Indebted Futures: Youth Debt,Familialism and Delayed Adulthood in Turkey’s Welfare Regime…

Abstract

This article examines how student indebtedness shapes the transition to adulthood within Turkey’s familialist welfare regime. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 19 university graduates who received student loans, it reveals that debt is not merely a financial burden but a relational condition mediated by labour market precarity and familial dependence. While familial support helps young people navigate unemployment and low-income jobs, it also delays autonomy, producing ‘uneven pathways’ into adulthood. Debt reinforces intergenerational dependencies and deepens existing inequalities, particularly for those without stable employment or family resources. The findings show that in Turkey’s welfare regime—marked by limited public support and strong familial expectations—debt operates as both a survival strategy and a constraint. The study contributes to youth and welfare literature by situating debt within the cultural and economic logics of the Southern welfare model, highlighting how young people negotiate independence and familial connectivity under structural pressures.

Introduction

The normalization of indebtedness in the lives of young people, particularly through student loans, is becoming increasingly prevalent, constituting an inescapable part of everyday life (Horton, 2017). As Harrison et al. (2015) note in the UK context, student loans may be viewed more positively—especially by youth from lower socioeconomic backgrounds—because they facilitate access to higher education. However, given young adults’ unemployment, precarious work and vulnerabilities in the labour market, the negative consequences of indebtedness outweigh its role as a facilitator. Under these circumstances, youth indebtedness imposes a form of financial discipline that significantly constrains the experience of early adulthood. As this condition becomes more widespread and normalized, it contributes to the erosion of young people’s capacity for autonomous self-formation (Pérez-Roa & Ayala, 2020), subjects their future imaginaries to the pressures of painful financialization (Threadgold et al., 2024) and engulfs their everyday lives in stress, anxiety, shame and isolation (Coffey et al., 2024).

However, the experience of indebtedness is not uniform; it varies markedly across political-economic contexts. As Dardot and Laval (2014) argue, neoliberal governmentality deliberately shifts risk from collective management (by the welfare state) to individual burden. Yet, how this risk is buffered differs according to the varieties of welfare regimes. While Pérez-Roa (2019) highlights the contrast between individual responsibility in Montreal and politicized collective issues in Chile, Majamaa and Rantala’s (2019) study of the Nordic context reveals that even in social democracies like Finland, risk management is shifting from public institutions to private spheres, increasing reliance on parental assistance. This suggests a global trend where neoliberal rationality blends formal welfare with informal, moralized support.

The intersection of welfare regimes and debt is particularly distinct in Turkey, where the privatization of risk takes on a specific ‘familialist’ character. In the Turkish context, the state’s withdrawal does not simply mean that needs are met through the market; rather, neoliberal technologies of agency render families responsible (Kaya, 2015). Families serve as informal safety nets where state support is limited (Yılmaz, 2017), becoming both morally and practically responsible for mitigating socioeconomic risks like unemployment (Çelik, 2008; Çelik & Lüküslü, 2018). Consequently, the burden of managing debt is offloaded onto the family, reinforcing intergenerational dependencies and widening inequalities.

To explore how this unique welfare regime shapes youth indebtedness, this study draws on interviews with 19 recent university graduates who received state-sponsored educational loans (Kredi ve Yurtlar Kurumu (KYK)) in Turkey. Focusing specifically on student loans issued by the Credit and Dormitories Institution (KYK) is analytically significant because these state-sponsored education loans constitute the most widespread and institutionalized form of youth credit in Turkey. Unlike consumer or microloans, KYK loans are low-interest and framed as an extension of educational policy. For most participants who became indebted while pursuing higher education, KYK loans represent the very first debt encounter in their lives. Aligning with Crusefalk’s (2023) study on the Swedish context, we suggest that credits, loans and debt are associated with reaching and realizing certain stages of adult life. A significant number of students rely on these loans—832,271 students in 2024 alone (GSB, 2025). The monthly KYK loan amount for the 2025 academic year is 3,000 TL (KYGM, 2025), corresponding to roughly 14% of the monthly minimum wage (22,104 TL; CSGB, 2024). KYK loans do not accrue interest and repayment begins 2 years after graduation through monthly installments with no income-based repayment scheme in place. Consequently, these loans serve as the focal point of our analysis regarding the transition to adulthood.

The respondents’ narratives reveal that youth indebtedness is experienced differentially at the nexus of employment relations, familial bonds and individual ambitions. While participants, as holders of tertiary degrees, express strong middle-class aspirations and a desire for financial autonomy through well-paid professional positions, structural vulnerabilities in the Turkish labour market often render these ambitions unattainable for some. Consequently, young people grappling with unemployment or precarious, low-wage employment navigate their indebtedness by leveraging family support.

