Docile and understandable Unemployed Youth: Unemployment Experience within Family Dynamics

Kezban Çelik (Middle East Technical University, Department of Socioloy, Ankara, Turkey)
[BIO]

Aim:

Although we know the general causes of youth unemployment, we do not know precisely how unemployed people combat them. We know that unemployed young people are mostly those who seek jobs for the first time and that they therefore remain out of the coverage of unemployment insurance schemes. Furthermore, there is no systematic and established assistance/service scheme for unemployed youth in Turkey and the only available assistance against poverty is family-focused. Also, limited availability of jobs as well as their low wage and incidental character further increase the importance of family and family solidarity. All these bring family to the fore in discussions related to ways in which young people experience unemployment.

This study is the part of my PhD thesis on "Unemployment Experience of Individual, its Meaning for Family and the State: Youth (Aged 18-24) Unemployment in Turkey". The present study focusing on youth unemployment, experience of unemployment within families, family support during spells of unemployment and coping strategies.

Introduction:

Unemployment has profound effects at all ages, but the implications are particularly significant for young people. Because they are at a point in their lives where issues of identity, differentiation from parents, sense of self and autonomy are very important (Hartley, 1992). Most studies focusing unemployment and families suggest that unemployed individuals and their families are exposed to many adverse events and circumstances (Ström, 2003). However, it is not yet clear what role unemployment plays in this, and what is the significance of related factors. Because the family and youth unemployment are generally considered separately (Allat and Yeandle, 1992).

Not only in Turkey but also other countries young people who stay on with their families are increasing. The reason why young people are living with their families is that the intergenerational solidarity makes it possible for most families to face the economic difficulties resulting from the long time that young people have to wait before entering the labor market (Sigritta, 2001).

The transition to adulthood is the process by which young generations pass from family dependence to autonomy. Independence and autonomy can be reached in various ways: by leaving the parental family, by access to more or less steady employment, by starting to cohabit with a partner or by setting up a family of one’s own. The time required to carry out the whole process is in and of itself important and it is depends on cultural and economic factors. Unemployed young people mostly stay with their families in Turkey. Traditions and norms shape this pattern. In Turkey, there are young adults living with their elders even if they have jobs and this is considered "normal." Parting takes place mostly in cases of marriage or finding jobs elsewhere and except such cases young people may well keep staying with their parents. This pattern, however, should not be considered in the context of "postponed adulthood" or "prolonged adolescence" which were addressed in relevant literature.

Though working differently for young males and females, the norm relating to the process is quite common. Still, while young women leave their homes mostly when getting married or attending university, for young males these occasions may include military service or finding jobs somewhere else. Also, it is considered that a young person should get married at a certain age even if he or she has no job. Families provide support in such cases and married couples start living with the family of one of the spouses. Married couples leave when circumstances allow for it. Therefore, standard indicators of adulthood including "parting with family", "having job" or "getting married" may not point out to the state of adulthood in Turkey.

In literature, until a few years ago, family was mainly considered a residue of traditional societies predating the formation of the welfare state. The family was perceived as an out of date institution, less and less responsible for the production of welfare. Things are different today. Recently, G. Esping-Andersen recognized that the family is "an all-important actor", "... perhaps the single most important social foundation of post-industrial economics" (Esping-Andersen, 2000: 67). The family is therefore a key institution together with the market and the State when it comes to providing social welfare.

The division of responsibilities between state and family has both positive and negative outcomes. In this division, if state take care much more responsibilities then families as a carrier, this would be "dependence culture", on the other hand if family becomes as a basic supporter of the unemployed youth people, can it led to some unwanted outcomes? If family carry out all kinds of responsibilities related with the unemployed members, or if the family is the only unit to give support to the unemployed youth, does it has negative effects on unemployment experience?

When we remember the welfare regime of Turkey, we can say that "an articulation of a relatively modernized institutional body together with strong family/kin networks which can be seen as alternative means of social control and organization" (Rittersberger-Tılıç, Kalaycıoğlu, 1998:78). Family mutual help, inter-generational transfers and reciprocity in kinship networks are very dominant in Turkey including welfare related issues (Kalaycıoğlu, Rittersberger-Tılıç, 2000). In this point this question is very important: does family encourages the limited development of welfare state in Turkey? Or quite contrary, does weak welfare provisions of the state led to strong family ties in Turkey? Finding an answer to this question is really difficult or there is no absolute answer to this question. However, family is an important institution providing social welfare in Turkish society, especially difficult time of individuals like unemployment.

Method

Interviews in this survey cover a sample consisting of families of young persons in the age group 18-24, who registered to the Turkish Employment Center (İŞKUR) within the last quarter of 2003 at least 6 months prior to the date of sampling. Basing upon information obtained from these in-depth interviews, family strategies in regard to unemployment are addressed. It was considered that qualitative methods would be more appropriate to better grasp the experience of unemployment and how this experience affected family life and processes. There were altogether 30 families interviewed (15 in Urfa and 15 in Ankara).

