ABSTRACT
As a result of the labour shortage associated with the economic boom in West Germany, from the mid-1950s onwards, the state initiated and promoted the immigration of foreign workers. Between 1955 and 1968, the federal government signed agreements with eight Mediterranean countries - specifically, Italy ( 1955), Spain and Greece (1960), Turkey (1961 ), Morocco (1963), Portugal (1964), Tunisia (1965) and Yugoslavia (1968) - to facilitate the recruitment of so-called Gastarbeiter ('guestworkers'), many of whom were women. The share of women in the 'foreign employee' category was 23 per cent in 1965 and rose to nearly 30 per cent by 1973. Among labour migrants from Turkey, the share of women was relatively low: 13 per cent in 1965 and 24 per cent in 1973. But in absolute terms, there was a rapid increase in the number of female labour migrants from Turkey. In 1962, i.e., one year after the German-Turkish agreement for worker recruitment had been signed, only around 1,500 Turkish women were employed in West Germany. In 1973, there were 129,000, making them the second largest group of female migrant workers after the Yugoslavs.6 This push in the recruitment of female workers from Turkey can only be understood if the overall context of the German recruitment system and the shift in the labour market are taken into consideration.
