Labour Migration from Turkey to Western Europe (1960–1974)

Abstract

By joining the migratory labour movement to Western Europe in the early 1960s, Turkey for the first time in its history became a country of large scale economic emigration. It is here argued that the growth of the number of Turkish workers in Europe during the recruitment period, and their development as the largest of the foreign labour contingents in Germany and the Netherlands, was due to the exhaustion of south European countries' labour reserves. Taking into account other viewpoints and discussing their inadequacies, the emergence of conditions for external migration and the specific ‘push’ factors are explored on the basis of Turkey's socio-economic structure. The characteristics of Turkish migrants are likewise addressed according to these issues.