International migration has become a crucial economic issue over the last two decades. Migration plays an important role of economic development for a country. One important phenomenon that international migration raises is how migration impacts upon receiving countries. This research proposal addresses one of the largest waves of forced migration that the world came to face in recent history. The eruption of the Syrian conflict, which ignited in March 2011, has sent refugees to many regions in the world. What started as a diminutive internal displacement problem quickly expanded into a large-scale crisis, one that shed across borders into neighboring countries. Turkey alone has been hosting around 2.2 million refugees. The purpose of this research is to identify whether Syrian refugees impose a positive or a negative economic impact on Turkey. This research proposal looks at the impact of these flows on certain economic outcomes, such as labor markets, consumer prices and housing rents in Turkey. The study is positivist-quantitative and draws on data from the European Social Survey. It is expected that the findings will yield important implications for policymakers in Turkey.
The civil war in Syria, which ignited in mid-2011, has sent refugee shock waves through many nations in the world. The neighbors of Syria (e.g., Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan) have been afflicted the most. Based on the United Nations gures, the total number of registered Syrian refugees has exceeded 4.2 million as of December 2015.
This study uses data from 2011 to 2017 to analyze the economic impacts of migration for Syrians. This research allocates the investigation into two parts; in first part, empirical evaluation is made through using econometric tools, where unit roots test, cointegration test as well as Ganger Causality test has been run between two variables such as Growth Rate of Refugees and Economic Growth Rate. There is a cointegration between these variables. Government policies and strategies are accentuated concerning migration to display the position of government in this issue. Finally, recommendations are made to have advantageous migration pattern as well as most efficient use of migrant and their sent payment.
This exploratory research aims to contribute to a qualitative understanding of causes, means and effects of Syrian influxes.
The aim of this proposal is to analyse migration patterns from Syria and whether it is permanent, temporary; legal or illegal. The research also addresses various migration networks and the role they have on impacting certain economic outcomes in the host country.
The proposal will attempt to approach both institutional, such as public or private labour mediating actors, and informal, such as affinity, community or friendship based channels, both legal and illegal migration networks.
• To evaluate the economic changes brought by Syrian exiles at personal, family and sending community levels.
It allows us to assess whether migration leads to workers’ exploitation, to family disorganization and dependence, and to community aging. Furthermore, we should be able to figure out if Syrian migrations leads to personal, family and community well-being through the investment of remittances, through the transfer of skills and experience acquired abroad and through the construction of trans-national networks.
– ……………. Summarised the flow of Syrian exiles in two stages: an initial jolt causing a quick and voluminous flow toward the closest neighbor (2012 and 2013) trailed by a selective search for a new permanent home as the wait gets longer (from the second half of 2014 on). Immediately after this initial shock, the Turkish government set up numerous accommodation camps close to the Turkey-Syria border and offered subsidized food, health, education, and other services to the refugees, which led to a massive number of refugees crowding around the camps. Overall, those two years of the exile in crowds can be portrayed as a period in which both the choice to relocate and the location decision inside Turkey are for the most part exogenous to the area and employment inclinations of Syrian refugees.
……………As the International Labor Organization (ILO) points out, "the size of the convergence, and the resulting economic difficulties confronted by both Syrians and the communities makes access to recruitment a problem that needs to be addressed."
This concise aim to incorporate the prosperity of existing search to light up some key issues arising in the debate. The IRC believes that an exhaustive awareness of the evidence will aid policymakers and humanitarian actors to enforce adequate policies and projects to address the instantaneous requirement for access to safe employment both for Syrian evacuees and the most vulnerable host regions.
The IRC’s accessible review of qualitative research, quantitative research and public commentary emphasizes some key issues about the influence of Syrian refugees on host community labour markets.
Syrian workers have been a feature of host labour markets. In some countries, job competition is mainly between Syrian expatriates and migrant workers, not host communities. Across the country, however, the recent flow has aided in the driving down of wages.
Syrian employees have been a playing a part of the Turkish migrant labour pool for a long time before the civil war, appealed by the draw of higher wages and proximity to Syria. Most Syrian evacuees mainly work in the abundant informal markets of host communities. Predominantly, this sector have been served by migrant workers, including Syrian workers, long before the immigration of Syrian evacuees.
