ABSTRACT UNEMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE OF YOUTH IN ANKARA AND SANLIURFA &Ccedil / elik, Kezban Ph.D., Department of Sociology Supervisor : Assoc. Prof. Sibel Kalaycioglu September 2006, 367 pages This thesis aims to analyse how joblessness is experienced by unemployed youth, which factors are involved in this experience, what are their coping strategies and results. Final objective is to understand the relationship between wage work, adulthood and citizenship for young people who are in the process of learning how to be adult. The study is based on the interviews conducted in Ankara and Sanliurfa with 329 young people, who had registered to iSKUR in the last quarter of 2003 and who were approached after six months of registration, 30 families of the unemployed youth and 21 decision-makers of both provinces. The results of the study represent only the survey group. The study found that &amp / #8216 / family&amp / #8217 / is the most important institution in the experience of unemployed youth due to the scarce welfare state implementation and limited number and low quality of jobs created in the labour market. Therefore, family resources are crucial in the management of unemployment experience. It is not a reason itself for unemployment, but poor resources increase the need for wage work of youth labour. Youth who are heavily dependent on family support cope with unemployment in two ways: early adulthood or postponed adulthood. They try to overcome their unclear stage between childhood and adulthood through finding a job accompanied by other criteria of being adult. The former leads to the reproduction of earlier family patterns and intergenerational transfer of poverty, while the latter means to postpone the exercise of adult rights. With heavy dependence on family, unemployed youth learn to be &amp / #8216 / good family members&amp / #8217 / . This has an eroding effect on their trust and respect towards the state and its institutions as expressed by one interviewee, my State is my father. As a result, their chance to become active, participatory, responsible, entrepreneur individuals as required by new system decrease dramatically. Keywords: Wage work, youth unemployment, experience of unemployment.

Wage work, as a norm and institution, is more and more obviously incapable of fulfilling its promises: for gender equality, social integration, meaning, or even equitably meeting our basic needs. Yet, despite struggles for more, less, or better work, there is minimal public protest against work itself. Using qualitative, open-ended survey responses from 34 people who described themselves as resisting traditional work norms, this study explores the ways the participants conceive of work and their resistance to it. A feminist work-critical theoretical lens and reflexive thematic analysis as method are brought to bear on underexplored collective motivations and justifications for resisting work. The results indicate that people are not only driven by individualistic motives to resist work, but see work as in conflict with the basic needs of human connection and caring for social relationships.They also desire even more freedom from work than they have already achieved, and for this freedom to include everybody.

Low wage workers are faced with unique challenges such as shift work, scheduling conflicts, and increased job demands, all of which have the capacity to prevent work and family balance. Recently, supportive supervisors and flexible work arrangements have been suggested as essential to mitigating negative work family outcomes. Due to the underrepresentation of low wage workers in the literature, however, the nature of these relationships in the context of low wage work remains unclear. The present study examined the relationship between family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB) and work family conflict and enrichment as mediated by flexibility characteristics. The sample consisted of 104 supervisor-subordinate pairs working in various retail and fast food industries. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the hypothesized relationships, and although flexibility characteristics were not found to mediate the relationship between FSSB and work family outcomes, the overall model was supported. Results suggest that flexibility characteristics have a significant impact on work family conflict for low wage workers. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Vår tids reformering inom den offentliga sektorn har genererat stora organisatoriska förändringar för den svenska socialtjänsten. Implementeringen av New public management [NPM] och en evidensbaserad praktik [EBP] har resulterat i en marknadsstyrd verksamhet med fokus på effektivitet och produktivitet. Där intentionen om att förbättra och utveckla verksamheten främst genererat ökade dokumentationskrav och fler administrativa arbetsuppgifter för den enskilde socialsekreteraren, vilket följaktligen resulterat i mindre klientnära arbete och en mer stressfylld arbetssituation. En arbetssituation som utifrån dess allvarsamma karaktär blivit ett omtalat ämne för både samhällsforskning, fackförbund och yrkesverksamma socionomer. Mot bakgrund av socialtjänstens arbetsförhållanden avser denna studie att undersöka hur socialsekreterare upplever sin arbetssituation utifrån myndighetens utmanande arbetsmiljö, etisk stress samt de motstridiga krav som förekommer i yrkesutövandet. Studien utgår ifrån en kvalitativ forskningsansats där vi med hjälp av Hoschilds teorier om emotioner, Karaseks krav-och kontrollmodell samt teorier om etisk stress strävat efter förståelse för socialsekreterarens komplexa yrkesutövning och arbetssituation. Empirin utgörs av kvalitativa intervjuer med socialsekreterare verksamma inom individ och familjeomsorgens myndighetsutövning och påvisar i likhet med tidigare forskning på fältet att arbetsbelastningen inom verksamheten är hög. Att de organisatoriska kraven är omfattande och att stressnivån i längden påverkar socialsekreterarens välmående och hälsa. Studien visar att socialtjänstens nuvarande arbetsmiljö bidrar till att flera engagerade socionomer söker sig bort från verksamheten för att inte riskera att drabbas av ohälsa. Empirin synliggör också att bristen på återhämtning ofta skapar en obalans mellan känslan av krav och kontroll, vilket på sikt kan leda till att socialsekreterarens etiska engagemang omvandlas till etisk stress. Genom att synliggöra myndighetsutövande socialsekreterares arbetsmiljö utifrån ett etiskt perspektiv, finns förhoppningen om att vår studie, trots sin ringa storlek, ska bidra till en ny nyans inom forskningsfältet och på så vis medverka till att yrkets etiska aspekter förändras till det bättre. / The reform of our time in the public sector has generated major organisational changes for the Swedish social services. The implementation of New public management [NPM] and an evidence-based practice [EBP] has resulted in a market-driven organisation focused mainly on efficiency and productivity. Reforms that were implemented with the intention of improving and developing the Swedish social service, but instead led to increased documentation requirements and more administrative tasks for the individual social worker, consequently resulting in less client-related work and a more stressful work situation. A working situation which, due to its serious nature, has become a topic of discussion for social research, trade unions and professional social workers. With serious shortcomings within social services regarding the working conditions of social workers, this study aims to investigate how social workers experience their work situation based on the challenging work environment due to the authorities processes, ethical stress and the conflicting demands that occur in their professional practice. The study is based on a qualitative research approach, using Hoschild's theories of emotions, Karasek's demand and control model and theories of ethical stress, we sought to understand the complex professional practice and work situation of the social worker. The empirical data consists of qualitative interviews with social workers working within personal and family counselling services and demonstrates, as previous research in the field has, that the workload within the agency is highly demanding. The organisational requirements are extensive and that the level of stress in the long term affects the well-being and health of the social worker. The study shows that the authorities lack understanding of the working environment which contributes to several engaged social workers turning away from social services so as not to risk suffering from ill health. The empirical evidence also shows that the lack of recovery often creates an imbalance between the sense of demand and control, which overall can lead to the social worker's ethical commitment being transformed into ethical stress. By making visible the working environment of social workers in public authorities from an ethical perspective, it is hoped that our study, despite its small size, will contribute to a new nuance in the research field, we hope furthermore to contribute to a change in the ethical aspects of the profession for the better.