How E-commerce and Creator Economy Can Help Bring Women Employment Up

It is the case that although women has won equal rights to man in the past century, this hasn’t been reflected in the business world, where women still lacks far behind men in income and position. However, this is changing, thanks to technology’s power. So today, I will talk to you about how SmyrnaCollective, a sustainable clothing brand that brings housewives and unemployed women into workforce, by enabling them to sell their handmade designsproducts globally.

The current dire situation of women's unemployment in the world is proven by the data of the ILO (International Labor Organization).The current global labor force participation rate for women is just under 47%, while for men, it stands at 72%.That’s a significant difference of 25 percentage points, with some regions facing a gap of more than 50 percentage points, especially in Muslim countries. These data points show that in many countries, men still are the main source of income for the family while women are more likely to be helping out in their households or in their relatives’ businesses. 

The biggest problem in women employment is that most people think that women can’t manage the house and work at the same time. Even the women themselves sometimes believe this . revealed that there are still many people who believe it is unacceptable for a woman to have a paid job outside the home: 20% of men and 14% of women globally, to be exact As a culture we always think that woman's needs to be with their kids, clean the house, make dinner for her husband who works… But women are not all that, they are capable of doing both of these things, of course with their partners help, man can also capable of help besides their jobs :).

The data is clear: women want to be in paid employment, but a persistent set of socio-economic barriers keep them out of the workforce. Identifying and quantifying these barriers allows us to develop smarter policy responses for eliminating them.

You may ask, why this matters? It could be that in most countries, it’s normal that woman become housewives and do not actively work. Maybe for some people, this is what they need to do. However,the freedom to work – by choice, in conditions of dignity, safety and fairness – is integral to human nature. Guaranteeing that women have access to this right is an important end in itself. 

Data further shows that %70% of the women actually want to work in paid jobs  and for Turkey, this figure stoods at 87%. Hence, there is this motivation, and energy from women to contribute to the World, but evidently for some reason, they couldn’t achieve this. Further, women’s participation to labour force is firstly good for the women themselves, as it would give them motivation, eagerness and an opportunity to learn and grow.

At Smyrna Collective, we are already seeing this, where our members are earning an income and using this income to support their family. Some of them even had their long waiting operations and surgery thanks to the knitting items they sold globally! 

There are 2.9 million housewives in Turkey; 2.61 million people in Egypt unemployed and 1.12 million of them women.. These women, due to culture, due to education, and various other reasons, cannot work full time. This means that there are 4 million people JUST READY to work, with energy and desire for income, but no option to participate and somebody needs to help them. That's where we come in as Smyrna Collective.

What we realized is, women are eager, but there isn’t right opportunities for them to contribute to the society. Most women cannot work on fixed jobs; they have kids, or grand kids to look after. Most women didn’t have the same job opportunities as men since they had to quit their job for pregnancy and child care, thus they do not have a stable career like men does. The insight we have is that, women are extremely capable and motivated to contribute, but they need the right channel for this energy.

This is how Smyrna Collective was born. Our members are now selling products to US, UK, Australia, an achievement that they have never thought that could be possible. We realized that they have exceptional knitting skills; they all have some hand skills to produce great designs. However, we should not expect our mothers, grandmothers and aunts to know how to do SEO or Marketing, and that’s how we are enabling our members. The result is that we have built a business with rave reviews, and with only 3% returns (versus industry average of 30%). 

We believe that what we are doing is beyond fashion. We want to show the world that how capable our mothers, grandmothers, sisters are. We want to show that hand knitting is hard work and much more valuable than fast fashion.

We started from where we live; Turkey,İzmir. You may read this from Egypt, Sri-Lanka, İndia… and understand how important that women labor force is. We hope this writing inspires you to start something valuable for you; for people, for womens around the world.

So the case is you will know when you buy a handknit product from our brand or any other handmade by women product, you will know you purchased something special and made a women, mother happy.

Explore the vibrant world of Smyrna Collective by visiting our homepage. Discover a curated collection of exquisite products that embody timeless elegance and contemporary flair on our Products page. Embrace the essence of Smyrna Collective, where tradition meets modernity. Begin your journey and dive into our exquisite collections.