That said, our study moves beyond class-based inequalities, such as wage disparities and employment precarity, and focuses on cultural lines, particularly in the uneven capacity to achieve autonomy from the family. By doing so, our findings challenge the dominant narratives of debt-induced anxiety found in Western literature. Unlike the stress and shame emphasized by Threadgold et al. (2024), debt in our study is often framed through a sense of familial comfort and security. Indeed, diverging from Majamaa and Rantala (2019), we contend that this support mechanism extends beyond a ‘complementary’ function. For youth facing structural vulnerabilities in employment relations, characterized by long-term unemployment, precarity or low wages, it effectively constitutes a form of dependency. Thus, we argue that this protection comes at a cost. Crucially, this support creates a paradox: it offers security but carries connotations of control and surveillance that delay the transition to adulthood.

To unpack this paradox, we employ ‘deferred lives’ (Davis & Cartwright, 2019) and ‘familial connectivity’ (Joseph, 1993) as our analytical lenses. We utilize the concept of deferred lives to illustrate how economic precarity and debt-dependence anchor young adults in a state of suspended adulthood. However, we argue that this temporal deferral is deeply rooted in a relational mode of selfhood, what Joseph (1993) conceptualizes as connectivity. Familial protection fosters a sense of self that is inextricably linked to the family’s desires and patriarchal structures, thereby limiting social existence beyond the domestic sphere. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that within the Southern welfare model, familial support functions not merely as welfare provision, but as a mechanism that produces new inequalities along cultural lines—specifically, the uneven capacity to achieve individual autonomy.

Familialism and Southern European Model

Esping-Andersen’s (1990) classification of welfare states into the liberal, social democratic and corporatist regimes has contributed to more studies on how these regimes shape individuals’ lives. In response to critiques and contributions to this typology, Ferrera (1996) introduced the Southern European Model as a distinct welfare regime with its own specific characteristics. Ferrera (2000) identifies key characteristics of Southern European welfare regimes and argues that these, when considered collectively, represent a distinctive model. At the core of this model lies familialism. Material and non-material transfers within the family define the nature of the Southern European Model, which, compared to other welfare regimes, relies more heavily and extensively on family resources (Moreno, 2006). Research focusing specifically on the Southern European Model has observed significant shifts in the roles of women and families as welfare providers, as well as in young people’s transitions to adulthood. These changes primarily affect the family, which is considered the key institution within the Southern European welfare regime (Andreotti et al., 2001).

The analysis of welfare regimes has also been further developed through critical insights from feminist scholars as well (Arts & Gelissen, 2002). This approach has contributed to the research on how welfare regimes influence young people’s life courses and their transitions from youth to adulthood. As a result, welfare regimes have also been categorized based on youth welfare and the transition from youth to adulthood (Buchmann & Kriesi, 2011; Chevalier, 2016; Walther, 2006). Walther (2006), who played a significant role in incorporating the transition from youth to adulthood into social policy research, examines how different youth ‘transition regimes’ shape young people’s biographical experiences of moving into adulthood. In this regard, Walther (2006) analyses how varying socioeconomic, institutional and cultural contexts shape the degree of choice, flexibility and security available to young people. He identifies four youth transition regimes and places Italy, Spain and Portugal within the sub-protective model, highlighting that limited institutional support forces young people’s transitions to depend heavily on the extent of familial assistance. Chevalier (2016) proposes a two-dimensional typology of youth welfare citizenship. The first dimension concerns social citizenship, based on income-support programmes for young people, and examines how they receive income support when unemployed, including education-related benefits (grants and loans), social assistance and family policies. The more familiarized these benefits are, the less young people can claim support independently, resulting in lower coverage by social benefits. The second dimension concerns economic citizenship and focuses on how education and employment policies shape young people’s opportunities to acquire skills and integrate into the labour market. Within this framework, social citizenship distinguishes between familialization, where young people remain dependent on family support, and individualization, where they are recognized as autonomous adults, while economic citizenship concerns skill distribution and its impact on labour market integration. Combining these dimensions, Chevalier identifies four youth welfare citizenship regimes and classifies countries such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, France and Belgium as ‘denied youth citizenship’, where familial support prevails and economic citizenship follows selective strategies, meaning that the welfare state does not provide young people with the means for independence (Chevalier, 2016).

The neoliberal restructuring of welfare regimes has brought about global shifts in the transition from youth to adulthood. Within this context, comparative studies have demonstrated that young people in Southern European welfare regimes face similar challenges and trajectories. The transformation of welfare systems has both increased women’s responsibilities as providers of welfare and deepened young people’s dependency on their families, particularly in the Southern European Model. Research on transitions from youth to adulthood and from school to work indicates that these processes have become prolonged and fragmented due to factors such as rising youth unemployment, extended periods of education and the growing flexibility of labour markets (Buchmann & Kriesi, 2011; Walther, 2006).

