Turkish grandmothers to receive salary for baby-sitting

A joint project launched by the Ministry of Family and Social Policies and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security will see grandmothers in Turkey provided with a monthly allowance for taking care of their grandchildren, while their mothers work. As a result of recent discussions, these grandmothers will receive TL 425 ($114) per month.

At the signing ceremony of the "Grandmother Project" protocol, Labor and Social Security Minister Mehmet Müezzinoğlu announced details of the project. It will start initially with 5,000 families living in İstanbul and Bursa, and then expand to five more cities, to eventually be rolled out across Turkey. According to the information released, grandmothers who baby-sit their grandchildren must be under the age of 65 to qualify under the scheme. Müezzinoğlu said: "We will support grandmothers with 30 percent of the net minimum wage, TL 425. The first beneficiaries of this project will be 1,000 families in İstanbul, 1,000 families in İzmir, 1,000 families in Bursa, 500 families in Ankara, 500 families in Kayseri, 500 families in Sakarya, 500 families in Antalya, 500 families in Konya and 500 families in Tekirdağ."

Grandmothers caring for grandchildren, while mothers work is a very widespread phenomenon in Turkey, now almost part of the family model. After they bring up their own children, grandmothers also make significant contributions to raising their grandchildren, but they never get paid for it. Grandmothers take care of their grandchildren for free, with the only returns the love and appreciation of their children and grandchildren.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Betül Sayan-Kaya said: "The extended family model is vanishing and the core family model is an increasingly spreading phenomenon. Because of this, family gatherings are recently on a decline due to the busy schedules of working people. We also aim to strengthen the model traditional family model where grandmothers babysit their grandchildren."