Finding and Discussion

The present study focusing on youth unemployment, experience of unemployment within families, family support during spells of unemployment and coping strategies suggests the following conclusions. In experiencing unemployment, the following factors are influential:

• Gender, marital status, health status, education status, presence or absence of father, income level of the family, number of dependent family members.

All families interviewed live with their unemployed children. Families give significant support to their children while they are unemployed. Children are dependent to their families in many ways including the following:

Material and economic dependency: Family provides for sheltering, nutrition, education and health needs. From most basic needs to cost of cigarettes and short travels in the city are all covered by families. It is with pocket money given by fathers mostly that young people go out to seek job, hang around with friends, etc.

Dependency in social resources: Family also contributes by taking active part in the job seeking process of their children. In this process, family elders inform all relatives, acquaintances and surrounding environments about this job seeking and all kinds of efforts are made to find their children jobs.

Moral dependency: The earlier forms of dependence (material and social) bring along dependency to family values as well. This means dependency in terms of the definition of works that females may do, conceptions about "good work", whether he/she can move elsewhere for jobs, getting married and with whom to marry, having children or not. This type of dependency leads to the reproduction of earlier family patterns.

It is quite difficult to make class wise inferences from 30 families interviewed. Still, it seems possible to distinguish three groups on the basis of family income. Mothers in all families are housewives and families interviewed may be divided into three groups as poor, medium and high-income families with respect to the income of fathers as breadwinners.

Poor families: These are families of relatively young (around 40) parents with many children as well as families where family head is absent either for demise or separation. In such cases the unemployed family member is usually the eldest or the next-to-eldest child of the family and the family has many dependent members. Absence of a father seriously affects the family including the necessity of child and adolescent labour.

Also, since the "transfer" of education, employment or income by elders to young family members is very limited, what is actually transferred is poverty in the case of these families. Indeed the children of such families have shorter periods of education ending up in primary or secondary school graduation. Their chance of finding decent jobs in the labour market is very limited. Young people, consequently move to the informal sector to enter any job they can find there. The spells of unemployment are shorter in these families. Kinship relations and solidarity is weak. This makes these families further dependent to outside help. Indeed their neighbours and the State help them to some extent. Moreover, while material and economic dependence falls in these families (since there is almost nothing to share) moral dependency becomes more pronounced. This creates a vicious circle where children of poor families get married and make children without having reasonable jobs and children reproduce the pattern they transferred from their parents.

Middle families: Fathers are present and they have relatively good jobs either in the public and private sector. Middle income families mostly face female unemployment on the part of their daughters. The number of dependent members in the family is relatively few. Fathers’ level of education is relatively higher. These families have longer background in urban life and they cherish more modern ideas about their daughters’ education and employment. Compared to the first group they are able to transfer more to their offshoots. Kinship ties and solidarity is maintained and there is almost no need to lean on the State or neighbours. Having not many problems in daily subsistence, these families do not want their children do whatever job they can find and behave selective in terms of job criteria. They also show more tolerance to their unemployed children and therefore ease the experience of unemployment.

High-income families: These are families where fathers are either self-employed or government workers with relatively good pay and where the number of children is few. The unemployed child is usually the youngest of the family. In this case, father’s good remuneration on the one hand and few family members to share this income on the other place the family in a relatively better off status. High-income families are those who can support their unemployed child face no problem of daily subsistence and can support their relatives let aside receiving any outer support.

But in all circumstances family (whether at low, middle or high-income status) does as much as it can for its young members and functions as social safety net.

The effects of family types on dependency

Two keywords frequently uttered while reflecting the experience of unemployment epitomise the whole process: "Security" and "certainty." These two words shape all expectations and desires of both young people and their families. Feeling secure is a critical perception. It is because of this that both families and young people regard "government jobs" as best jobs that can be found. Even if being a public servant does not pay much, it is still preferred for the security and certainty in entails.

Widespread youth employment enable employers to further extend working hours, shorten weekly days off, make employees work on special holidays, pay lower wages and avoid insurance. Both young people and their families are much affected by this situation. It is important in two respects. Firstly, because of jobs available in the market and attitude of employers, families tend to expect more from the State and want it to take sides with them. Secondly, there is a real gap between private sector and government jobs in terms of regularity, observation of standards and wage rates which make the latter much more favourable. Observing this situation, families’ identification of "good jobs" with government jobs is further consolidated together with their expectations from the State.

However, it becomes more and more apparent as an irreversible trend that there will be fewer jobs offered by the government sector and the State consequently tries to avoid such expectations. To put it more bluntly, it is not this kind of State that neo-liberalism would like to see. At this point, the widening distance between the expectations of families and actual tendencies weakens families’ faith in the State as a "benevolent father." In other words, the normative perception relating to work ethics and values is derived from a comparison between government jobs and private sector jobs. This naturally prevents both the emergences of values needed for popular adoption of neo-liberal policies and the development of an entrepreneurial culture.