Familialism and Denied Youth Citizenship in Turkey’s Welfare Regime

Studies analysing Turkey’s welfare regime have placed the country alongside Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece due to its similarities with the Southern European Model (Buğra & Keyder, 2006; Gough, 1996). Since the 1980s, Islamic charity networks and the family have been promoted as protective buffers against the effects of neoliberal policies (Buğra, 2017; Buğra & Keyder, 2006). Yazıcı (2012) emphasizes that familialism is not a phenomenon introduced by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey’s ruling party since 2002, but that this period is marked by the systematic promotion of an idealized three-generational, three-child family through social policy reforms and programmes. Under the AKP, rising Islamic conservatism has been paired with neoliberal discourses positioning the family as the primary institution responsible for individual welfare (Kaya, 2015). As income-based social assistance expanded without inclusive welfare policies, familial and kinship networks increasingly substituted for state responsibilities (Buğra, 2017). These policies also restrict welfare access for those who do not fit the idealized family model (Yazıcı, 2012). Consequently, the family has become the main support system for coping with unemployment, poverty and care needs (Şahin Taşğın, 2021; Samav & Sallan Gül, 2021), while care responsibilities have shifted further onto women. This shift has unfolded alongside neoliberal reforms and EU-oriented gender equality policies that prioritize sameness over structural inequality (Dedeoğlu, 2012; Kılıç, 2008).

In Turkey, young people face high youth unemployment and a markedly elevated youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) rate, encompassing both unemployment and inactivity (TURKSTAT, 2025). They struggle to access stable, well-paying jobs and are often employed in informal and insecure positions (ILO, 2024). Young people also remain largely excluded from direct social spending, as public expenditures targeting youth are mostly limited to education, particularly higher education (TURKSTAT, 2023; Yentürk et al., 2014). Building on this, Yılmaz (2017) applies Chevalier’s (2016) two-dimensional youth welfare citizenship typology and classifies Turkey under the ‘denied youth citizenship’ model. Likewise, Çelik (2008) examines how Turkey’s welfare regime affects young people’s experiences of unemployment. According to the research, Turkey’s regime is characterized as a sub-protective welfare model that assigns families the responsibility of ensuring youth security, a model that reinforces young people’s economic, social and moral dependence on their families. In this context, Turkey’s welfare state shapes young people as individuals who remain dependent on family support. This body of literature highlights the macro-structural features of Turkey’s welfare regime, which form the institutional and cultural context shaping young people’s transitions to adulthood. Building on these insights, our study examines how such macro-level structural constraints are experienced and negotiated within young graduates’ life-course trajectories, thereby connecting the dynamics of familialism with the processes of indebtedness, relational dependence and delayed adulthood.

This situation is also highly relevant for young people who have completed their university education. The massification of higher education has produced increasing numbers of graduates who are unemployed or employed below their qualifications due to skill mismatches, indicating that a university degree does not guarantee higher employment levels. According to ILO (2024, p. 50), over the past decade, the employment advantage of higher education, compared to lower educational levels, has increased for young men and women only in high-income countries. Moreover, the relationship between education and NEET status is complex, and Turkey is not an exception (ILO, 2021, p. 16). In Turkey, prolonged compulsory education, difficulties in school-to-work transition and shifts in educational quality have raised the NEET risk among those aged 25–29 (Kocakaya et al., 2021, pp. 251–286). This highlights that a higher education diploma alone does not guarantee direct entry into the workforce or access to stable employment and that the assumed link between higher education and better employment outcomes is increasingly questioned. The massification and prolonged duration of education have also caused NEET rates to appear lower than they actually are while also altering the meaning and value of having a university degree.

The commodification of education, shaped by the ‘one university in every province’ policy since the 1980s, has contributed to the devaluation of diplomas. As shown by Yalçıntaş and Akkaya (2019), the rapid expansion of universities in line with this policy has produced a growing number of graduates who are unable to access the positions or salary levels associated with a bachelor’s degree, thereby contributing to the devaluation of diplomas. Meanwhile, the financial burden of education has increasingly shifted to individuals and their families, prompting the state to expand scholarships and loans. In 2024, 627,723 students received scholarships, while 832,271 received student loans (GSB, 2025). Since the majority of this income support is provided through loans, it is based on indebting students. As these loan programmes continue to grow—promoted as a welfare instrument—they have become the primary financial resource for young people after family support. However, rising youth unemployment and declining household purchasing power have made repayment more difficult. Compared to earlier cohorts, today’s graduates face greater insecurity, uncertainty and unemployment, alongside the added pressure of student debt (Kaya Erdoğan, 2021).