As a result of historical trends as well as recent host government policies and practices further confining Syrian exiles' entrance to the formal sector rivalry for jobs has been largely with other migrant workers in informal sectors, mainly construction and agriculture.
While many occupations taken by Syrian and potentially vagrant workers are those host community workers would not want, the current deluge of exiles has prompted a decrease in wages as refugees are willing to take lower pay due to their constrained circumstances.
• More research is needed to examine the effect of prohibiting or restricting Syrian work in host nations on sectors reliant on Syrian labour before the crisis.
High unemployment has been a feature of territorial labour markets well before the Syrian war and is brought about by a large number of variables including a mismatch of skills with available jobs.
There is a growing body of evidence that conveys the Syrian crisis has had some beneficial outcomes on job creation in host nations.
• Syrian refugees are highly vulnerable to labour exploitation. Child labour is drastically on the rise in host nations, driven generally by an expanding number of Syrian refugee child workers.
• Syrian exiles and destitute host community members are particularly defenseless to labour exploitation and abuse, as they are frequently working outside the insurance of host countries’ formal labour laws and at risk of deportation if caught working illegally.
Syrian exiles are often salaried well below the minimum wage. Thus, increased poverty and reliance on adverse coping mechanisms such as child labour in order to meet basic needs.
• Many youngsters are the main bread winner in refugee and vulnerable host community households due to restrictions on access to work and relative exemption regarding the exploitation of children in the workplace.
• Syrian refugees contribute positively to host country economies.
• Syrian outcasts have added to host nation economies through expanded investment by both Syrian diaspora and Syrian organizations.
• A report by the World Bank pointed out that 26 per cent of newly registered firms in 2014 had Syrian ownership or capital in Turkey. Syrian venture has quickened industrial activity, creating employment opportunities for both Syrians and Turkish. Across the region, refugees also act as customers, increasing demand for local products including food, services and rents.
• Syrian exiles are consumers and economic actors boosting host country economies at a time when the catastrophe inside Syria is having negative effects on provincial economies.
• Humanitarian aid is helping host countries directly, and through economic programming that supports defenseless host populations to look for some kind of employment.
A typical response in any host community is to blame refugees for existing social and economic crisis. Such populist attitudes dominate amongst expansive segments of the Syrian host nations, with trepidation that Syrian outcasts are taking employments, rising rents and food prices and causing a burden on public services.
• Governments, attempting to avoid political destabilisation in a historically tense region, are responsive to such public sentiments. Moreover, some politicians have sought to play on the feelings of trepidation and prejudices of their constituents to gain political support with the public. Negative public perception has played a prevailing role in shaping host governments’ particular responses to Syrian expatriates’ access to legitimate work, contributing to perpetually tightening confinements and boundaries.
Negative public perceptions of refugees in host regions are urging progressively prohibitive access to work policy responses from host governments.
Politicians play on the fears of their constituents for political gains, prompting boundless scapegoating of Syrian refugees over the area.
The region, in particular Lebanon and Jordan, is vigorously affected by a history of political and socioeconomic tensions between host communities and previous substantial expatriate influxes.
Politicians fear electoral fallout and other negative political repercussions if their governments were to extend access to work for exiles.
• The impact of the Syrian conflict in general has caused greater macro-economic challenges in host nations than effect of Syrian outcasts.
Since the outbreak of the war in Syria, host nation economies, all of which were intensely reliant on trade with Syria, have been affected with direct and indirect fiscal costs. All have lost substantial trade routes through Syria and have had to espouse costly alternative routes, increasing export prices and hurting competitiveness.
In Turkey, the biggest repercussion has been the dramatic decline of trade with Syria. Tourism in Turkey has also been impacted, with tourists coming from Britain and Russia evaluated by one Turkish newspaper to have decreased by 30 per cent.
There have been more extensive macroeconomic and fiscal ramifications of the Syrian crisis influencing regional economies which have been brought about by the Syrian conflict and are separate to the economic influence of Syrian evacuees.
