ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses how European integration in one of its most consistent policy spheres has affected the dynamics and outcome of social policy change in Turkey, in the policy fields of equality between women and men at work and women's employment. It argues that the impact of the European integration process on Turkey has been very much mediated by and flowed through the actions of domestic societal actors for the selected policy issues. The chapter employs the Europeanization conceptual framework, which is deemed to be useful in identifying many elements of policy change through different mechanisms of integration, namely positive and framing integration mechanisms. While EU policies of gender equality in the labour market were deepening, the EU was also widening. In addition, the cost of non-compliance is high in the case of EU integration, the risk of not being accepted as an EU member state.