Methodology

This study aims to understand how the experiences of indebtedness among young graduates, who became indebted through KYK loans during their university education, shape their transition from youth to adulthood within the context of Turkey’s welfare regime. It further aims to explore how subjectivities are constructed through indebtedness, drawing on the perspectives of the young people themselves. Adopting a qualitative research approach, the study employs a narrative research design. Through an analysis of participants’ life narratives, it examines how indebtedness shapes their everyday experiences, the process of transitioning into adulthood and their aspirations for the future.

Participants were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling, and participation was voluntary with informed consent. The study focuses on university graduates aged 25–29 who received KYK student loans, a cohort well-suited to the research aims because repayments begin 2 years after graduation, enabling participants to reflect on repayment experiences and challenges during this transition. The primary inclusion criterion was having held a KYK loan. The sample includes graduates from diverse fields such as social sciences, law, engineering, and arts and humanities, who, at the time of interview, occupied varied labour market positions: some were securely employed, others unemployed or intermittently engaged in precarious, low-wage work. Their narratives offered insights into structural challenges and early labour market precarities. To ensure diversity, the study included graduates working in their field, those experiencing skill mismatches and unemployed young adults. The final sample consisted of 19 participants aged 25–29; 11 women and 8 men, with 13 residing in Istanbul and 6 in Ankara, the two cities with the highest concentration of university graduates. For ethical reasons, all names were anonymized.

Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted both face-to-face and online. The interview questions consisted of open-ended questions exploring participants’ life narratives, work experiences, family relations, debt-related decision-making and the role of indebtedness in shaping everyday practices and future aspirations. Fieldwork was carried out by the first author, whose background aligned with the inclusion criteria and closely resembled that of the participants. Because the researcher shared similar educational trajectories and financial pressures, the interviews were characterized by an ease of communication grounded in shared reference points. This positional proximity often encouraged participants to speak openly about their experiences. However, it also required careful reflexivity to ensure that assumed similarities did not obscure differences or shape participants’ narratives through implicit expectations. Even so, the interviews did not pose challenges for data collection, as participants were generally open and cooperative. Most did not find discussing indebtedness difficult, framing debt as a consequence of their living conditions and a necessary means of survival.

The study’s questions primarily focused on KYK loans, examining how participants decided to take out the loan, how it affected their financial situation, whether they faced difficulties during repayment and how they perceived the government’s interest cancellation policy and its implications for their overall indebtedness. During the interviews, however, it became evident that some participants also held other forms of debt. These participants offered additional insights into how these debts were incurred and how the interplay of multiple debts shaped their everyday lives and financial well-being. Data analysis was conducted through narrative analysis, which helps illuminate how individuals construct identities and position themselves within macro- and micro-level social processes. This approach shifted the focus from understanding indebtedness solely as an economic issue to examining how it is embedded in everyday life. By centring personal experiences, it provided insights into how welfare regimes and the social policies they produce are reflected in individual narratives and lived realities.

Uneven Pathways to Autonomy: Debt, Family and Delayed Independence

In the context of limited financial resources during higher education, many university graduates in Turkey turn to precarious forms of student employment and/or state-sponsored student loans to manage their living expenses. Although these loans are typically insufficient to cover the full cost of student life, they nonetheless serve as a critical—if partial—source of income. Yet the reliance on such credit arrangements generates debt relations that extend well beyond graduation, shaping the early years of adulthood in significant ways. For many young people, entering adult life already indebted, and often entangled in broader cycles of consumer credit, leads to uneven pathways into autonomy. The narratives of youth reveal how such trajectories are shaped at the intersection of young people’s labour market positions and familial relations, both of which play a central role in mediating the lived experience of debt in conditions of precarity.

Between Opportunity and Dependency: Uneven Pathways Through Debt and Familial Support

The post-graduation lives of young people are shaped directly by the burden of debt. Yet they navigate this debt-laden phase under the shadow of labour market structures. Although a university degree is typically expected to provide an advantage in the job market, current realities tell a different story. According to ILO data (2025), in 2023, 13.3% of the labour force aged 25–29 was unemployed; among university graduates in this age group, the rate rose to 14%.

