If possible, try to go with the flow as it is all of these wonderfully unexpected incidents that make life in Turkey so enjoyable. After all, the Turkish saying that a cup of coffee equals 40 years of friendship is not for nothing! Turks are famed for their hospitality, which in essence is actually evidence of their generosity.
They love giving gifts and sharing food, and refusing to accept or do so could very well be considered rude. They love paying the bill and sometimes even in secret, and some may be offended if you were to push too hard to go Dutch. The best practice would be to pick up the tab next time in return, and that way no money is ever seen or talked about, which is just the way the Turks prefer. Meanwhile, if you are given a plate of cookies or treats as such, it is the general custom to return said plate with a yummy offering of your own.
Also, beware when complimenting others if it is on an item of clothing or accessory because if you ask a Turk where they got it from, they may end up forcibly giving you the said item as a gift. Instead, try to emphasize just how much the particular item suits them as for Turks giving seems to be in their genes. A shared interest or some warmth is most often the only thing you need to start a friendship with a Turk.
Such farms concentrate on high-value fruits and industrial crops and employ land-poor farmers. Since the s, the mechanization of agriculture has reduced the need for farm labor, causing many villagers to migrate to the cities.
Major Industries. Turkey's economy is a mix of private and state economic enterprises SEEs. From A view of the ancient city wall surrounding the Midterranean city of Anlanya, Turkey. Since that time, a policy of privatization of SEEs has been followed. Currently, factories produce a wide variety of products, including processed foods, textiles and footwear, iron and steel, chemicals, cement, fertilizers, kitchen appliances, radios, and television sets.
Montage industries that utilize a combination of imported and domestic parts assemble cars, trucks, and buses as well as aircraft.
Since the s, trade has played an increasingly important role in the economy. Turkey's entrance into a customs union agreement with the European Union EU in facilitated trade with EU countries. The major export commodities were textiles and apparel 37 percent , iron and steel products 10 percent , and foodstuffs 17 percent.
The major export partners were Germany 20 percent , the United States 8 percent , Russia 8 percent , the United Kingdom 6 percent , and Italy 5 percent. Import commodities included machinery 26 percent , fuels 13 percent , raw materials 10 percent , and foodstuffs 4 percent. The primary import partners were Germany 16 percent , Italy 9 percent , the United States 9 percent , France 6 percent , and the United Kingdom 6 percent. Division of Labor.
Most jobs are assigned on the basis of age, skill, education, gender, and in some cases kinship. There are many small family-owned and -operated businesses in towns and cities. In those businesses, young people, especially sons, are trained from an early age to operate the enterprise. Until the s, many young people, especially males, learned their skills in the traditional apprentice system.
Today the Ministry of Education operates thousands of basic and advanced vocational and technical schools for males and females. Turkey has numerous universities where students of both sexes study to become businesspersons, doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, accountants, bankers, and architects. Civil service jobs require applicants to meet educational requirements and pass a written examination.
Turkish law generally prohibits the employment of children under 15 years of age, except that those who are 13 and 14 may do light, part-time work if they are enrolled in school or vocational training. In practice, the children of poor families work to earn needed income.
Aside from farm labor, underage boys work in tea gardens as waiters, auto repair shops, and small wood and metal craft industries. Underage girls generally work at home at handicrafts. Classes and Castes.
The most important determinants of social status are wealth and education. The basic categories include the wealthy urban educated class, the urban middle class, the urban lower class, the large rural landowner class, and the general rural population.
A university education is the minimum qualification for entry into the urban educated class, in which there are numerous substrata. Distinctions can be drawn between the urban upper and urban middle classes. The urban upper class includes several groups with high status determined by education, political influence, and wealth. Wealthy businessmen are accorded very high status, as are successful physicians, cabinet ministers, and many members of the assembly, directors of important government departments, and other high-level officials.
Since World War II, businessmen have challenged the old military—bureaucratic elite for power and social prestige. Members of the urban upper class are generally westernized; most speak at least one Western language, are well acquainted with European or American life and culture, and have close contact with the diplomatic and foreign business communities.
The urban middle class includes most civil servants, proprietors of medium-size businesses and industries, many persons in service occupations, some skilled workers, and university students. These groups usually are less westernized than the upper class and more oriented to Turkish culture.
The urban middle class also includes virtually the entire upper strata of the provincial cities. There is considerable mobility within the urban educated class. The urban lower class includes semiskilled and unskilled laborers, low-paid service workers, and the urban unemployed. The high rate of migration of young villagers to urban areas makes this the most rapidly growing class.
