Özet:

This study tries to reveal how women and men from two different generations understood family and marriage, how their thoughts about marriage and their experiences about marriage transformed along with modernization. It has been approached to the subject through theories trying to understand and explain individualization, which is an indicator of modernization towards this goal. Another purpose of the study is to provide an illustrative picture of the married participants, trying to understand how they perceive their experiences and daily life practices towards the organization of the family and marriage. The theoretical framework of this study, which deals with the transformations throughout modernization, is supported by the Second Demographic Transition Theory of Van de Kaa, with Bauman, Giddens, Simmel, Beck and Beck-Gernsheim’s ideas covering the “individualization” approach to the modern era. Research methods have been applied to work. The study was conducted with people living in the province of İzmir, one of the cities where low fertility was observed; a total of 24 participants, including 12 women and 12 men from the 1st generation, and a total of 23 participants, including 13 women and 10 men from the 2nd generation. In total, the study conducted with 47 married participants applied a deep conversation technique. The content analysis technique has been used in the analysis and interpretation of categorized data. According to the findings of the study, at the establishment stage of marriage, the second generation participants were able to make more independent and individual decisions than their families. As a result of the research, 1. from Generation 2. As it passes to the generation, it clearly shows that the first marriage age increases, the rate of fertility decreases, the findings that the births are delayed, if it is necessary to individualize, coincides with the claims of the Second Demographic Transition Theory.