Sermaye Savaşları: Türkiye’de Gençlerin İşgücü Piyasası Avantajlarına Erişme Kanalları ve Sosyal Ağlar
Capital Battles: Labor Markets Benefits Access Channel of Youth and Social Networks in Turkey
In the flexible and competitive labor market conditions of today, social networks can enable young people to find jobs more easily, raise wages, and find jobs more compatible with their skills. It is commonly accepted that social networks in Turkey have similar effects. However, the number of studies done on this subject is very small. In the present study, based on scarcity of relevant studies, the effect of social networks on employment advantages accessed by the young people in Turkey in waged-employment will be addressed.
In this analysis, Bourdieu’s social capital theory will be used. The Bourdieusian interpretation considers the use of social capital in relation to class relations, as it is the case in other resource types. Savage, Warde, and Devine (2005) who base their study on this theory, argue that classes differ from each other in terms of their original source, capital, and asset distribution [CAR’s (capital, resources, assets)]. This study, based on the abovementioned discussions, will be regarded as the theoretical basis on which each class possesses descriptive resources and strategies and aims to use them effectively in its field struggle. The common interpretation in the relevant literature is to describe the working-class (or lower class) with “absolute deprivation” where there is no opportunity to mobilize any source. However, the basic claim of this study is, on the contrary, that social capital is a resource specific to the working classes and constitutes a part of a conscious strategy that creates advantages beyond survival.
Labor market researches by led Granovetter (1973, 1983, 1995) suggest that the individuals supported by social networks can access labor market benefits more easily. Also the results obtained from labor market research are quite consistent with Bourdieu’s capital theory. However, despite this, interest in Bourdieu in the literature has been limited. The main reason, as far as I am concerned is that even though the previous studies demonstrate that the use of social networks in the job-finding process is between 30% and 60%, it is the Bourdieuian approach’s insistence to explicate the network relations with privileges. Instead, I will propose the review of the concept of social capital from two perspectives. According to the first one, Bourdieu considers the social capital a secondary form of resource allocation that constitutes power. Instead of this, social capital should be considered alternatively as an independent factor generating independent effects. According to the second one, Bourdieu emphasized the question of power in his analysis and ignored the lower class strategies. However, as far as I am concerned, social capital should be considered an original resource that belongs to the working-class.
Hypothesis 1: Social capital is an access to a benefits channel specific to the working / lower class in the labor market in Turkey. Access to the specific benefits channel of the middle-class, on the other hand, is the cultural capital.
Furthermore, the differences between the classes are also reflected in the strategies used. The working/lower classes generally use social capital to access employment benefits in the manufacturing sector. Here especially, large-scale manufacturing businesses have priorities. Middle-class young people, on the other hand, search for jobs where they can be employed as managers, and in this respect, the appropriate resource is cultural capital.
Hypothesis 2: The working/lower classes access “good jobs” by being employed at a series large manufacturing firms. In accessing “good jobs, it is crucial for the middle classes to be employed as managers”.
The data used in the present study were derived from the TUIK (Turkish Statistical Institute) Household Labor Force Survey -2016. The sample of young people in the 15-25 age group who were employed as waged employees included 4353 observations. The first phase of the analysis aims to demonstrate the effect of the different resource types available on the labor market conditions. In the analysis, those who replied the question “How did you find your present job?” as “By means of relatives, acquaintances and friends” represented those who used the social capital channel.
On the other hand, cultural capital, focusing on the household profile, was measured by the level of education of the parents, who represented intergenerational relations. In this way, considering the autonomy of the resources, four groups were formed. The first group included those who used the social capital channel, the second group the cultural capital channel, the third group those who used both channels simultaneously, and the last group included those who did not use any channels.
Subsequently, the strategies of different classes to use forms of capital and access benefits were analyzed by the structural equation model. Accordingly, in the labor market, young people in the working/lower classes used the social capital channel intensively. Alternatively, it was found that cultural capital was a powerful resource for middle-class young people. The most important result here is that there is a strong inverse relationship between cultural capital and social capital. Consequently, the class-specific definition of the sources specified in hypothesis 1 was confirmed by the analysis. Furthermore, young people in the working /lower class access the advantages of the labor market by being employed in the manufacturing industry. In contrast, the strategies of the middle-class young people to access advantages focused on accessing managerial positions. These results signify that hypothesis 2 was also confirmed.