Change in Social Protection Regime for Migrants in Turkey and Its Effects on Labor Markets

Abstract

Turkey has been exposed to constant migration flows in the historical process, and Anatolia has been shaped as a migration geography. The civil war in Syria in 2011 became a turning point in migration to Turkey. The Turkish social welfare regime, which mostly covers immigrants from Europe, has been reshaped after the influx of Syrian refugees. This study deals with the impact of the change in the social welfare regime on the migration movements towards Turkey. On the other hand, the effect of opportunity areas in the labor market in Turkey on foreign migration, which has been in a constantly increasing trend after 2011, is evaluated. The welfare regime models to which the countries belong are shown among the main motivations of the migration mobility to that country. In this respect, the access of immigrants to a range of social rights is evaluated according to the welfare regime of immigrant country. In this context, the social protection regime for immigrants is analyzed based on Turkey's welfare regime model. The literature on migration in Turkey mostly tends to deal with Syrian migrants and the problem of mutual integration and exclusion of this group. However, increasing migration movements in recent years put forward labor migration in migration from different geographies to Turkey. In this respect, the reasons of why immigrants prefer Turkey are discussed based on both the scope of the social protection regime and the opportunities in the labor market. While the social protection regime tends to cover mostly Syrians under Temporary Protection, the increased mobility of other migrants to Turkey is largely due to opportunities in the labor market.