116 Ahmet İçduygu
3.3 The economic, social and political consequences of
emigration for Turkey
A careful examination of the consequences of international migration for
Turkey prompts the following three pivotal questions: f irst, what are the main
consequences of emigration; second, how do these manifest themselves; and
third, by what means were they brought about? Answers to these questions
are not easily known. Most of the research concerning these consequences
has elaborated on the economic aspects – as could be anticipated from
both the unquestioned importance of these conditions and the relative ease
with which they can be measured. Nevertheless, both the results of this
research and the conclusions to be drawn from it are extremely variable. For
instance, there are still complicated answers offered by research on whether
the economies of the various regions in Turkey are better, stronger or more
eff icient as a consequence of emigration. The research f indings on the social
consequences of migration for the whole country are similarly varied.
Some of this variety and inconclusiveness can be traced back to the
fact that the consequences differ for each individual actor involved in the
process, as the needs and perspectives of individuals and of the family
members of migrants, their communities and their countries of origin and
destination can hardly be expected always to coincide with one another.
Some of the variety is occasioned by differences in the theorising used: the
‘equilibrium’ model versus the ‘conf lict’ model (Day 1985). Theorising based
on the equilibrium model, for instance, either presupposes that the relief
of pressure on the job market involves no loss of production, as those who
leave are partially or entirely unemployed, or assumes that social harmony
is maintained through the emigration of possibly disruptive elements, such
as political or religious dissenters. By contrast, theorising based on the
conf lict model emphasises that emigration includes the loss of a labour
supply in which substantial quantities of human capital have been invested;
it also highlights the depopulation of the rural areas.
As a result of this variance in points of view in research f indings, there
is a need to refocus in order to make a comprehensive assessment of the
economic, political and social consequences of emigration for Turkey. We
need to know more than we do about the consequences for the sending
countries of migration that is specif ically international in character; and
we need to know about these consequences at the individual and group
levels, not solely at the level of the nation as a whole.
As has been the case in other migrant-sending countries, the results of
emigration from Turkey have been analysed as a mixture of benef its and