and views on women's rights and employment.

After completing the descriptive statistical analysis of the structured interviews, we conducted in-depth interviews with 27 women at the factory or their houses in the villages. They were selected from those who participated in the structured interviews in a way to include women from different marital and work statuses and age groups. We asked women to tell their stories about the issues of school life, family relations, marriage, agricultural and factory works, economic independence and personal autonomy in order to contextualise women's factory work in relation with their educational status, household structure, and household economy. All the interviews were recorded with a voice recorder with the permission of women. Transcriptions of interviews were thematically categorised and analysed by in- and cross-case examinations. In the next sections, we present firstly rural Dikmen's socioeconomic background on the basis of the interviews with village headmen as well as literature review and secondly the findings from the analysis of data obtained from interviews.

Feminisation of Agriculture in Dikmen

Dikmen is an overwhelmingly rural district. Seventy-nine per cent of the population live in rural area (Keser, 2013). Most areas are mountainous. Soils are not very fertile, mechanisation is difficult, and farming is not very productive. While many men went to work as daily labourers in others' fields and state forests in neighbouring districts in order to compensate subsistence farming, rural-urban labour migration began in the 1960s as it did in many other Black Sea villages. Many villagers started tobacco production in the 1980s but abandoned it after the privatization of cigarette factories in the early 2000s. Tobacco leaf was the only cash crop in the area. It is however a very labour-intensive product. All household members, from children to the elderly, took part in harvesting and curing leaves. Especially women and children's labour were indispensable in the whole process of tobacco production. By 2000, it was becoming difficult for many households to supply sufficient labour force for tobacco production. Besides, the earning from tobacco production was no longer sufficient to meet increasing consumption needs. Rural households had been integrated into more urban lifestyle by the time. They needed regular income for agricultural inputs, electricity, children's education, health care, transportation and other consumption goods and services.

As a result, the out-migration of working-age population has accelerated rapidly. Dikmen's population decreased to less than a half during the last two decades (Keser, 2013). Major destinations of migration are Istanbul and Gerze (a town in a neighbouring district). Young men migrate to cities after eight- year primary education to work or continue education. Young women either go to high school in a town or help their parents in the field and at home after they leave school. Many of the latter also eventually leave the villages in their twenties by marrying men who moved to cities earlier. Today, the number of people who were born in Sinop and live in Istanbul exceeds the population of Sinop (Hurriyet, 2016). The villages now consist of the elderly, the men who could not survive in cities for ill health or another, their wives, unmarried daughters who did not continue education, and children.

In the early 2000s, a few factories of fishmeal and seafood-processing were established in Dikmen. Fishmeal factories are largely mechanised and employ exclusively men and the limited number of workers from nearby villages. Seafood-processing factories produce mainly sea snails and occasionally anchovies. The factory we conducted a research is the largest and the most regularly operating sea snail producer in the region. Approximately 20 men are employed as boilers, packing operatives, lorry drivers and managerial workers. A few women also work as packing operatives. These men and women are full- time regular employees. A major part of workforce is however women who work at the shelling section. They are employed seasonally (about nine months a year) and flexibly (depending on weather and a volume of catches) without employee benefits (For the details about the gendered sea snail factory work, see Gunduz Hosgor and Suzuki Him, 2016). They are paid for the amount of the sea snails they clean. The factory sends vans to collect women workers from their houses and thus solves a problem of commuting in a sexually segregated rural society, where public transport does not operate and women's free movement beyond social boundary (generally a neighbourhood or a village) is problematic for family honour. Any woman, who wants to work at the factory just gets on a van and work as a sheller, even for a day. Between 80 and 100 women, most of whom are from Dikmen's mountain villages were working at the factory's shelling section at the time of the research.

Socioeconomic characteristics of the interviewees

Among 218 interviewees, 191 women live in villages. The rest are the women who come to work at the factory from nearby small towns. Eighty-eight women engage in paid work including four village women who work at places other than the seafood-processing factory. One hundred thirty women were not working at the time of the research but 36 of them worked before, mostly at the seafood-processing factory we studied. The town women are excluded from the analyses below for their life circumstances are beyond the scope of the paper.

The mean age of rural women we interviewed is 43 (Table 1). While the mean age of the women who never worked is 52, that of the working women is 30 although their ages vary from 15 to 75 years old. The interviewees' average year of education is 4.5. It is 3 years for the women who never worked and more than two-fifths of them are illiterate. One-third and nearly half of the working women are primary-school and middle-school graduates respectively. The higher educational level of working women than the non- working women is due to the prevalence of young women among them. The duration of compulsory education was raised from five (primary school) to eight years (middle school) in 1997. Rural women's access to education has been largely improved since then.