The research methodology will articulate several methods, sources and perspectives. The research philosophy employed is the positivist approach as it is mainly based on facts gained through observations and measurements. This research requires data collection and interpretation through an objective approach, such as positivism. Positivism is an approach to social inquiry that applies scientific method of natural science to study human activity using objective enquiry and thereby presupposes the unity of the sciences. The research findings should be observable and quantifiable. This approach emphasizes on implementing a foundationalist epistemology in the sense that it argues there to be a real, universal reality that exists independent from actor’s standpoints, experiences and knowledge of that reality. Positivism depends on empirical investigation and scientific explanation that lead to statistical analysis of quantifiable observations. The positivist approach is relevant for studies that are seeking to identify patterns and trends within data, and to trace the presence of empirical linkages between variables of interest. It is therefore highly appropriate for a study that examines the impact of Syrian refugees on different sectors of the labour market, consumer prices and housing rents in Turkey. It is also relevant, as it implies no provisions of human interests and assumes the world to be external and objective. This is helpful because this research does not evolve around peoples’ perceptions.
Empirical research could be conducted using a quantitative method approach to collect measurable data in a numerical format. This data could be analyzed using standard statistical techniques. However qualitative data is helpful for understanding the “why” rather than the “what” of social phenomena, and therefore tends to be used where the research needs to take into account perceptions or individual experiences. Some drawbacks of qualitative research is that it is often been accused of lacking inn validity and reliability, because the research investigator is responsible for interpreting findings, and may therefore colour those findings with their own subjectivities. A mixed methods approach employing both strategies may overcome the weaknesses inherent in both the qualitative research approach and the quantitative research approach. However, the mixed methods approach can be time-consuming and may not be recommended for small-scale research especially that the number of Syrian refugees fluctuate regularly over a short time period. Thus, setting up mixed methods approach would be required to be implemented every time period as peoples’ perceptions change in response to different number of Syrian influxes. This would therefore be costly. The use of qualitative data would not be necessary because the research is more concerned with numerical trends.
As a result, quantitative approach is the most suitable because it is relatively straightforward, since established tools and techniques are available to aid the researcher both in the gathering of the data, and in the data analysis. To add more, as the researcher would be examining correlational relationships between different sets of variables of interest, quantitative method would be of advantage because it accommodates using rigorous methods, such as gathering data from a representative sample. The conclusions that are yielded from the study are likely to be valid, reliable and generalizable. Nonetheless, quantitative approach does not facilitate probing, or depth of understanding of observed statistical relationships. On the whole, quantitative method is most adequate with the positivist philosophical framework being employed.
Gray (2013) states that research can be exploratory, descriptive or explanatory in nature. Descriptive research is used to quantify, measure and examine variables of interest, typically using a quantitative approach (Gray, 2013). This is used to develop instruments that can be used in further research. Explanatory research is a research that attempts to connect ideas to understand cause and effect. This occurs to describe and explain what is going on. Given that descriptive and explanatory approaches take longer time to gather, they are thought to be unsuitable for this study because the data related to the topic changes over a short time period.
Rather, an exploratory approach is proposed because of time and resource constraints, this study aims to contribute to a better understanding of migration of Syrian refugees and the consequences it brings back on Turkey. Exploratory research is research that seeks to explore new insights or uncover new understandings about the research topic. This approach is best suitable when the research investigator’s understanding of the issue is imprecise, or where the topic of inquiry is new, or understudied. In this sense, the exploratory research gathers basic information that can be used to support further research.
The methodological approach could be primary or secondary in nature (Bryman and Bell, 2015). Primary research refers to research whereby the investigator gathers original data for the sole and express purpose of addressing the research questions. There are a number of advantages to the primary approach. First of the researcher has the ability to maintain control over the nature of the data collected and the way in which it is collected nature (Bryman and Bell, 2015). In addition, Gray (2013) is emphatic that while gathering primary data novice research investigator acquires important skills about the research process that could not be acquired using the secondary approach. However, for some research questions, it is not advisable to gather original data (Procter, 1993). This is particularly the case where a representative sample is needed, or where the data may be sensitive in nature such as wage data (Bryman and Bell, 2015). In such instances it is advisable to use secondary approach (Quinlan, 2011). This involves the reanalysis and re-examination of data that is already in existence. A key advantage of this method is that the researcher does not have to carry the burden of designing original research instruments, identifying possible research participants, contacting those participants, dealing with refusal and dropouts, and physically collecting the data nature (Bryman and Bell, 2015). Proctor (1993, p. 257) also emphasises that “data obtained in this way is likely to be higher [in quality] than a relatively inexperienced researcher can hope to obtain”. For these reasons, a secondary approach is proposed for the study, involving undertaken a secondary analysis of a large database.
