One of the biggest issues we face today is that the generation born between 1945-1965 can’t get to understand the advice they give to young people today is largely useless. And one of the most useless among these pieces of advices is the insistence for seeing young people get married.
First of all, under today’s financial circumstances, both the wife and the husband must work to earn a living for the family. A woman can’t get to say today, “My husband will work and I will stay at home”. If there are women amongst you who fancy that, they better come to their senses fast because everyone must get a job.
And if you want to have kids one day, you must work “very hard” since you’ll have to spend enormous amounts of money on your child’s education. Everything you plan about your life will be balanced on a knife edge vis-à-vis such high level of unemployment. 13.4 percent: this is the latest unemployment figure released by the TurkStat. And the youth unemployment rates stands around 25.3%. So, how will these young people get married? Isn’t it only natural that they are taking as much time as they can before jumping into it?
Well, of course it is. But the individuals that were born between 1945-196, who all have their lives sorted out, keep offering free advice, yet useless advice. They are blaming those who want to continue with their lives without getting married for leading an “indecent life”. This is what happens when people think that everything remains unchanged.
The old industrialists have the same tendency as well. They constantly complain about the fact that youth doesn’t want to work for them. And there are also those who always declare that they need people who can work in a stamping shop. Obviously, they still don’t get any of it! Young people who predict that artificial intelligence will dominate further in workplaces over the next decade do not obviously want to work jobs with no future, which leads to bog changes in youth demand for acquiring a profession. Young graduates want to work sports-related jobs, become a social phenomenon or better yet a freelancer, and the trend is rising sharply. On the other hand, it can be observed that the International Labour Organisation’s definition of ‘employment’ does not really match today’s reality. Today, many young people under 18 years of age had the opportunity to earn an income by using technology. All of these recent developments require us to come up with new approaches regarding the measurement of employment and jobless rate. Unfortunately, older generations keep expressing their opinions in a pompous and dogmatic way without knowing what youth wants or what youth needs.
“Young people are smarter….”
Older generations say that young people should get married so everyone, but foremost of all, the government, must start reducing high cost of living and high rate of unemployment. But, considering today’s facts, it would a little foolish to expect unemployment rate will achieve single-digit in a short period of time. If government continues to insist on keeping its construction industry-based economic model, we will have to wait for 2023 to see unemployment ‘may’ reach sing-digit.
People don’t seem very convincing when they counsel young people to get married in an environment full of false promises except erecting new building or constructing an enormous seaway, and full of barriers limiting women’s access to work.
It’s not very realistic to expect that two individuals can live their lives together who are constantly concerned about how they will ever manage to make a living in this life where people have no more tolerance for each other. Besides, the fact that family members always try to interfere with the private lives of the newlyweds using the pretext that they have provided financial aid for the wedding or other marriage related-stuff is among the biggest issues that newlyweds are facing today in Turkey.
As the men in Turkey are expected to o earn money; while a woman’s job is to look after the home and family, young people today have already started a silent revolution to destroy this outdated approach. Although older people continue to see two people living together without getting married as an indecent way of life, the situation is completely different. An expert with whom I appeared live on television last week said, “The income I earn today would not let me get married” Today, either party losing its job is a big inconvenience to the harmony of the home. This is one of the biggest realities underlying divorce. However, today’s youth pay very close attention to such details and take their next step accordingly.
In short, despite the huge pressure of a dangerous group called “everyone else”, young people are declaring their independence and freedom. I suggest older generations to try to blame themselves this time, instead of accusing popular culture, television shows or social media of corrupting their children.