The majority of the interviewees are married. Forty-five women are unmarried and 24 are widowed, divorced or separated from the husband. For the working women, however, the latter categories are prevalent (62 per cent). The mean age of marriage of the women who ever married is 19, which is four years younger than the national average (TURKSTAT, 2014). The majority of them (77 per cent) married in a form of arranged marriage. Bride price was paid in more than one third of the marriages. More than one fifth is marriage between relatives. Most of those who married with persons of their own choice stated that they eloped and married despite parents' objection. Many women (67 per cent) married with men in the same or neighbouring villages. It can be said that a traditional form of marriage was still prevalent when these women married.

Household size is 4.4 in average. Forty-two percent of the women live in nuclear household, 35 per cent live in extended household, and almost one fourth of the women live alone or with only one family member, mostly the husband. While many of the working women live in nuclear household, they are far more likely to live in a large household than the other women. The rate of the household consisted of more than five members is 59 per cent for the working women while it is much lower for the nonworking women. Further, the working women tend to have no or only a couple of family members who migrated to cities in comparison to the women who never worked. It can be said that many working women are the members of the households which still look after young children who are not old enough to migrate to cities.

Half of the interviewees' households have totally abandoned agricultural production. The great majority of the other half continues small-scale subsistence agriculture. Many of the households which manage to sell some products however cultivate less than three hectares, which is said to be a just enough amount to earn living only from farming in the area. Thus, the majority (72 per cent) stated that the main source of household income was non-agricultural. More than 30 per cent makes living from non-agricultural wage work and one third lives on social benefits paid for household members such as pension, old age allowance, widow's allowance and disability allowance. The nonworking women's households are 4.5 times more likely to rely on social benefits than those of the working women. They are also slightly more likely to have a family member who is employed regularly. However, most wage works the villagers participate in seem to be irregular work. Seventy-one percent of the interviewees stated that there was no household member who had a regular job. Forty-one percent said there is at least one family member who works seasonally or on a daily basis. Most of irregular workers are female sea snail factory workers. The higher rate of the uninsured among the working women than the other groups also indicates the un- or insecure employment of male members of their families. Meanwhile, economic difficulties seem to be enhanced by the growing consumption of goods and services. Even the women whose households continued subsistence agriculture stated that they regularly purchased foodstuffs, except for flour, milk and yoghurt, from a marketplace. Almost all households have at least one television and the great majority has a washing machine. Nearly three-quarters of the women have their own mobile phones.

From the data above, it is possible to outline the socioeconomic characteristics of working and non-working women as follows. Rural women who work at the factory are generally in their 20s and 30s and primary or middle-school graduates. They tend to be the members of the nuclear households which still have school-age children, and hence consumption needs are relatively high, yet tend to lack regular income and fully-covered social insurance. This corresponds to the data that the great majority of women factory workers (82 per cent) started to work for "contributing to household budget" or "supporting the family." Women who do not participate in wage work are middle-aged or elderly in general. They are more likely to live in small-size households due to the migration of young members. These women and their household members generally live on pension, welfare benefits or the earning of male member(s).

Feminisation of Rural Work in Dikmen

As mentioned above, youth migration is prevalent in Dikmen. Traditional gender roles, however, prevent women's independent migration for work. Women who do not continue secondary education remain in village and take part in a range of agricultural work and domestic chores from grazing cattle and reaping wheat to cleaning, washing, and caring for small children and the elderly. Furthermore, many of these women now support their family by working at factories in place of their fathers and brothers. As described above, agricultural production has substantially declined and men's employment opportunity is very limited while the consumption pattern of rural households is increasingly urbanised. In this context, the establishment of seafood-processing factories, which are characterised with labour-intensive production by unskilled women workers, completed a process of feminisation of labour in the rural community.

The household incomes of the interviewees indicate the significance of women's factory work to rural households. Approximate monthly income of the majority is below gross minimum wage (1021.50 TL, or $379 at the time of the research) (Table 2). The households of women factory workers however seem to be better off, though crowded, than those of the non-workers in terms of income. The former concentrate in the income range between 501 and 2000 Turkish Lira (185-740 US$), while the most of the latter have income below the minimum wage.