Many migrants have difficulty finding jobs, and others work only seasonally. Many live in poverty in the shantytowns that ring the major cities. Urbanization continues as the rural population grows and urban industry offers better incomes. Some 30 percent of the population are rural farmers, often referred to as peasants. Improved communications and transportation have brought them into closer contact with towns and cities.
Educational efforts since succeeded in bringing the national literacy level up to Some eastern rural areas are still dominated by large landowners, traditional clan heads, and religious leaders.
Young villagers who migrate to towns and cities cannot find their way into the middle class unless they receive further education.
Symbols of Social Stratification. Most men of all social classes have adopted Western styles of dress, including trousers, shirts, and jackets. Men and women in the upper and middle urban classes pay attention to Western fashions. They also live in high-priced apartments and try to possess Western luxury items, such as cars, electronic devices, cell phones, and computers. They have developed a taste for Western literature and music and attend musical events and plays.
The upper class favors European-language high schools and universities; the middle class is more satisfied with standard Turkish educational institutions. Both classes prefer to speak an educated Istanbul style of standard Turkish. Ankara, Turkey is a fast-paced city. Most members of the lower urban classes live in shantytowns. Only a small proportion have graduated from high school lise. The women tend to wear traditional conservative clothing, including head scarves and long coats, even in the summer.
They favor Turkish and Middle Eastern music. The peasant and rural classes are the least exposed to Western and urban influences in dress, styles, language, and music. They, like the lower urban class, tend to speak Turkish with regional accents and grammatical peculiarities.
The women wear conservative peasant dress consisting of baggy pantaloons and head scarves. The government operates under the constitution.
All the constitutions , , and were written and adopted while military leaders were in control. The constitution states that "Turkey is a democratic, secular and social State. Its language is Turkish" Article 3.
The constitution enumerates a long list of civil and political rights but subordinates them to considerations of "national security," "national unity," and "public morality. The constitution establishes a popularly elected single-chamber national assembly with full legislative powers, a prime minister and cabinet responsible to the national assembly, and a constitutional court with the power of judicial review.
It provides for a president with extensive executive powers and legislative veto authority who is elected by the assembly for a seven-year term. There is a wide array of political parties. It is illegal for parties to appeal to religion, advocate the establishment of a religious state, or claim to represent a class or ethnic group.
In recent elections, no party has been able to win more than 22 percent of the vote, leading to coalition governments. A governor vali appointed by the minister of the interior heads each province and represents the state.
Locally elected representative bodies at the village, city, and provincial levels also play governing roles. Leadership and Political Officials. Most of Turkey's political leaders have been high-ranking military officers, university professors, or successful businessmen. Many provincial governors are former generals or career civil servants who graduated from Ankara University's public administration program. It has formal influence over governmental matters through the National Security Council, which is composed of the prime minister; the chief of the general staff; the ministers of national defense, the interior, and foreign affairs; and the commanders of the armed forces and the gendarmerie.
This body sets national security policy. Military leaders have been especially concerned about threats to secularism and the unity of the state and nation.
In , the militarily dominated National Security Council presented the prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, with twenty demands, including closing religious lodges, enforcing laws prohibiting religious dress in public, closing some state-supported religious schools, cooling relations with Iran, and curtailing the activities of religious organizations.
Citizens often petition elected officials for favors or aid. Unless they are personally acquainted with an official, they convey a petition through a friend or sponsor who knows an official, a member of his or her family, or one of his or her friends. Turkish law prohibits communist and religious parties. The parties range from socialist Democratic Left Party , to moderately conservative and free enterprise Motherland Party , to right-wing ultranationalistic Nationalist Action Party , to near-religious Virtue Party.
Social Problems and Control. Internal security and law enforcement are handled primarily by the national police in urban areas and the gendarmerie in rural areas. However, in areas under a state of emergency or martial law, the gendarmerie functions under the military.
The national police are armed and authoritarian in demeanor. They have been accused of treating arrested persons roughly to obtain information or confessions during incommunicado detention. The government has instituted human rights training for the police.
The gendarmerie maintains security outside municipal boundaries and guards land borders against illegal entry and smuggling. Recruits are supplied through military conscription. Gendarmes have been subject to the same criticisms as the national police.
Turkey abandoned Islamic law and adopted the Italian penal code in Serious crimes include premeditated homicide, theft, arson, armed robbery, embezzlement of state property, perjury, and rape. Political speech insulting the president, the military, and parliament has been criminalized. The antiterror law criminalizes written and oral propaganda, meetings, and demonstrations aimed at damaging the unity of the state.
