Labor-Market Consequences of Internal Migration in Turkey

The article provides the theoretical background, focusing on the possible causal mechanisms through which the inflow of internal migrants may affect natives' labor-market outcomes. Furthermore, the net effect of low-skilled migrants on natives' total employment depends on whether low-skilled migrants and high-skilled natives are substitute or complementary inputs. To the extent that they are complementary, the adverse effect of low-skilled migrants may be lessened. During the period, as a result of a shift from state-oriented to market-oriented policies, the Turkish economy had been restructured by privatizing public enterprises, making institutional changes to attract inflows of foreign capital, removing trade restrictions, and promoting export-oriented policies rather than import substitution polices. Compared to the first two periods, the native-migrant distinction in the urban areas becomes less clear-cut in the third period because the migrant population in urban areas contains those who migrated from other urban areas and those who migrated from rural areas.