As referred before, most of the working women have no family member who is regularly employed and many are the only wage earner in their families. Women's earnings fluctuate considerably depending on weather, an amount of catch, the size of sea snails, and their own work patterns and performances. Nearly two-thirds of women who work at the shelling section said that they worked seven days a week as far as there were products to process. The rest generally work three or four days a week in order to deal with household chores on the other days. According to the wage lists of shellers that the factory owner gave us, women earned 717 TL (377 US$), 300 TL (150 US$), 368 TL (184US$) on average in July, August and September of 2013 respectively. The highest wages were 1439.80 TL (758 US$), 807.25 TL (404 US$), and 710.90 TL (355 US$) in those months. A considerable number of women, the married women in general, reported that they handed out all their earnings to their families. Almost three quarters of women said they regularly handed out half or more than half of their earnings to their families, that is, father or husband in most cases. While many women mentioned happily about the purchase of second-hand washing machines and mobile phones, their earnings are spent mostly for living expenses. Considering the wages these women earn and the ways they spend as well as the situation where the other sources of income are severely limited, it is safe to say that their employment at the factory is indispensable to many households.

Young Women's Bargaining With Patriarchy

Women's accounts obtained from in-depth interviews indicate that women's employment not only saved many rural households from impoverishment but have transformed intra-household relations, especially a relationship between father and working daughter, while the impact of wife's factory work on conjugal power relations is far more obscure and it requires a separate analysis beyond the scope of this paper. In the following pages, we analyse the effects of daughter's wage work on rural household and their own lives by comparing the narratives of unmarried women. In particular, we cited the accounts of two nonworking and two working unmarried women below for their quality of representing many stories of each group of women. Their profiles are as in Table 3. Women's names are all pseudonyms.

Common Life Circumstances between the Working Daughters and the Non- Working Daughters

There are more similarities than differences between working and non-working young women in terms of life circumstances until they leave school. Firstly, many fathers of the young women went through involuntary return migration and economic struggle in impoverished villages. For instance, Gonca is one of the few young women who never worked for wage. Her father did not send any of his children to work for wage; "He does not have the heart to harm his wife and children for money." He himself went to work as labourer in the fields of neighbouring villages in order to save money for bride price and wedding expenses when he was young. After he married to Gonca's mother in the late 1970s, they moved to Samsun, the largest city in the Black Sea region, and started to make a living as a tailor. In a short time, his father called him back to the village. Gonca's father was the second youngest of five brothers. Two oldest brothers had already moved out of their father's house as they had children and built their own houses in the same village. Two other brothers had migrated to Samsun and married there. Gonca's father lived with his parents and struggled to support them and his family in village by cultivating tobacco.

Likewise, Buket is an eighteen-year-old sea snail factory worker and her father used to work at a factory in Istanbul. In 2007 when Buket was ten years old, her grandfather fell ill and called his only son back to the village. Since then, Buket's father has been doing "village works." Buket's parents grow wheat in the lands of about 0.4 hectares in total. Buket's father is still forty- five years old but "he does not look for a job."

Secondly, these village fathers who are deprived of economic resources have lost authority over sons. They are no longer able to persuade a single son to live with them in their villages as they did for their parents. Gonca's father have two sons and two daughters. He tried to teach his sons farming but they refused by saying, "We don't work in the field like you." They left the village. They earn more or less minimum wages in Istanbul and have never given financial support for their family in the village. Gonca's mother defends her sons like many other parents, "They earn just enough for themselves. Rent, water, and so on."

Mine, a sea snail factory worker, is the seventh child of nine siblings. Her father returned from Istanbul in the late 1980s before Mine was born. His five sons all migrated to Istanbul as they grew up. He wanted his youngest son to marry in the village, but he also left for Istanbul a few years ago saying, "Which girl would come to marry me in this village and live with you? I don't like village anyway." None of his sons have not contributed financially to their parents and bought flats in Istanbul for their own families. Lastly, it is very common that the village daughters quitted school after eight-year compulsory education while some of their brothers went to high school in towns. Gonca's youngest brother is four year older than her and went to high school, but she gave it up. Gonca's father sent her primary school when she was still four years old so that she could go to school with her brother and they could share textbooks. She always felt that her brother was fed up with looking after her on the way to school; "I was following him all the time like his tail. He didn't want me. It was he who wanted me to quit school most. I gave up then instead of dealing with his anger." Her parents did not tell her to continue education, either; "They couldn't say that. They would be left alone in village otherwise. Now I help my mother in village. My brother went to high school. They don't need him because he's a boy."