The employment situation of Turkish university graduates must be understood within the context of the unprecedented expansion of the higher education system, driven by the ‘one university in every city’ policy. This initiative led to a dramatic rise in enrolment and a substantial oversupply of graduates (Dinçer & Kolluoğlu, 2025). Despite this quantitative growth, ILO’s (2022) recent report on youth employment in Turkey indicates that tertiary degree holders in Turkey are increasingly likely to face unemployment, as educational attainment alone is not a reliable predictor of employment, nor does it guarantee access to stable work. A large proportion of job-seeking graduates struggle to secure employment, often accept salaries far below their expectations and confront exclusionary mechanisms such as nepotism within the labour market.

Thus, youth indebtedness emerges as a complex phenomenon that unfolds within, and is differentiated by, class-based inequalities. Here, class inequalities do not refer solely to the unequal economic distribution of resources but also to the uneven distribution of individuals’ capabilities, as Walby (2009) argues. In this sense, the transition into employment is shaped by the differential opportunities young people possess, resulting in distinct pathways that emerge at the intersection of employment relations and family relations. Those with well-paid and/or secure jobs are often able to frame debt as a manageable phase. In contrast, for those who face prolonged unemployment or work in precarious, low-paid or temporary jobs, debt becomes a significant burden. In this sense, the education-to-employment transition is marked by uneven pathways of indebtedness. Under the weight of financial obligations, many young people are eager to escape unemployment as quickly as possible.

Following graduation, the job search process, intensified by the flexibilization of the labour market, places young graduates in increasingly vulnerable positions, as those with no or limited experience are often compelled to accept precarious, low-paying jobs that do not match their qualifications. Due to the difficulties in finding employment in their own fields, graduates accept jobs outside their area of specialization or turn to precarious, low-income positions with demanding working conditions, particularly in cases of prolonged unemployment. For instance, Eren, a graduate of Radio and Television, explains that he turned to work in different sectors due to the difficulty of finding a job in his field and the long working hours of 15–16 hours on set.

After graduating from the department, I worked in many different sectors—behind the camera, in front of the camera, on digital content platforms. Then I changed my profession and became a chess teacher. I worked as a chess teacher for one or two years, but then I had some missing documents, I quit that job too. Now you’re talking to a bartender. (Eren, bartender, lives with friend)

Irmak, a sociology graduate who struggled to find employment in her field, was dismissed from an internship at a social media agency. She remained unemployed for a significant period before working as a wedding photographer, a position she eventually left due to the demanding working conditions. She is currently engaged in an unpaid internship. Irmak’s narrative reflects her sense of being trapped between economic necessity and the inability to work in her area of specialization.

I need to earn money. I’ve even come to terms with the idea of working in a café, becoming a barista or a waitress, because what else can I do? I just can’t quite accept it, that’s all. (Irmak, master’s student, lives with partner)

The involvement of familial support in coping with challenges in the labour market facilitates young people’s job search processes and enhances their bargaining power within the labour market by enabling them to avoid or leave low-paying jobs with unfavourable working conditions. For example, the narrative of Ümit, a graduate student who tries to sustain himself through temporary project-based work and familial support, serves as an illustration of this situation.

If it ever gets to a point where my family can no longer support me, that basically means I won’t be able to survive—so I wouldn’t think too much about what the job is. (Ümit, master’s student, lives with partner)

Çelik (2008) emphasizes that, within the context of Turkey’s welfare regime, the family emerges as the most significant institution for unemployed youth, due to limited welfare state provisions and the scarcity of adequately qualified jobs in the labour market. In this regard, while familial support plays a crucial role in managing the experience of unemployment, it simultaneously generates various forms of dependency—economic, social and value. Among the participants, some secured employment directly within their field of study and experienced a relatively smooth transition from education to the labour market. In such cases, familial ties emerge as a critical resource in facilitating access to employment opportunities. Conversely, for those already contending with economic insecurity, low wages and precarious working conditions, indebtedness served to further compound their vulnerability and hinder the attainment of financial independence.

Participants who did not experience difficulties with loan repayment were primarily those holding stable employment and earning a regular income. However, this was not the case for all, as unemployment, low-wage positions or additional debts constrained many participants’ ability to meet their repayment obligations. In this context, Deniz, whose repayment period is about to commence, articulated the burden of indebtedness as follows:

instead of starting life from zero, you start with debt … I’ll have to pay it off with family support again because I’m not working at the moment. But if I were working, I definitely wouldn’t leave the repayment to my family. (Deniz, unemployed, lives with partner)

As noted by Moreno (2006), material and emotional transfers within the family constitute a defining feature of the Southern European welfare model, which relies more heavily on familial resources than other regime types. He emphasizes that the lack of opportunities for young people to ‘stand on their own feet’ is often compensated by reciprocal support mechanisms among household members. This dynamic also resonates with the Turkish context, where family-based solidarity plays a central role in mitigating the risks associated with debt and economic insecurity.

