100 Ahmet İçduygu
ref lects, both explicitly and implicitly, some gains and occasionally losses,
both for the country and for its people, migrants and non-migrants.
Table 3.1 Turkish citizens abroad in the mid-1980s, mid-1990s and mid-2000s
Mid-1980s Mid-1990s Mid-2000s
No. ’000 % No. ’000 % No. ’000 %
Austria 75.0 3.1 147. 0 4.4 12 7. 0 3.8
Belgium 72.5 3.1 79.5 2.4 45.9 1.4
France 14 6 .1 6.2 198 .9 6.0 208.0 6.3
germany 1, 4 0 0.1 59.3 2,049.9 62.0 1,912. 0 5 7. 9
Netherlands 156. 4 6.6 12 7. 0 3.8 160. 3 4.9
Scandinavian countries 41. 2 1.7 73.0 2.2 51.6 1.6
Switzerland 51.0 2.2 79.0 2.4 79.5 2.4
Other european
countries 42.0 1.8 8 7. 0 2.6 130. 0 3.9
total europe 1,98 4.6 84.0 2, 8 41. 3 85.9 2,714. 3 82 .1
Arab countries 200.0 8.5 12 7. 0 3.8 105.0 3.2
Australia 35.0 1. 5 45.0 1.4 60.0 1.8
CIS countries 0.0 0.0 50.0 1.4 75.0 2.3
Other countries 14 0.0 5.9 245.0 7. 4 350.0 10.6
tot al 2,359.6 100.0 3,308.3 100.0 3,304.3 100.0Source: Figures compiled by İçduygu (2006) from various OeCd and eurostat sources and updated
by the author in 2012
It has been exactly 50 years since the start of large-scale emigration from Turkey
to other parts of the world. Throughout that time, many changes have taken
place in Turkey, and the country is now quite different from what it was twenty
or 30 years ago. There is no doubt that some of these changes are linked to the
dynamics and mechanisms of these established emigration f lows. Although
the country had experienced a series of outf lows of people since the late-
eighteenth century, they were mostly limited to persons with a non-Turkish or
non-Islamic background. Therefore, Turkish emigration, in its ethnic or national
term, is a relatively new phenomenon. Unlike the British, Germans, Italians,
Greeks, Chinese or Indians, for example, the Turks had no particular history
of large-scale emigration in modern times, up until the signing of the bilateral
Turkish-West German Agreement (31 October 1961), which initially permitted
Turkish individuals to enter West Germany on temporary one- or two-year
work contracts and was later expanded to permit the entry of families. In half
a century, then, Turkish men and women have emigrated in their hundreds
of thousands. The great majority of these emigrants went to Western Europe;