The death penalty can be imposed for certain crimes against the state and premeditated murder, but there have been no executions since Conviction for a serious felony can disqualify one from holding public office, voting, and practicing certain professions. Compared to other Middle Eastern countries, the incidence of ordinary crime is low. The most common felonies resulting in incarceration in were crimes against property 8, , crimes against individuals 5, , and crimes against "public decency and family order" 2, Every year an unknown number of people are incarcerated for illegal political activity and thought crimes, such as advocating an Islamic state or cultural rights for an ethnic minority.
In addition to Kurdish nationalism, Turkey's security forces are concerned with narcotics trafficking, since Turkey is a route for the transfer of Coffeehouses are male domains.
Military Activity. The Turkish military plays political, cultural, and security roles. Military leaders created the republic in , replaced civilian governments in and , and forced a civilian government out of office in Because of universal male conscription, the military is a major national socialization agent for young men of different regions, classes, and ethnicities.
Since joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in , Turkey has maintained a large military consisting of land forces, navy, air force, coast guard, and gendarmerie. In , it had , officers and enlisted men on active duty. Defense is usually the largest category in the national budget; from to , it averaged 20 percent of total government expenditures.
In , the government estimated that Employers pay insurance premiums for work-related injuries, occupational diseases, and maternity leave; employers and employees pay premiums to cover illness, disability, retirement, and death benefits. The government also offers social security insurance to the self-employed and operates orphanages. Local associations or nongovernmental organizations NGOs associated with mosques and crafts also provide welfare to the needy.
It controls a huge investment fund of obligatory and voluntary contributions from military personnel and investment profits. It has invested substantially in the auto, truck, tractor, and tire industries; the petrochemical, cement, and food processing industries; and retail and service enterprises. Through OYAK, the Turkish military became partners with foreign and domestic investors and shares their economic interests. Because of OYAK's investments, the economic security of thousands of active and retired armed forces personnel became dependent on the profitability of large capitalistic enterprises.
Consequently, military corporate interests expanded into the areas of labor law, trade unionism, trade and monetary policy, corporate taxation, tariffs, investment banking, and related matters. Other major NGOs include the Turkish Trade Association, representing the interests of merchants, industrialists, and commodity brokers; the Turkish Confederation of Employers' Unions, representing employers; and the Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions, representing labor.
In addition, NGOs exist for practically every interest group in crafts, sports, social issues, education, religion, and the arts.
Division of Labor by Gender. Turkish law guarantees equal pay for equal work and has opened practically all educational programs and occupations to women. Exceptions are the religious schools that train imams Islamic prayer leaders and the job of imam itself. In general, men dominate the high-status occupations in business, the military, government, the professions, and academia. According to traditional values, women should do domestic work and not work in the public arena or with unrelated men.
However, women have begun to work more in public. Lower-class women generally have worked as maids, house cleaners, women's tailors, seamstresses, child care givers, agricultural laborers, and nurses, but in the early s, about 20 percent of factory employees and many store clerks were women. Middle-class women commonly are employed as teachers and bank tellers, while upper-class women work as doctors, lawyers, engineers, and university teachers.
Only a small percentage of women are politicians. Men work in all these fields but avoid the traditional nonagricultural occupations of lower-class women. Men monopolize the officer ranks in the military and the transportation occupations of pilot and taxi, truck, and bus driver. In urban areas, lower-class men work in crafts, manufacturing, and low-paid service industries. Middle-class men work as teachers, accountants, businessmen, and middle-level managers. Upper-class men work as university teachers, professionals, upper-level managers, businessmen, and entrepreneurs.
Turks expect adults to marry and have children, and the vast majority do. Because men should not lower their wives' standard of living, they are not supposed to marry women of a higher economic class. People generally marry within their own religious sect and ethnic group, although interethnic marriages among Sunni Muslims are not uncommon. In traditional Turkish society, the selection of spouses and the marriage ceremony were controlled by kin groups.
During the premarital process, the individuals to be married played minor roles. The rituals, especially the imam marriage ceremony, were essential for a morally and socially acceptable marriage. In , the revolutionary Turkish government abolished Islamic family law and adopted a slightly modified version of the family law in the Swiss civil code.
The new Family Law requires and recognizes civil marriage ceremonies only. It requires the consent of mature individuals for a binding marriage contract and prescribes monogamy only. Even though the law prohibits parents from entering into engagement or marital agreements on behalf of their children, arranged marriages without the consent of the brides have been somewhat common.