Familial support also serves as a key resource for repaying student debt. However, in some cases, this support is supplemented or replaced by additional borrowing. For instance, Irmak reported attempting to repay her undergraduate KYK loan using a newly acquired graduate-level KYK loan, effectively entering a cycle of debt. Among participants, one of the most common strategies for coping with indebtedness was to postpone repayment as much as possible, deferring financial obligations to a later time. However, deferring repayment often remains a temporary solution. One of the consequences of this approach is the imposition of a hold on bank accounts as a form of collateral for the postponed debt. For instance, Eren experienced a restriction placed on his bank account due to the postponement of his loan repayment.

Last week, I had money in one of my bank accounts, and they placed a restriction on it … They took more than half of my money, and they split the debt into installments … I wasn’t expecting this debt right now, since I have other debt, I’m trying to pay, plus rent, plus just surviving, so it’s going to be tough for me. (Eren, bartender, lives with friend)

Participants who were unable to receive financial support from their families, or were themselves expected to contribute, tended to be more economically vulnerable depending on their employment status. Conversely, as the level of familial support increased, this vulnerability was mitigated, allowing family support to function as a buffer against economic insecurity. In this context, employment status and the availability of familial support are key determinants of the level of economic insecurity. For instance, Eren and Ali, who reported receiving no financial help from their families, faced heightened vulnerability when combined with insecure employment:

My parents don’t expect much from me. They know they can’t really help. They support me, hoping I can succeed on my own. But when I first got into debt, they didn’t want me to take it on. (Ali, motor courier, lives with his mother)

I don’t receive anything … Sometimes they even ask me for money. I’m not that close with my family—we only talk about money. If I have it, I help; if not, I say I don’t. (Eren, bartender, lives with his friend)

These narratives reveal distinct forms of vulnerability shaped by variations in employment status and familial support. The absence of family support not only limits individuals’ capacity to refuse low-wage and precarious employment but also heightens the likelihood of incurring debt and exacerbates difficulties in repayment. Indeed, for Ali, working as a motorcycle courier, the KYK loan is just one of several debts. Similarly, Eren, now a bartender, also carries other debts and reported that his bank account was blocked due to delayed KYK repayments, which further worsened his economic condition.

This context of deepening economic precarity paved the way for new regulatory interventions targeting student debt. Accordingly, a regulation limited the debts of students who had received KYK loans to the principal amount originally disbursed as educational credit (Official Gazette, 2022). Although not a direct form of social assistance, the cancellation of interest reflects key features of social assistance policies—such as temporality, selectivity and political responsiveness—and can therefore be situated within the logic of the populist welfare regime discussed by Yörük (2022). While the regulation eased repayment burdens for many participants, it did not address the structural roots of student indebtedness and was viewed by some as insufficient or unfair, with several participants interpreting the measure as politically motivated and linked to the electoral cycle. Moreover, despite interest cancellation, continued restructuring and late fees meant that the debt burden was not fully alleviated for all.

Familial support manifests in various ways for university graduates, including facilitating access to employment through social capital, enabling postgraduate education, extending job search periods until secure and reasonably paid employment is found, or providing the backing needed to leave unsatisfactory jobs. For participants living with their families, having living expenses fully or partially covered significantly alleviated financial hardship. While most participants received family support, it took diverse forms. As Yılmaz (2017) notes, the ‘denied youth citizenship model’ observed in Southern European countries is also evident in Turkey. The current welfare regime fails to provide most young people with the means to sustain their lives independently of familial financial and relational resources, underscoring that even university-educated youth—despite being primary beneficiaries of state support—remain reliant on familialism.

Familial Support and Connectivity

To better contextualize how young people make sense of delayed autonomy, it is useful to revisit the assumptions behind dominant notions of adulthood. As Lee (2001) argues, the adult/child distinction, often taken as natural and unquestionable, is in fact a historical product of modern social relations. On this view, adulthood does not inherently signify full autonomy or a ‘completed’ state of being; even adults, Lee notes, struggle to reach the normative standards of ‘standard adulthood’ in this age of uncertainty. Yet, as our findings demonstrate, the socially constructed nature of autonomy does not diminish its significance in young people’s lived experiences: participants describe its postponement not as a lifestyle choice but as a condition imposed by the constraints of economic fragility. In the Turkish familialist welfare context, marked by precarious labour markets and weak social protections, young people do not reject the ideal of independent adulthood; rather, they experience its unreachability as a structural constraint that produces compulsory dependence and deferred life trajectories.