Gonca and most of the other women we interviewed gave up secondary education since they knew that their parents were not willing due to a number of factors such as a fear of economic burden, anxiety about sending an adolescent girl to a boarding school and/or a loss of household labour. Buket's father expressed his disapproval in her last years in primary school; "My school record was very good until the sixth grade. Later on, my dad said, 'I don't send you school further. Girls don't study, do they? I can't trust (a school in town).' I lost my enthusiasm for study then. (But) He says he will send my brothers to high school if they want. There aren't many chores boys do. You can't continue education when no one stands back of you." At the age of 15 or younger, the women who did not go to high school became the full-time unpaid family worker who "helps" their parents in all sorts of chores in the field and the house.

Different Life Circumstances between the Working Daughters and the Non-Working Daughters

After graduating from middle school, girls' lives become differentiated. A very few girls move to a town away from their families for secondary education. Another small group of girls work in the field and at home for their family and many girls work for wage mostly at the sea snail factory. We compare the lives of the latter two groups of young women who remained in village. First of all, the family structures of the working daughters and the non-working daughters seem to be different in an important way. This partly affected their work statuses. We interviewed two non-working unmarried women. Both are the youngest daughters and the only child who remained with their aging parents in their villages. Sare is nineteen years old. By the time when she finished middle school, her two older sisters married out and she has been doing all household chores since then both for her sickly parents and her mother's old brother and his wife who live next-door. Her three brothers work in Istanbul. Gonca is twenty-four years old and runs about all day cleaning, washing, cooking, looking after cows, fetching water, helping her aging parents in the garden and getting other chores done for their comfort since the day when she left school. She is tremendously attentive to her parents' physical and emotional needs;

   They look for me even if I'm just in another room. They get thirst,
   for example. They hesitate to ask me. But I notice it. I give them
   water immediately without being asked. It's big advantage that I
   stay with them. Otherwise they would grieve for wasted efforts (for
   their children).... my brothers are working outside. I run about
   here so that they wouldn't miss their sons. I'm here, so they can
   talk with them with ease on the phone. They say, 'We're fine, son.'
   If I'm not with them, they would cry to their sons.

Working unmarried women are often one of the oldest children and have small siblings. Their parents are still in their 40s or 50s. Young women first went to the factory to earn pocket money in summer holiday when they stilt studied in the last grades of middle school. They are expected to help their parents for housework as any other daughters in village, yet they are generally exempted from routine agricultural, domestic and care works of rural household as far as they are at the factory. For example, Mine is twenty-five years old and one of the oldest workers of the factory. She is a kind of pioneer. When she was a child, her parents were still cultivating tobacco leaves. Mine and her siblings all helped her parents in the field; "We couldn't go to school without filling baskets with tobacco leaves and worked in the field again after school." In 2004 when she finished school, she and her elder sister persuaded her father that they quit tobacco production and work at a sea snail factory instead;

   A driver (of a van for workers) was looking for workers and told us
   to work at the factory instead of dealing with village works.... we
   told our father that factory work was better for us, they paid
   better than tobacco, we could work better there, and so on. Tobacco
   was difficult. Time went so slowly. It's better here. We enjoy
   working with friends. After we quitted tobacco, everyone else also
   abandoned it.

Mine and her sister thus relieved themselves from heavy and unpaid agricultural work. Secondly, the non-working young women are economically deprived considerably in comparison with the working daughters. Sare's parents are subsistence farmers and her mother receives disability allowance because of her heart disease. Gonca's father is receiving pension for the last few years but it mostly disappears for a loan he borrowed from a bank in order to pay off debt to Social Security Institution. He resists letting his daughter work at a factory. He rather lives frugally. It however means additional burdens on Gonca. They do not buy fruits and vegetables from a market unlike other villagers. They plant onions, potatoes and greens in the garden instead. Water supply is not sufficient in the village but they do not buy drinking water as some villagers do. They go to fetch water from a spring by a donkey. Gonca wears clothes which her sister brings from Istanbul for her. She is careful not to want anything from her father since it would make him feel ashamed for being unable to provide. She added however, "I'm telling you, you'd waste your life if you marry a man like my dad."

