Talk:
“Women, work and welfare: comparing the conditionality of survivors benefits in Spain and Turkey (1900-2020)”
by
Laura Andrea Álvarez Tobar
Doctoral researcher
Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy (SOCIUM)
University of Bremen
laura.alvarez@uni-bremen.de
& Kerem Gabriel Öktem
Postdoctoral researcher
Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy (SOCIUM)
University of Bremen
oektem@uni-bremen.de
Tuesday, June 17, 2025, 12:30 p.m.
A-130 (FEASS Building)
Abstract:
Our talk explores the way, in which the welfare state has shaped the relationship of women to paid and unpaid (care) work. This is done through a historical exploration of social policy laws with a focus on survivors’ pensions (that target widows, widowers, siblings, children, parents and grandparents). We compare the cases of Spain and Turkey to identify the welfare state’s demands related to engaging into paid and unpaid work to qualify for survivors’ benefits. The analysis takes a historical stand, including laws valid in the early 1900 until 2020.
Welfare state research classifies both Spain and Turkey as Southern European regimes, marked by traditional values and strong familial roles in welfare provision. In both countries, survivors’ benefits play an outsize role in the welfare regime. We identify a series of systemic parallels in both countries that reveal a broader narrative about the transformation and persistence of institutionalized gender roles, the enduring influence of religion and nationalism on political structures, and the impact of international actors such as other nations and the EU.
The paper contributes to the debate on gender and the welfare state by longitudinally studying an underexplored benefit and including other family members besides spouses. We address the historical, legal construction of women and the ideas that frame it. Similarly, we contribute to the conditionality literature by adapting a historical perspective, which is seldom done in conditionality research. Conditionality for survivors is mostly based on the perpetuation of values, structures and power relations within the family and marriage, which is not dealt with extensively within the literature. We argue this perspective warrants greater prominence in the social policy research agenda.
Short Bio:
Laura Andrea Álvarez Tobar is a doctoral researcher at the research center Inequality and Social Policy (SOCIUM, University of Bremen) in Germany and a member of the BIGSSS (Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences). Originally from Colombia, she completed a bachelor’s in political science at Universidad Javeriana Cali and worked at the Institute of Intercultural Studies, a think tank supporting the Colombian Peace Process. Afterwards she completed a master program in Development Studies at the University of Passau (Germany). Her dissertation project is about the construction of social groups within social policy legislation, with an emphasis on Spain and Turkey and from a feminist, historical perspective.
Kerem Gabriel Öktem is a postdoctoral researcher at the Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy (SOCIUM) at Bremen University, Germany. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Bilkent University for his thesis ‘Pathways to Universal Social Security in Lower Income Countries: Explaining the Emergence of Welfare States in the Developing World’. His research focusses on questions of how to conceptualize, measure and assess social policy developments throughout the world, with a focus on the Global South. Currently, he works on measuring welfare states in the project ‘Bilkent-Bremen Research Lab for Welfare Policies’ and explores the sequence of inclusion into social security in Turkey and India within the project ‘Mechanisms of Social Policy Diffusion.