Effects of Migration Experience on Labour Income in Turkey
Effects of Migration Experience on Labour Income in Turkey

Summary/Abstract: The migration experience helps immigrants to improve their skills when working or studying abroad. After returning to the home country, upskilling abroad provides benefits to the returnees in the labour market. Recent studies have found that returnee workers set up their self-employed businesses or work as wage earners in Turkey. This research tests the hypothesis that migration experience means higher wages upon return to Turkey using Turkey's Household Labour Force Survey data from 2009 to 2018. The findings confirm that migration experience has a positive impact on labour income in Turkey. Furthermore, the returnees earn more than the overall wage earners with the same education and skill levels. Additional findings show that women in Turkey earn less than men across all wage earners in the average, but that migration experience does not close the earnings gap between female and male returnees. Nevertheless, highly-educated and upskilled returnees contribute more to the economic growth of Turkey; so, the returnees are labour capital gains to improve the home country economy.

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