By contrast, all the working daughters are grateful for their economic independence. Buket said, "It's a great feeling. I mean, I don't depend on anyone. I don't need to ask money from anyone, even from my father. Well, he doesn't work. How do I get money from him?" In fact, all the working daughters we interviewed give a significant amount of their earnings to their fathers. But it is a trade-off. For example, Mine and her sister handed over all their earnings to their father for six years; "He didn't send us to work otherwise." He bought a second-hand tractor and cultivate ten hectares of lands in total with his brothers. Mine considers it was for their benefit, too; "If we didn't buy a tractor, we probably couldn't come here. It takes two or three months to plough fields by oxen. Dad finishes it by the tractor for a week." When she turned 21 years old, Mine proposed to her father that her sister and she gave him their earnings every two months. He accepted. Mine earns about 700 TL (318 US$) every month. She can buy her personal needs with ease now. She described economic independence she earned as follows;

   In village, girls don't see anything, don't know anything, can't
   open up themselves. Their families don't send them anywhere. They
   say, 'Don't wonder, stay home, do the work.' Parents nag
   constantly, 'Do this, do that.' One gets depressed. And you have
   nothing to prove yourself. Now we bring money from here, so we feel
   at ease. It's something like 'shut up for money.' It's really (like
   this) because parents need money. We still do jobs at home but now
   nobody nags at us. We work, we earn, we bring money. So, you know,
   they treat us ... (better), well, everyone's family is like this.

The working daughters hand over half or nearly half of their earnings to their fathers because they feel it is their responsibility for their economically struggling families and also they know that they can make their contribution very visible and hence increase personal freedom in this way. For example, fathers no longer nag at them for leaving light on, watching TV or just sitting "idly." They are more respectful to working daughters. They are careful not to upset them. If they do, they then respond by refusing to go to work for days. They still expect them to hand over part of the earnings yet do not ask it openly. They even hesitate to ask how much they earn. The women generally let their fathers know less than they actually earn. It is they who decide how much of wage they share with the family although their sensitivity about the family's needs certainly influences their decision. They defend their share for the reason that they purchase personal needs and trousseau which fathers are supposed to provide.

Lastly, the most meaningful difference between the working daughters and the non-working daughters is probably social freedom. Young women hardly have an opportunity to socialise with women in their age in the sparsely settled aging mountain villages once they leave school. For example, Gonca and Sare said that they hardly saw their neighbours and friends. Gonca is well aware of the significance of her contribution to the household; "All works are backbreaking. All depend on my hands." At the same time, she also knows her invisibility and social dependency on their parents;

   A person like me can't show her capacity, her worth, even if she
   has any. Because she's dependent on her mother and father. For
   example, I can't show it off. If I do, it would become like my
   parents are disrespected. Actually, what if I try not to show off
   my goodness? Here is a place kept out of everyone's sight. Even my
   neighbours can hardly see me. If I want something in this
   circumstance, I lose even what I have now. So, it's better to
   stretch my legs according to my duvet, not to be cold.

Both Gonca and Sare want love marriage and live in "somewhere far from the village." They wait for the day when their husbands save them from village life. The young working women prefer factory work to "village work" not only for wage but also for an opportunity of socialisation. They say, "We learned everything here." They meant "everything" by the ways to talk and behave in public space, the relationship with colleagues and friends, and new information, especially how to use internet and social media. While Sare does not have a mobile phone and Gonca uses an old telephone which her brother gave her, all the working interviewees have smart phones, internet connection, and Facebook accounts. The working young women socialise not only with their colleagues at the factory but also with other friends in social media. These young women now have their own social networks independent of familial relations. They attend the weddings of colleagues and their relatives in other villages, which are the occasions that Gonca and Sare do not have. Some of the interviewees met their boyfriends at those weddings or the workplace. Dating is still not acceptable in their villages. They "meet" with their boyfriends in social media when they are at home or talk on the phone at the factory. Buket, for example, spends time most with her boyfriend on the phone and Facebook. She considers that she needs to talk with him and know him because she expects to marry him. For her, marriage means "you have someone you can count on." Mine met her fiancee at the factory. He works as a lorry driver. He is the only son who still lives with his parents in village. They used to expect him to live with them after marriage, too. Mine had no intention to remain in village however; "There is nothing you can like about village, really. I said to him, 'We'll separate if your parents can find a girl who agrees to live with them in village.'(I knew) They wouldn't be able to find any. He told this to his parents. They then gave in." Like many other working women, Mine considers that "women should not just rely on men" economically. Yet, both Mine's fiancee and Buket's boyfriend are not willing to let them work after marriage.

Conclusion: From Classic Patriarchy to Modern Patriarchy

In rural Dikmen, household economy heavily depends on daughter's labour, either she works for wage or not. Until recently, the father could call back one of his sons even when he once moved to a city with his family. Many fathers still try but, as shown above, they fail to keep their grown-up sons in village unless they are sick or disabled. In general, migrated sons do not economically contribute their parents in village and it is widely accepted. Son's labour has been totally liberated from rural household.

