Gender Equality Insights from My PhD Thesis
My thesis, titled An Integrated Analytical Framework for Transforming Gendered Unpaid Care Work: Comparison of Turkey and Italy investigates the structural determinants of gendered unpaid care work through comprehensive case studies in Turkey and Italy. Utilizing the four pathways approach (Cantillon & Teasdale, 2021) and the 5Rs framework (Addati et al., 2018; Elson, 2017; Rost et al., 2020), I developed a unique gendered unpaid care work index aimed at informing transformative policy proposals.
Understanding the Thesis: Key Insights and Data
My research focused on the structural constraints of gendered unpaid care work, categorized under four key areas, namely four pathways:
- Employment opportunities and labour market regulations,
- Neoliberal and patriarchal socio-normative structure,
- Legal and institutional normative structure, and
- Social care systems and dynamics.
The thesis highlighted significant gender inequalities in Turkey and Italy in terms of 5Rs: recognition, reduction and redistribution of carework, representation, and reward of the care workers.
The primary data for my analysis came from the ILO, UN, Istat, Turkstat, OECD, Eurostat, UNESCO, and World Bank, as well as local official databases, reports, and other relevant data channels. Together, they created nearly 1 million rows of data. This data was extracted, cleaned, converted into a more useful format, and visualized in Excel. For regression analysis, when necessary, Stata was used as the primary statistical software in this research.
A total of 18 categories were used for comparison. Key findings revealed that while Italy outperforms Turkey, both countries exhibit a substantial gender disparities in paid and unpaid labor. Therefore, there is an evident need for political, legal, and institutional improvements in most dimensions to equalise and transform gendered unpaid care work.
The Purpose of the Power BI Project
The goal of converting my thesis into a Power BI project was to create an interactive, visually engaging tool to:
- Highlight the key findings of my research,
- Provide an intuitive and interactive comparison between Turkey and Italy regarding gendered unpaid care work,
- Present the gendered unpaid care work index in a dynamic format that can be easily explored by policy makers, researchers, and the general public,
- Create extendable, maintainable and more manageable data flow,
- Make it more accessible and easy to deploy.
Conclusion
Transforming my PhD thesis into a Power BI project was an instructional experience. It not only enhanced the visibility and impact of my research but also showcased my ability to use data analytics and visualization tools to address important social issues. For anyone looking to include similar projects in their portfolio, I recommend focusing on creating clear, interactive, and informative visualizations that bring your research to life.
