Evolving Concerns and Shifting Priorities: Youth Perspectives in Türkiye's Dynamic Economic Landscape

In the neoliberal era, technological advancements and evolving economic dynamics—such as the rise of the gig economy, the widespread adoption of remote work following COVID-19, and the proliferation of automation and artificial intelligence—have reshaped the economic landscape for young adults. These developments have introduced instability in job security, raised questions about essential work benefits, and challenged workers' rights, particularly affecting newcomers to the labor market. Extensive research has examined macroeconomic transformations, such as higher unemployment and increasing layoffs in the private sector, as well as organizational changes in work relations, including precarious work conditions, increased reliance on temporary and contract-based employment, and flexible work arrangements. Furthermore, the psychological impacts of these changing dynamics, including work stress, anxiety, and burnout, have been explored. However, a gap remains in the sociological literature regarding how these shifts influence personal and societal priorities.

This study seeks to investigate how concerns about future conditions—such as job insecurity and the capacity to provide quality education for one's children—reshape the perceived importance of family, friends, leisure time, politics, work, and religion among the youth. Utilizing both quantitative and computational methodologies, this research will provide a comprehensive analysis of the evolving priorities among young adults in Türkiye. Specifically, we will employ regression analysis on data from the last two waves of the World Values Survey (2010-2014, 2017-2022) and conduct sentiment analysis on Twitter data (2019-2024) to examine how these key concepts fluctuate over time in the lives of young people. Drawing on existing literature, we hypothesize that, within the dichotomies of leisure versus work, friends versus family, and politics versus religion, there will be a greater emphasis on leisure, friends, and politics. The results from both methodological approaches will be compared to evaluate our hypotheses about the changing priorities of young people entering adulthood in Türkiye.