What young people experience is being dependent and the stress or pain it gives. Being dependent to fathers is a feeling that hurts. Young people do not want to be in this situation after a certain age. What is problematic for them is to put extra burden on their families. In other words, independence is not desired for its inherent merits such as autonomy but for ceasing to be a burden on others.

Leaving aside those who are very poor, others are critical about the State for their high level of expectations. Still insistent on regarding the State as a "protecting and benevolent father", families feel themselves in a vacuum after noticing that the State can satisfy these expectations only to a limited extent. This has an eroding effect on the faith in the existing system including its established institutions.

If family becomes as a basic supporter of the unemployed youth people, it led to transfer of inter-generational inequality from one generation to the next. Generally, family solidarity is taken for granted in Turkey. However, the family fails or does not have the resources to enable it to provide for the maintenance of all its members, the young people find themselves in a vulnerable situation. In this situation inter-generational transmission of social and cultural capital become a mechanism for social reproduction, including the reproduction of social inequality.

State can satisfy young people expectation only to a limited extent; this has eroding effect on the existing system including its established institutions. Moreover, young people are generally defined as a "learner citizens" or "citizens in the making", thus if young people depend heavily on their family, they are learning being a member of their family, instead of being a citizens. Thus, this would be a turning point as loyalty to the state can be replaced by loyalty to their families only. I will discuss this issue later at the 'political activities of unemployed youth' sub-heading

In ways in which unemployment is experienced by young people, the most influential factor is fathers’ income since mothers do not work. Family income is the most important factor determining the economic, social and psychological well-being of families. Young people at first expect to get in jobs suitable to their education and skills only to make compromises later and lower their standards after a period of unemployment. How long this period will last depends on family income. If the spell of unemployment gets longer and difficulties that families face become more daunting, they tend to move to "any available job." Being aware that their alternatives are quite limited, young people make a rational choice and try to maintain their good relations with family elders. At this point one can clearly observe a switch to "my State is my father." Listening to what their families say, act accordingly and even getting married if necessary are all ways of coping up. It should finally be noted that almost all young persons enjoy the support and understanding of their families in their hard times.

Conclusion:

If family becomes as a basic supporter of the unemployed youth people, can it led to some unwanted outcomes? I would want to say "yes" to this question. The answer of this question is yes because this dependence led to:

Transfer of inter-generational inequality from one generation to the next. Generally, family solidarity is taken for granted in Turkey. However, the family fails or does not have the resources to enable it to provide for the maintance of all its members, the young people find themselves in a vulnarable situation. In this situation inter-generational transmission of social and cultural capital become a mechanism for social reproduction, including the reproduction of social inequality.

State can satisfy young people expectation only to a limited extent; this has eroding effect on the existing system including its established institutions. Moreover, young people are generally defined as a "learner citizens" or " citizens in the making ", thus if young people depend heavily on their family, they are learning being a member of their family, instead of being a citizens. Thus, this would be a turning point as loyalty to the state can be replaced by loyalty to their families only. In sum, unemployment seems to be a dynamic situation, which is coped with in different ways, depending on the resources, social capital, and orientation of the individual and their families.

© Kezban Çelik (Middle East Technical University, Department of Socioloy, Ankara, Turkey)

REFERENCES

Allat, P. and Yeandle, S. (1992) Youth, Unemployment and the Family: Voices of Disordered Times, (Routledge: London)

Esping-Andersen, G. (2000), "Who Is Harmed by Labour Market Regulations? Quantitative Evidence." Pp. 66-98 in Esping-Andersen and Regini

Hartley, R. (1992); "Young Adults and Family Change Coping with Parental Separation, Divorce and Re-partnering", Family Matters No: 32 August, pp. 22-27.

Kalaycıoğlu, S. and H. Rittersberger-Tılıç (2000); ‘Intergenerational solidarity networks of instrumental and cultural transfers in a sample of migrant families in Turkey’, Ageing and Society, 20(5): 532-42

Rittersberger-Tılıç, H. and S. Kalaycıoğlu, (1998) ‘National state and the individual: alternative strategies of consent "from below"’, Asian and African Studies, 7(1): 69-79

Sigritta, G.B. (2001): "Family and Welfare Systems in the transition to the Adulthood", Paper presented at the Seminar "Family Forms and the Young Generation in Europe", organized by the European Observatory on the Social Situation, Demography and Family at the Austrian Institute for Family Studies, Milan (Italy), 20-22 September 2001.

Ström, S. (2003); "Unemployment and Families: A Review of Research", Social Service Review, volume 77 (2003), pp 399-430.

1.3. Instabilität und Zerfallsformen gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhänge: Soziale Ungewissheit, Unsicherheit und Prekarisierung

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