In a survey, The figures for the unconsented arranged marriages ranged from 7. An impressive This response category ranged from Today the vast majority of marriages occur with the couple's consent, but families still play a role recommending and screening potential spouses, especially for their daughters. Even though divorce is not considered an Islamic sin, it occurs infrequently.
Divorcees, especially men with children, quickly remarry, usually to divorced women. The new code eliminated a husband's Islamic prerogative of verbal and unilateral divorce and prescribed a court proceeding. The law recognizes only six grounds for divorce: adultery; plot against life, grave assaults, and insults; crime or a dishonorable life; desertion; mental infirmity; and incompatibility.
The evidentiary requirements are so substantial that establishing one of these grounds has proved difficult. A couple cannot divorce by mutual consent. Domestic Unit, Inheritance, and Kin Groups. Traditionally, most Turks traced their descent and passed on property, especially homes and land, through the male line.
Even though most households have always contained only one nuclear family, the ideal household, especially among the rural and urban wealthy, was patrilocal extended, in which a son and his bride lived in his parents' home after marriage. The basic kinship units are the family aile and the household hane. Household members normally eat together and share income and expenses.
The next larger unit is the patrilineage sulale , consisting of relatives connected intergenerationally by a common male ancestor. While patrilineage is important to old, noble Ottoman families and tribal peoples, it is of little significance to most Turks. The traditional Turkish household is characterized by male dominance, respect for elders, and female subservience.
The father or oldest male is the head, an authority figure who demands respect and obedience. The mother is also respected, but her relationship with her children is warm and informal. Although supreme authority ordinarily rests with the father, the household is usually mother-centered. The mother, being largely confined to the home, manages and directs its internal affairs.
The division of labor has traditionally been clear-cut, with women having responsibility for the internal home, and men providing the income and representing the household to the outside world. Before the s, even grocery shopping was a male duty. In recent decades, much of this has changed. The new Family Law grants women equal rights to private property and inheritance. A larger percentage of women work outside the home, and educated women demand more equal rights.
Women are very protective of their children. Breast-feeding for a year or more is common. The child commonly sleeps in a hammock or crib near the parents. Boys are socialized to be courageous, assertive, proud, and respectful of elders. When they undergo a painful circumcision ceremony between ages 9 and 12, they are told to be as brave as lions. Girls are socialized to be modest, compliant, supportive of males, virtuous, and skilled in domestic tasks.
Fathers are authoritarian disciplinarians; mothers are generally loving and nurturing. Every woman rejoices when giving birth to a son, because that event increases her status in the eyes of her husband, in-laws, and community. She usually pampers her son, who remains close to her until age 10 or 11, after which he spends most of his time with other males and identifies more closely with men. Mothers and daughters are especially close, as daughters usually spend much of their premarital lives close to their mothers, learning domestic skills: Generally, the father—daughter relationship is rather formal, with little public displaying of affection.
Although a daughter or son may argue or joke with the mother, they are respectful and subdued in the father's presence. During prepubescence, relations between brothers and sisters are free and easy. Later, their statuses change as the older sibling takes on some of the rights and duties of a parent. The older sister abla becomes like a second mother, loved for her warmth and affection.
The older brother agabey assumes the helpful but authoritarian status of a minor father. In extended families, grandparents, especially grandmothers, provide a good deal of child care. School attendance is compulsory to age The first day of class constitutes an important rite of passage.
The children are dressed in black smocks with white collars and taken to school with pomp and ceremony. Most families that can afford it, keep their children in school beyond age Most would like to see their children, especially their sons, complete university, but this is rarely possible for poor families.
Formal etiquette is central to Turkish culture, governing most social interactions and the use of space. Turkish culture has an exact verbal formula for practically every occasion.
Etiquette requires the pronouncement of the proper formulas for these occasions. Strict etiquette governs intergenerational and heterosexual interactions. Unless they are close friends or relatives, older people are addressed formally. For example, older men should be addressed with the title "Bey" Mister and women with the title "Hanim" Lady. Younger people are expected to be reserved in their presence.
Adults of the opposite sex are expected not to act casually or show affection toward each other in public. Friends of the same sex may hold hands and greet each other with kisses on the cheek. Upon meeting, men shake hands, but a man does not shake a woman's hand unless she extends it to him. People are not criticized for being late.
Business meetings usually are preceded by tea and unrelated conversation. Consideration for companions is important. One does not drink, smoke, or eat something without first offering to share it with one's companions. Ninety-eight percent of Turks are nominally Muslim.
Homes are divided into guest and private areas, and it is improper to ask for a tour of the house. The soles of shoes are considered dirty, and shoes are removed when one enters a home or mosque. These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features. Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refuseing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website.
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