Research Information System
ICE-TEA 2022 The Eighth International Conference on Economics, Nevşehir, Turkey, 01 September 2022
Turkey locates at one of the junctions of international migration routes. However, its role in
global migration has changed with globalisation. Turkey has been the destination country for
economic immigrants besides refugees with globalisation. These role reversals also forced to
change its policy perspective of Turkey on migration. These days, the integration of immigrants
in Turkey is a controversial issue. In this context, this paper investigates the economic
assimilation of immigrants who migrate as children to Turkey. The main research question is
how the age at migration impacts on wages of immigrants who had been between 0 and 14
years old when migrated to Turkey. In this respect, I analyse the path of wages of immigrants
who entered Turkey before 15 years old under the control of gender, education, years since
migration and immigrant cohorts. For this purpose, I use datasets from the Household Labour
Force Survey (HLFS) conducted by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat). There is a
negative effect of age at migration on wages for this sample without the control variables. In
addition, in accordance with the first results, under the control of years since migration, the
negative effect of age at migration can be lessened with years spent in Turkey. On the other
hand, when I control the migration cohorts, migrating toward Turkey before the school starting
age is highly beneficial for wage improvement for immigrants who entered Turkey between
1980-1989 and 1990-1999.