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JOURNAL OF YOUTH RESEARCHES
Employment in the Rural Youth in Turkey and the Future of Agricultural Employment
as of the year 2016 and 92.3% of these are urban population and 7.7% of these are
rural population (TÜİK, 2017/a). Therefore, it is known that the rural population rate is
higher. The reason of this is 6360 Law which forms Metropolitan Municipality Status
and this increases 15 points of the rural population rate. It is not possible that rural
population decreases from 22.7% (TUİK, 2013) to 7.7 % in 2012. Calling rural areas
as urban does not attribute them an urbanism feature in socio-economical and spatial
terms. So, rural population has an important role in the socio-economical status of a
country.
In spite of the importance of agriculture, the socio-economic issues, applied agri-
culture, employment and education policies, EU harmonization process, climate are
bringing producers to the stage of rupture from agriculture. Especially, the tendency
to abandon agriculture in the third and young generation is particularly high. Particu-
larly in rural areas, depending on the increasing interest in education and the fact that
agriculture is not preferred as a profession, young people from migrate from rural
areas to cities for work opportunities and education and the increasing tendency of
young people to abandon agriculture is an important problem that is seen in almost
every region.
Turkey is facing a serious problem of unemployment as it is in all countries of the
World. The factors that distinguish Turkey from some developed countries and cause
this problem to reach more serious dimensions are that the youth unemployment rate,
which is a special area of unemployment in the country, is quite high and Turkey has
a predominantly young population structure. Looking at the problem of young unem-
ployment, a more complicated structure emerges compared to the problem of gen-
eral unemployment (Bayraktar and İncekara, 2013). Moreover, since young people,
especially in statistics and politics, are not divided in rural and urban but are treated
as a whole, the problems cannot be completely determined and solutions cannot be
produced.
The aim of this study is to address the neglected employment problems of rural youth
in Turkey and to make suggestions by discussing the issues according to the obser-
vations and the data obtained from field work in accordance with the purpose. Firstly
the importance of agriculture for Turkey has been revealed; the current situation of
employment and unemployment statistics for rural youth is examined; employment
policies are discussed; the reasons for unemployment, the tendency to abandon rural
areas and agriculture have been revealed; SWOT analysis has been carried out in
terms of rural youth and employment and some suggestions have been developed.
