term or lump sum payments, determining different sex-based actuarial factors, or granting benefits exclusively to women due to childcare responsibilities are considered to be violations of equality. Similarly, caution should be exercised when dealing with distinctions made in terms of types of contracts with which women work intensively or sectors in which women are concentrated. In this context, we believe that, in terms of Turkish social security law, it is necessary to discuss the differentiation for certain groups of domestic workers and the regulations facilitating conditions only for female insured persons who undertake the responsibility of caring for a disabled child.

Lastly, recent rulings have shown that it is not possible to provide factual equality between the parties where a female employee’s employment contract is terminated earlier than a male employee’s on the ground of retirement age. Conversely, it is important to remember that female employees ought to have the same opportunity to remain in the employment relationship at least as long as their male counterparts.

As mentioned, forty-five years after the adoption of Council Directive 79/7/EEC, we are confronted with demands “a fully gender-equal society”. Therefore, at this point, the necessity to revise this Directive in order to adjust to the current circumstances is becoming prominent and the interpretations based on reducing the disparities are becoming more prevalent through the rulings of international judicial bodies. In our opinion, necessary amendments should be made to the provisions of the Law numbered 5510 in line with this approach.

Although survivor’s insurance is outside the scope of the Directive, the system in Turkey draws attention with its distinctive structure. While benefits for sons are ceased at a certain age, they continue to be provided for many years under the certain cases for daughters. So much so that this branch of insurance is labelled as an insurance created for women. The doctrine correctly notes that although financial support for “girl child” is still a social need due to the sociological structure, the system is not sustainable and measures to ensure factual equality should be provided through non-contributory systems, not through regulations that undermine equality in premium-based systems. Therefore, in our opinion, the coverage of survivor’s insurance in the Law numbered 5510 should also be reconsidered and apply even-handedly for children within its scope.