In past, daughter's labour was rather secondary after her brother's marriage because his wife worked together with their mother in all the tasks that women were responsible in the farming household. The daughter helped some household chores, babysat her nephew/niece and may have worked in the field in the harvest season until she married out in the late teens. In recent years, the daughter shoulders all kinds of farm, domestic and care work in the absence of sons. Further, she takes up wage work in place of her father and brothers as women's employment opportunities are generated at newly established factories. Wage work often freed her from regular agricultural, domestic and care works and the parents' nagging simply by not being at home from early in the morning to the evening. Actually, as women's accounts above suggest, she rather consciously freed herself from unrewarded effort for proving her value and contribution to the family by taking up paid work, or converting her labour from an invisible form to visible one.

A consequence of feminisation of agriculture is said to be relatively positive for women when they directly receive wage (Lastarria-Cornhiel, 2006). In our case study, on the one hand, non-working young women shoulder all kinds of agricultural, domestic and care work unnoticed and unrewarded because they did not continue education, did not take wage work, and did not leave rural work to their parents. On the other hand, in case of working young women, the power balance between father and daughter has gradually changed in a subtle way. The daughter's labour power is now largely liberated from the patriarchal rural family.

Patriarchy however perpetuates not only in the familial sphere but also in all spheres of society in diverse forms according to different historical, socioeconomic and cultural contexts. For example, "classic patriarchy" is one form of patriarchy which is based on agricultural mode of production, patrilocal residence, patrilineal corporate extended household, the material and symbolic authority of the senior man, the wealth flow from children to the parents, and high fertility (Kandiyoti, 1988). The collapse of peasant familial mode of production freed children's productive labour from the patriarchal family, and it was simultaneously integrated to labour market. However, contemporary capitalist social relations are also patriarchal though it may be reconfigured into a different form from classic patriarchy.

The working daughter in Dikmen entered into new social relations independent of familial relations. She, not her father, sells her own labour power to a total stranger and receives wage just as her brother does. Unlike carpet waving, factory work introduces her new social relations not only with the employer but also with colleagues, friends, and even a boyfriend. Her extended social relations beyond the family enables her to marry a man of her own choice. One of the remarkable social changes that villagers referred most was that "young people marry by themselves," which was possible for women only by elopement until recently. The daughter's economic independence empowered her to start a family with her husband independently from their parents. For son, it meant to be an independence from the father's authority and being the household head by himself. Yet it means for daughter to be a member of the urbanised patriarchal family. She will be freed from the authority of in-laws but subject to the husband's benevolent authority. An urban type of patriarchy is benevolent, protective, and paternalistic. As the women's accounts about their boyfriends as well as the studies about low- income urban families (e.g. Erman et al. 2002) suggest, the rural-urban migrant husband often tries to withdraw his wife from social relations independent from him. He tries to prevent her from working for wage. He is anxious about her economic independence. He tries to control her labour power not for economic benefit but to protect his male authority as the breadwinner although it has become increasingly difficult for a single wage earner to support a family in reality today.

Daughter's wage work transformed the intra-household relations in rural Dikmen in an unobtrusive manner. The daughter negotiated with her father for her modest economic independence and some respect for her as an individual. She never claims that she is the breadwinner even when she is so in practice. She never challenges the father's authority. Unlike her brothers, she does not leave the father's house before marriage despite employment opportunities. She does not challenge gender norms when she is quietly liberating her productive and reproductive labour power from the patriarchal family by wage work and love marriage decades after the rural son. The liberation from the patriarchal rural family is by no means an emancipation from patriarchy. In her study of women's wage work and conjugal power relations in Bangladesh, Kabeer (1997) explains the wage-earning woman's constant subordination to the husband in terms of their social dependency on male protection. The adult daughter's continuing compliance to the father despite her employment is not because of her lack of awareness about her earning ability or female altruism. On the contrary, it is because of her awareness of patriarchal society. In line with Kabeer, and Kandiyoti (1988) whose well-known concept of "patriarchal bargaining" she adopts, it is possible to explain that it is her bargaining with patriarchy in exchange for continuing male social protection. She dreams of marriage with a man of her choice with whom she can start a nuclear family together. She recognises that she can complete her liberation from classic patriarchy only when she entered under another form of male protection. We argue that wage work liberated rural daughter's productive labour from the patriarchal family yet it is not enough to free her from her dependency on familial protection in classic patriarchy. She pursues love marriage as a chance for emancipation. However, wage work has consequently helped her to be integrated into capitalist (and patriarchal) labour market, market economy and urban nonetheless patriarchal family.

