Social Gender Inequality in Terms of Academic Signs in Higher Education of Turkey: Horizontal and Vertical Differentiation

Higher education institutions are intended to meet modern days’ requirements, based on with scientific elements, initiators and models for other social settlements and expected to have required culture knowledge and climate, with gender equality. However, gender inequality continues to exist as a subject that shows itself in the education system in a common and prominent way and stands out globally. This study aims to investigate the social gender inequality in higher education system of Turkey in terms of academic signs horizontally and vertically. The population of the study is limited to 109 state universities, 84 foundation universities and eight foundational vocational school of higher education, which are the three types of educational institutions in Turkey. Rather than sampling, it aims to reach all the population, and the data is obtained from YOK statistics from the 2014-2015 educational years. Supplementary data were obtained from OSYM, TUSİAD and YOK. After the analysis of these data, it is understood that rate of women’s graduation and participation and the rate of participation in the workforce and academia are low. In addition, higher education statistics in Turkey reveals the increase level on social gender inequality in terms of the participation in authority/judgment department, assignment in administration process and preferences in academic discipline fields.