Migrants workers, wages and labor markets: an economic model
In: Social, Economic and Political Studies of the Middle East. Vol. XVI, p. 124-137
"This chapter focuses on the individual emigrant Turkish worker and presents a model which attempts to explain why the average worker desires to migrate, the manner and timing in which be allocates his earnings abroad, and his aspirations upon return to Turkey. Worker's earnings abroad are disaggregated into a country and puroüse matrix, namely (a) standard of living maintenance in Turkey and Germany and (b) asset accumulation in Turkey and Germany. Determinant social and economic factors are presented and analyzed. Recent survey results are presented in an attempt to verify the major hypotheses of the model and ascertain major policy-oriented implications with special reference to (a) private rates of return, (b) employment impact, including skill acquisition and increased mobility, and (c) wealth effect in terms of utilization of savings. Because Turkey ranks as the primary supplier of emigrant labor to West Germany and workers' remittances represent the largest single source of foreign exchange earnings for Turkey, labor importatio obviously has and will continue to have significant social and economic ramifications for both supplier and recipient economies." ((en))