ABSTRACT
The general acceptance that the household chores and childcare are the main duties of the woman is one of the most important obstacles to the realization of gender equality. This understanding sets women back both in career and social life and makes them dependent on men. On the contrary, in many European countries, in order to reduce women’s unpaid domestic care work and ensure women’s participation in labor force, institutional/professional childcare services are recognized as a right and organized by the state as a social service. As of 2018, Turkey is at the bottom among OECD and EU countries in terms of the number of children who benefit from early childcare institutions and female labor force participation. To fill this gap, there is a need to increase professional early professional childcare services and provide equal access to all children. In this study, firstly, it is explained that access to professional early childcare services kindergarten is a human right by addressing its importance in terms of gender equality and child development, then the EU and some member states’ strategies and policies on the subject are briefly discussed, and lastly, regulations in Turkey are examined. As a result, early childcare services are not recognized as a social right in Turkey and the legal regulations remain far from meeting the needs.
Keywords : unpaid care work, gender equality, social rights, early childcare services, female employment