Acknowledgements

This study is based on a research financed by a scientific research grant of Ondokuz Mayis University (grant no. 1901.13.002).

References

Aksit B. (1985). Kapitalist Pazarin ve Modern Teknolojinin Iki Antalya Koyune Girisi ve Isleyisi. In Aksit B. (Ed.), Koy, Kasaba ve Kentlerde Toplumsal Degisme: Toplum, Siyaset ve Kultur Donusmleri Uzerine Arastirma Yazilan. Ankara: Turhan Kitapevi: 3-73.

Berik G. (1995). Towards an Understanding of Gender Hierarchy in Turkey: A Comparative Analysis of Carpet-Weaving Villages. In Tekeli S. (Ed.), Women in Modern Turkish Society: A Reader. London and New Jersey: Zed Books: 112-128.

Boserup E. (1970). Woman's Role in Economic Development. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Erman T.; Kalaycioglu S. & Rittersberger-Tilic H. (2002). Money-Earning Activities and Empowerment Experience of Rural Migrant Women in the City: The Case of Turkey. Women's Studies International Forum, 25(4):395-410.

Erturk Y. (1995). Rural Women and Modernization in South-eastern Anatolia. In Tekeli S. (Ed.), Women in Modern Turkish Society: A Reader. London and New Jersey: Zed Books: 141-152.

Gunduz-Hosgor A. (2011). Kalkinma ve Kirsal Kadinin Degisen Toplumsal Konumu: Turkiye Deneyimi Uzerinden Karadeniz Bolgesindeki Iki Vaka'nin Analizi. In Sancar S. (Ed.), Bir Kac Arpa Boyu: 21. Yuzyila Girerken Turkiye'de Feminist Calismalar. Istanbul: Koc University Press: 219-247.

Gunduz-Hosgor A. Et M. Him S. (2016). Kuresellesme ve Turkiye'de Kirsal Kadinin Ucretli Emegi: Rapana Venosa Uretim Zinciri Uzerinden Bati Karadeniz Bolgesinde Bir Vaka Analizi. Sosyoloji Arastirmalar Dergisi. 19(2):108-130.

Hurriyet (6.2.2016). 8 Kentin Nufusu Istanbul'daki Hemsehrilerinin Gerisinde Kaldi. Retrieved from http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/8-kentin-nufusu- istanbuldakihemsehrilerinin-gerisinde-kaldi-40050443 on 28.03.2016.

Kabeer N. (1997). Women, Wages and Intra-household Power Relations in Urban Bangladesh. Development and Change, 28: 261-302.

Kandiyoti D. (1988). Bargaining with Patriarchy. Gender and Society, 2(3): 274-90.

Keser E.M. (2013). Dikmen Ilce Analizi. T.C. Kuzey Anadolu Kalkinma Ajansi. Retrieved from http://kuzka.gov.tr/lcerik/Dosya/www.kuzka.gov.tr_1 8_EL6F73BR_dikmenJlce_analizi.pdf on 19.07.2013.

Keyder C. (2013). 2000'lerde Devlet ve Tarim. In Keyder C. & Yenal Z. (Eds.), Bildigimiz Tarimin Sonu: Kuresel Iktidar ve Koyluluk. Istanbul: Iletism Yayincilik: 191218.

Kiray M.B. (1964). Eregli: Agri Sanayiden Once Bir Sahil Kasabasi. Ankara: T.C. Basbakalik Devlet Planlama Teskilati.

Lastarria-Cornhiel S. (2006). Feminization of Agriculture: Trends and Driving Forces. Background Paper for the World Development Report 2008. Retrieved from https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/109 19/68838/459_Lastarria_Cornhiel2006_Feminization_of_A.pdf?sequen ce=1 on 24.11.2016.

Morvardi B. (1992). Gender Relations in Agriculture: Women in Turkey. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 40(3): 567-586.

Morvardi B. (1993). Gender and Household Management in Agriculture: Cash Crops in Kars. In Sterling P. (Ed.), Culture and Economy: Changes in Turkish Villages. Cambridgeshire: The Eothen Press: 81-94.

Ozbay F. (1985). Transformation of the Socio-economic Structure and Changing Family Functions in Rural Turkey. In Erdar T. (Ed.), Family in Turkish Society: Sociological and Legal Studies. Ankara: Turkish Social Science Association: 43-77.

