ABSTRACT

Poverty and unemployment rates have dramatically increased by abandoning the social welfare state practices and transforming the consensus between employers, workers, and the state as a political economy since the 1970s. The neoliberal politics that provide cheap labor to liquid global capital has caused feminization of labor and deepening women’s poverty. In this chaotic context, differentiating development approaches have emerged related to economic and social problems confronted by women. The empowerment approach has become prominent in national and international programs for women to generate employment as entrepreneurs. At this point, an intersectional sphere has emerged between the empowerment approach and the fact of entrepreneurship. On the other hand, entrepreneurship, which is attributed a masculine meaning within the framework of gender roles inherent in the patriarchal capitalist system, has been seen as a social policy tool in the prevention of women’s poverty. However, the fact that women are working as self-employed or becoming employers by taking on responsibility against risks resulted from markets can be seen as an individual/temporary/particular solution rather than holistic and inclusive social policy practices. In the context of the empowerment approach, even if these solutions can liberate women at the individual level, it does not seem possible to prevent the reproduction of the structural conditions of patriarchal capitalism. Thus, women’s social emancipation can be realized by using the social policy approach integrating the perspective of gender equality and practices of the social welfare state. The aim of this research, in which the literature review method is used, is to analyze the relationality of gender, empowerment, and entrepreneurship in the labor process through an intersectional perspective.