Unemployment as a chronic problem facing young people in Turkey

ABSTRACT

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has warned of young workers facing a dangerous mix of high unemployment, increased inactivity and precarious work in developed countries, as well as persistently high working poverty in the developing world. Living in a developing country, Turkey’s young population experiences similar problems with unemployment and the transition to the labour market. Officially unemployment stood at nearly 11% in the first quarter of 2018 and the rate of youth unemployment was higher than twice the average of OECD countries – although the number of young people in higher education skyrocketed. However, the present troubles of Turkey’s youth in the labour market leave many of them questioning the meaning of acquiring an education, as well as the efficiency of the education system itself. It is common knowledge that higher education graduates in the 20–24 age group are more likely to be unemployed than adults who have lesser qualifications and young women are affected worst. Any effort to address the issue will need to draw on our understanding of various factors like labour market structure, demography, gender, and migration dynamics underlying unemployment and labour relations in Turkey today. This article evaluates these factors with a view to assessing their impact on the young generation of Turkey and shed light on youth unemployment and labour issues in the country.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth
• young people
• unemployment
• youth unemployment
• Turkey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This is the so-called ‘gig economy’ which is strengthened by the development of online platforms.

2. The demographic window of opportunity in Turkey is predicted to remain open until 2040 (Hoşgör and Tansel 2010).

3. Second demographic transition predicts unilinear change toward very low fertility and a diversity of union and family types. The primary driver of these changes is a powerful, inevitable and irreversible shift in attitudes and norms in the direction of greater individual freedom and self-actualization (Zaidi and Philip Morgan 2017, 473).

4. In total, 48.3% of the Turkish population is under the age 30. The share of sub-age groups shows no signs of population change over time among the youth; e.g. the share of 15–19 age group is 8.4%, the share of 20–24 age group is 8%, and the share of 25–29 age group is 8%. Source: https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-policies/en/content/youthwiki/overview-turkey.

5. Unfortunately, such comprehensive youth policies are lacking in Turkey. For discussions over youth policy in Turkey see Yentürk, Kurtaran, and Nemutlu 2008; Yurttagüler, Oy, and Kurtaran 2014; Lüküslü 2016.

6. Please see The Global Gender Gap Report 2017, prepared by the World Economic Forum. In this report, Turkey is ranked 131st out of 144 countries in terms of gender equality, putting it behind many other Asian, Latin American and African developing countries.

7. Marriage is demographically important in Turkey for its commonness and the fact that almost all births are in wedlock. The Demography and Health Survey 2013 shows that the median age at first marriage is increasing. The average age at marriage is 26.8 for males and 23.6 for females.

8. In agricultural areas, women’s participation is regarded as ‘normal’ due to the nature of agricultural work, but this labour mostly assumes the form of ‘unpaid family labour’.

9. See Eurostat, http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Early_leavers_from_education_and_training.

10. See OECD, Society at a Glance 2016: Spotlight on Youth – Turkey, https://www.oecd.org/turkey/sag2016-turkey.pdf.

11. The aim of the employment subsidy program is (i) to encourage the employment of disadvantaged groups (females and youth) and (ii) to mitigate the adverse labour market effects of the 2008 crisis. The program was put into action on 1 July 2008 with Law 5763 and initially introduced with a one-year participation period, then extended to 30 June 2010, with Law 5838. This reform package has mainly targeted young men (ages between 18 and 29) and women above 18 who were not employed as a tax-registered worker in the preceding 6 months. The aim was to create new employment without replacing the existing workers; therefore, subsidies were only given to new employees hired in addition to the yearly average of the number of workers employed before the program. The program offered a direct subsidy to employers by reducing the employers’ contribution to social security payment of new hires for five years (Yeldan 2017, 226).

12. Until the 2000s, active labour market policies (ALMPs) were not a part of Turkey’s national employment strategies. For ALMPs, İŞKUR carries out the following activities: vocational training programs, trainings for entrepreneurship, on-the-job training programs and public benefit work programs (iskur.gov.tr).

13. We see some different living arrangements as well in Turkey: living alone, living with cohabits and/or home mates. But all these kinds of arrangements need family support or paid work.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kezban Çelik

Kezban Çelik is a professor in sociology department at TED University, Ankara, Turkey. In her MA, she studied value of children in Turkey. In PhD dissertation, she had realized research on youth unemployment and unemployment experiences of youth in Ankara and Şanlıurfa, Turkey. She continues to study on sociology of youth.

G. Demet Lüküslü

G. Demet Lüküslü is a professor in sociology department at Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey. After graduating from Marmara University in Istanbul in 2000, she continued her studies in Paris, France at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). In her MA and PhD dissertations, she had realized researches on youth in Turkey. Her PhD dissertation titled “The Contemporary Turkish Youth: The End of ‘The Myth of Youth’?” is being prepared for publication in Turkish. She continues to realize researches on sociology of youth.