Ozbay F. (1995). Changes in Women's Activities both Inside and Outside the Home. In Tekeli S. (Ed.), Women in Modern Turkish Society: A Reader. London and New Jersey: Zed Books: 89-111.

Sterling P. (1965). Turkish Village. New York: John Wiley&Sons, INC.

Tekeli I. (2011). Turkiye Tarimnda Mekanizmasyonun Yarattigi Yapisal Donusumler ve Kirdan Kopus Sureci. In Tekeli I. (Ed.) Goc ve Otesi. Istanbul: Tarih Vakif Yayinlan: 6895.

TurkStat (Turkish Statistical Institute) (2014). Press Release 2014/16. Retrieved from http://www.tuik.gov.tr/basin0dasi/haberler/2014_16_201 40320.pdf on 01.05.2014.

Ucecam Karagel D. (2010). Turkiye Kirsalinda Tarimda Calisan Kadin Nufus (1990-2000). Uluslararasi Sosyal Arastirmalar Dergisi, 3(13): 254-267.

WB (World Bank) (2007). World Bank Report 2008: Agriculture for Development. Washington: The World Bank Press.

Yasa I. (1969). Yirmibes Yil Sonra Hasanoglan Koyu: Karsilastirmali Bir Toplum Bilimsel Arastirma. Ankara: Ankara Universitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakultesi.

Miki Suzuki Him *

Ondokuz Mayis University

Ayse Gunduz Hosgor **

Middle East Technical University

Miki Suzuki Him Ondokuz

Mayis Universitesi

Ayse Gunduz Hosgor

Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi

* Assist.Prof. Miki Suzuki Him, Ondokuz Mayis University, Department of Sociology, Samsun-Turkey. E-posta: mikihim@omu.edu.tr.

** Prof. Ayse Gunduz Hosgor, Middle East Technical University, Department of Sociology, Ankara- Turkey. E-posta: hosgor@metu.edu.tr.

Article submission date : 30 December, 2016

Article acceptance date : 10 February, 2017

Makale gonderim tarihi: 30 Aralik, 2016

Makale kabul tarihi : 10 Subat, 2017

Table 1: Women's socioeconomic characteristics
by work status Socioeonomic Status

Work Status       Age      Year of    Unmarried    Nuclear
                 (Mean)   education      (%)      household
                           (mean)                    (%)

Working           29.7       6.2        62.3        59.0
Worked Before     41.2       5.4        27.0        24.3
Never Worked      51.9       3.0        21.5        37.7
Total             42.7       4.5        35.6        36.2

Work Status       Household     No migrated     Main
                 size > 5 (%)     family       source
                                member (%)    of living
                                               is paid
                                              work (%)

Working              59.0          31.1         49.2
Worked Before        40.5          40.5         27.0
Never Worked         31.2          21.5         20.4
Total                41.9          28.3         30.9

Work Status         Main        No family     Uninsured
                  source of    member with       (%)
                  living is    regular work
                   social          (%)
                 benefit (%)

Working              9.8           77.0         59.0
Worked Before       45.9           56.8         37.8
Never Worked        43.0           72.0         46.2
Total               33.0           70.7         48.7

Table 2: Household Income by Women's Work Status (%)

Income (TL)

Work              300 or   301-   501-   1001-
Status             less    500    1000   2000

working            4.9     23.0   36.1   27.9
worked before      13.5    10.8   45.9   13.5
never worked       21.5    21.5   38.7    9.7
Total              14.7    19.9   39.3   16.2

Income (TL)

Work              2001-    3000     Don't
Status            3000    or more   know

working            6.6      1.6      0.0
worked before      5.4      2.7      8.1
never worked       2.2      1.1      5.4
Total              4.2      1.6      4.2

As referred before, most of the working women have
no family member who is regularly employed and many
are the only wage earner in their families.

Table 3: Profiles of working and non-working unmarried women

Name      Work           Age
          status

Gonca     never worked   24

Sare      never worked   19

Bucket    working        18

Mine      working        25

Name      Household members       Livelihood

Gonca     Father, Mother          Father's pension
                                  Subsistence agriculture

Sare      Father, Mother          Mother's disability allowance

Bucket    Grandmother, Father,    Bucket's factory work,
          other, 2 younger        Grandmother's old age
          brothers                allowance, subsistence
                                  agriculture

Mine      Father, Mother, Older   Mine and her younger sister's
          sister, Niece,          factory work, Animal husbandry
          Younger sister          Subsistence agriculture