Particularly young people in disadvantaged positions within the labour market, those facing prolonged unemployment or confined to insecure and/or low-wage jobs, narrate the ambivalent character of familialism. On the one hand, family support is framed as a crucial source of security that alleviates everyday hardships. Although these accounts occasionally allude to feelings of failure, they remain largely free of the guilt, anxiety or depression often highlighted in the literature (e.g., Coffey et al., 2024; Pérez-Roa, 2019). Forms of support such as financial assistance or co-residence are seen as ordinary and self-evident aspects of family life. Many young people emphasize that they feel no emotional burden when receiving such support, even though challenges associated with unemployment, job insecurity or broader economic instability persist. Still, familial dependence is experienced as a delay in the transition to autonomous adulthood. Even as they describe the comfort and stability provided by familial support, these young people express a sense of having fallen behind in becoming fully independent individuals.

For example, Doğa, who relies on her family’s support to make ends meet, places particular emphasis on the unconditional nature of that support. Yet she also reflects on how this dependence has, in her view, diminished her sense of respectability—especially in the eyes of her family.

It’s not like my family pressures me … Their attitude is like, ‘As long as you’re studying, you’re our child and we’ll support you’. But here’s the thing: in the end, you kind of feel … that they don’t really respect you. I mean, you’re 26, still financially dependent in one way or another, since you’re not someone who earns your own money, you don’t get treated like a proper adult. (Doğa, master’s student, lives with partner)

Similarly, Deniz, who is currently unemployed and dependent on her family’s support, highlights the seemingly effortless and unquestioned nature of that support. Nonetheless, she also speaks to the emotional burden of not having achieved financial independence.

Even if your family doesn’t say anything, you’re like, come on, you’re this age, you should be doing something, you should have a job by now … Being in this situation really wears you down, mentally. There are so many moments when I think, ‘if only I had a job so I could finally handle things on my own’. (Deniz, unemployed, lives with partner)

The dual role of the family in securing individual well-being—both as a source of protection and as a potential hindrance to personal empowerment—stems from the fact that familialism functions as more than just a mechanism of care and support. This dynamic is reminiscent of Sestito and Sica’s (2014) analysis of the Italian case, a quintessential example of the Southern welfare regime, where parents function as ‘active agents of identity’ engaged in a ‘co-authorship’ of their children’s development, creating a complex web of support that can simultaneously constrain independent agency. Family dependence is also narrated as a loss of autonomy that entails direct control and surveillance. While financially dependent individuals who live apart from their families tend to downplay this aspect, it is articulated much more forcefully by those who continue to reside in the parental home. Although the data do not reflect direct narratives of financial dependence on a romantic partner, for participants who lived apart from their families and cohabited with a partner, such arrangements were experienced within shared and intertwined economic realities. Even if participants did not frame this as a risk, these experiences suggest that economic precarity is navigated across relational spheres, extending beyond the family into intimate partnerships.

Owing to various forms of precarity, young people often become socially and economically dependent on their families, giving rise to a mode of selfhood that Joseph (1993) conceptualizes as connectivity. Within this framework of familial connectivity, young people find a space to articulate their desires, needs and preferences in alignment with those of the family. However, this leaves little room for forms of social existence beyond the familial sphere. At this juncture, Joseph (1993) points out that connectivity, when embedded in familial structures of male dominance, can take on a patriarchal character. In such contexts, it is particularly women and youth who develop their sense of self under the controlling gaze of men and elders.

The narratives of the young women and LGBTQ individuals we interviewed resonate with such experience of familial dependence that is shaped by gendered forms of connectivity. While acknowledging the various forms of security provided by the family, they also suggest that their experience of familial dependence extends into the everyday, regulating their movements, schedules and interactions under the moral gaze of family members.

Living in the family home is comfortable, sure, but living on your own is a whole different kind of independence. You’re freer, you can stand on your own two feet. At home, they interfere with everything—it’s tough. You know, the usual: where are you, what are you doing, what time are you coming home, who are you with. (Dilek, unemployed, lives with her family)

I’m 26, I don’t want to go back to living with my family. I’m queer, I haven’t come out to them, and I don’t want to go back to being a closeted person. As long as I’m under their roof, I’ll have to live by their rules. Like all of us—late nights, drinking, whatever else, or just having completely different worldviews. (Doğa, master’s student, lives with her partner)

These narratives illustrate how familial support often comes hand in hand with familial control, particularly in ways that are deeply gendered. While Dilek highlights the financial comfort of living in the parental home, her account also points to the emotional and spatial restrictions placed on her—from questions about her whereabouts to constant monitoring of her routines. Similarly, Doğa, despite having achieved a degree of independence in Ankara, expresses a strong reluctance to return to her family home, where queerness must be concealed and lifestyle choices are subject to moral scrutiny. These examples echo Alemdaroğlu’s (2015) observation that femininity in Turkey is regulated through everyday mechanisms of surveillance and respectability, often imposed within the intimate realm of the family. Familialism, in this context, does not merely provide care and support; it also operates as a disciplinary structure that seeks to shape women’s behaviour under the guise of protection.