The data that will be used for the labour market analysis is the Labor Force Survey (LFS) micro-level dataset. it is compiled and published by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat). The LFS provides very detailed information about the survey respondents’ social/demographic characteristics and labor market outcomes. The national labor force statistics are produced from the LFS surveys. For consumer prices, I use the TurkStat’s item-level dataset, which is used to calculate the of cial CPI gures in Turkey.
Consumer prices and housing rents are considered as well. Retail prices (including taxes) are collected for 437 items in the entire country. Regional prices are collected based on regional categorization, which is consistent with the regional informa-tion in the LFS. For housing rents, we use the Income and Living Conditions Survey (ILCS)— again produced by the TurkStat—that provides extensive cross-sectional information on housing, labor market status, poverty, income level, social exclusion, demography, and health. It should be noted that there are no refugee observations in any of the datasets.
The access to other labour migrants will be made through the “snow-ball” method and will be based on the information provided in the previous interviews. In practical terms, the field research will attempt to identify several migration networks and to “follow” these networks.
Since a secondary approach is being employed, it will not be necessary to collect any additional data. However, the European Social Survey (2016) is comprised of a vast number of variables. Therefore, the researcher will need to make appropriate decisions about the variables that will be retained for inclusion in the study, and those that will not be necessary for the data analysis. These decisions will be made on the basis of an in-depth review of the existing literature on the motherhood wage penalty (Procter, 1993). This will help the researcher to identify the factors and variables that are believed to impact the motherhood wage penalty, and to compare these factors with the dataset, retaining for inclusion any that are deemed to be crucial. The preliminary literature review has already identified some variables that are known to be of importance. This includes the age of the woman, her race or ethnicity, her marital status and the number of children that she is responsible for looking after (Crittenden, 2002; Bernard and Correll, 2015; Gough and Noonan, 2013; Budig and England, 2001).
The European Social Survey data is available in a range of formats including rich text, Stata and SPSS (The European Social Survey, 2016). The researcher will download the dataset to the appropriate software programme, and prepare the dataset by applying the previously discussed inclusion and exclusion criteria. The dataset will then be divided between women with children and women without children. Descriptive and bivariate statistical will be used to compare the wage rates of these two sets of women (Bryman and Bell, 2015). In the final stage of the analysis, the researcher hopes to run a series of regression analyses in order to identify the factors that contribute to the wage penalty (if one has been observed), and to identify whether these factors are stronger or weaker than motherhood. The data results will be presented in tabular and graphical format, as appropriate.
There are, of course, limitations associated with the proposed methodological approach. The dataset that will be used to conduct the analysis is a cross-sectional dataset (The European Social Survey, 2016). This means that the data is collected at a single point in time from one set of respondents, rather than at several points in time, repeatedly from the same set of respondents. While the cross-sectional approach is useful in providing a snapshot of current scenarios, it is less useful at generating causal laws (Bryman and Bell, 2015). In other words, using this approach it will not be possible to definitively state that the presence of children has impacted on the wage levels of the women managers and professionals included in the sample. This can only be achieved using a longitudinal dataset. Rather, the cross-sectional approach can only be used to infer correlational relationships (Bryman and Bell, 2015). There are other limitations associated with the use of the secondary dataset. The data is gathered from individuals across Europe, which means that it is difficult to account for contextual variables in evaluating the research findings. For instance, research shows that the motherhood wage penalty in some regions, particularly in Scandinavia, are lower than in other regions of Europe, such as in the Mediterranean, because societal beliefs in Scandinavia about the proper role for women in the workplace tends to be more progressive, and this is reflected in the prevailing legislative framework that governs how employers can and should act (Budig, Misra and Boeckmann, 2012).
As noted by Quinlan (2011) there tend to be fewer, if any, ethical implications associated with the gathering and reexamination of secondary data. For instance, principles such as informed consent and confidentiality do not apply, since the data has already been gathered. However, a key ethical principle that must be followed is the principle of academic rigor. This means that the researcher must approach the study in a consistent, objective and thorough manner, and report the findings of the study with honesty and integrity (Quinlan, 2011). The researcher plans to adhere to Quinlan’s (2011) recommendations in this respect.
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