WP2 Turkey: Country Report - İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi | AB Enstitüsü

Social Impact of Emigration and Rural-Urban Migration in Central and Eastern Europe
VT/2010/001
as difficult as ever. A new phenomenon in this regard, that might alter the picture, is the fact
that recently a new wave-of highly-skilled and of younger generation is heading for Turkey,
eager to engage in entrepreneurial activities. This is certainly a window of opportunity for
Turkey.
Internal migration has always been a source of concern since the 1960s, creating various
challenges such as poverty, exclusion, discrimination, unemployment and inequality. Ruralurban
migration has brought about sharp demographic deficits across the geographical
regions creating enormously big cities like Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Antalya and Bursa. Turkey
is still trying to come to terms with these demographic deficits in a time when the big cities
are going through a process of deindustrialization in a way that leads to the double-migration
of the earlier unqualified and/or semi-qualified migrants to the neighbouring cities such as
Istanbul-Gebze (İzmit) nexus. 45
Nowadays, what is really essential for Turkey is to remedy detrimental effects of forced
migration originating from the East and Southeast Turkey. So far, incentives such as “Return
to Village” have not successfully worked out. There are recently some EU-funded projects
designed to generate attempts to integrate the IDPs and their children into the urban space.
One should also acknowledge that this problem cannot be separated from the larger Kurdish
issue that the country has been so far unable to provide a long-lasting and sustainable
solution, and therefore to the extent that the general problem continues to exist, IDPs’
specific needs may not be answered fully.
7.2. Policies to be taken by different actors
International Migration: Turkey’s major challenge with respect to the emigrants is the
intensity of the debates about the lack of integration into their countries of settlement. The
current tendency is reducing integration to cultural assimilation, which corresponds to a
process portrayed by the return of assimilation and homogenization. One could challenge
such a tendency in at least two ways: Firstly, one could say that this is a rather outmoded
definition of integration, which fails to include structural, political, civic, marital,
identificational, and behavioural components of integration. Secondly, one could also argue
that the integration of migrants can no longer remain a one-way process in the age of
globalization. It should rather be transnationalized with the involvement of not only the
receiving country but also the sending country and supranational or international
organizations like the European Union, Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (Kaya, 2009).
On the other hand, Turkey should also take active part in laying down the ground to promote
circular migration, involvement of diaspora in economic development, and validation of skills
acquired abroad.
1. Turkey should adopt a more flexible legal framework that offers legal migrants the
possibility of free movement between Turkey and the countries of destination whilst
preserving their immigration status in the country of destination. Blue Card system can
be substantialized in this regard for those emigrants who relinquished their Turkish
citizenship, permitting them to keep their social, economic, civil rights other than
political rights;
2. In order to promote development, Turkey should try to have bilateral agreements with
the countries of destination to launch training and Manpower-raising skills programmes,
transfer of competence, know-how and flows of foreign capital and conduct
development projects coupled with development-aid. Turkey should co-operate with
destination countries to compensate the loss of skills through policies aimed at
45 The work of Tezcan (2011) is an excellent piece in the sense that it eloquently explains the way in
which migrant families of Istanbul with various qualifications, or with no qualification, are recently
migrating to Gebze, a district between Istanbul and the neighbouring city of Izmit towards the east.
Tezcan portrays how industrial production shifts from Istanbul to the hinterland of the city.
Final Country Report Turkey 34