Autonomy Delays and the Deferred Temporalities of Youth

Young people’s dependence on their families remains one of the major barriers to establishing autonomous lives. Many enter early adulthood already burdened by debt and either fail to achieve economic independence altogether or do so only through low-paid, insecure work that offers little financial stability. As a result, the pursuit of autonomy is frequently deferred. As Davis and Cartwright (2019) observe, the precarious conditions in which young people are embedded have temporal consequences, encapsulated in the concept of ‘deferred lives’. This concept describes a condition wherein young adults’ transition to adulthood, characterized by achieving secure employment and home ownership, is suspended due to the combination of high debt accrual and income instability. This deferral anchors individuals in a present marked by limited economic resources, hindering their ability to orient themselves towards future aspirations. Thus, the financialized and precarious nature of contemporary youth reshapes how they experience time, adulthood and imagined futures.

For instance, while Irmak deeply values the sense of security her family’s support provides, she frames her financial difficulties as a crisis tied to her stage in life.

Thankfully, my family always had this attitude, like, ‘It’s fine, we’ll figure it out as a family, don’t worry about the money’. … It’s more like … I’m 26 now, and I just feel like I should be handling it myself. I guess it’s a bit of an age crisis. (Irmak, unemployed, lives with her partner)

Umut shares that one of his greatest aspirations is to live alone in Istanbul, although his debts and minimum-wage income make this impossible. He highlights the challenges of affording independent housing in the city on such limited earnings.

The first thing I’d do is move out, but honestly, it just doesn’t make sense in Istanbul anymore. The idea of giving all the money I make to some stranger just so I can sleep in a room—and then turning into a miserable person by the end of the month—I really don’t want that. (Umut, minimum wage earner, living with his relatives)

Both Irmak and Umut articulate a form of deferred life that closely resonates with Davis and Cartwright’s (2019) account of young people trapped in financial precarity and unable to transition into full adulthood. In their narratives, what is postponed is not only financial autonomy but more specifically independence from the family, which is a key marker of adult subjectivity. This reflects what Mitchell and Lennox (2020) identify as the dominant ‘linear benchmark’ discourse, where the capacity to ‘pay your own way’ becomes synonymous with successful adulthood, leading young adults to internalize these economic standards as a measure of their personal success. Irmak expresses a sense of temporal dislocation, describing her reliance on family as emotionally manageable thanks to strong intergenerational support, yet still framing her situation as a ‘crisis’ tied to age and self-respect. Umut, on the other hand, links his deferred autonomy to the material realities of Istanbul’s housing market, where moving out would mean surrendering his entire income for minimal comfort. Irmak and Umut describe family support as normalized and emotionally buffered, yet still constraining. Their experiences suggest a culturally specific configuration of deferred lives, in which familial dependence is both a safety net and a structure that delays adult autonomy, especially the spatial and symbolic separation from the family home.

Conclusion

By situating youth indebtedness within familial dynamics and broader labour market conditions, this article shows how debt functions not merely as a financial burden, but as a mechanism that both sustains and complicates young people’s aspirations for autonomy. In Turkey’s welfare landscape, marked by strong familial obligations, debt becomes a relational and intergenerational practice, navigated within kinship structures. While existing scholarship often highlights the emotional burdens of debt in neoliberal settings, such as shame or anxiety, this study shifts the focus to how youth debt is embedded in the everyday moral, spatial and affective negotiations of familialist welfare regimes. In this context, debt emerges not only as a source of constraint but also as a socially stratified and temporally deferred condition that ties young people to both comfort and control, dependence and independence.

The findings also underscore the uneven pathways of debt shaped by young people’s positions within the labour market. For those who are unemployed or working in precarious, low-wage jobs, family support becomes a vital mechanism of survival. In these cases, debt and dependence are closely intertwined, producing a state of suspended autonomy in which the milestones of adulthood remain materially out of reach. Crucially, debt—particularly student debt—functions as a mechanism that deepens and reproduces existing inequalities among youth. Although education is still framed as a pathway to upward mobility, stable and well-paying jobs remain inaccessible for many. Hence, young people who begin adulthood in already precarious positions often remain caught in cycles of indebtedness and familial dependence, while others with stronger labour market access or family resources may more easily convert debt into opportunity. These trajectories reflect not just individual differences, but structural inequalities embedded in both labour and education systems.