Theoretical Approaches to Return Migration

The concept of return migration points at persons who return to their country of origin after not having lived there for an extended period of time. Concerning the period of time, it should be differentiated between permanent (1 year according to the UN) and temporary migration (under 1 year).Reference Currle¹

Return migration refers to a migration that is temporary. In the case of return migration, migrants return to their native country by their own choice and after living abroad for a significant period. Most of the migrations to Europe over the last decades can be classified in this category.Reference Dustmann and Weiss²

Return migrants are often differentiated into voluntary and non-voluntary migrants. But these two categories are not easily separable. Voluntary return migration may result from the migrants’ own initiative and the support of the concerning state. Non-voluntary or forced migration may occur due to the migrant being prompted by state authority and support by NGO's.Reference Currle¹ According to Brecht return migrants can also be classified with respect to their intentions.Reference Brecht³

The return of qualified persons trained abroad, return after retirement, return of military staff or development aid workers are considered as examples of circular migration, which is defined in terms of a multiple return.

The major problem concerning the analysis and measurement of return migration is the lack or the poor quality of statistical recording in most European countries. While many countries have registration procedures that allow assessment of the number of incoming immigrants, estimation of outflows of immigrants is less straightforward. There are typically no procedures in place that register the numbers of migrants who leave a country. This is seen as one of the reasons for the neglect of return migration movements in scholarly research (Ref. 1, p. 8).

Schmidt pointed out that the position of immigrants in their phase of life, their family cycle, as well as their age and country of origin, all have a determining impact on emigration.Reference Schmidt⁴ Constant and Massey note that employment status and remittances to the homeland are important factors influencing migration.Reference Constant and Massey⁵ Another finding of theoretical importance is that the higher the qualification of migrants, the higher also is the probability of return migration.Reference Gundel and Peters⁶ According to Bolzmann, Fibbi and Vial, return migration is presently the least popular option for migrants. A ‘third option’ between staying on and returning, namely residence in both countries, is important enough to warrant special attention.Reference Bolzmann, Fibbi and Vial⁷

Different studies on northern European retirees in southern European countries illuminate the motivations for and reservation towards this form of living arrangement (Ref. 7, p. 1371). The extent of this phenomenon among ‘guestworkers’ from southern countries, as in the case of Turkish migrants in Europe, is still not sufficiently appreciated. This dual-location option is adopted by many retired immigrants as well as by those of both relatively higher and also lower socioeconomic status. It is, moreover, increasing despite national regulations that restrict this kind of mobility. In the authors’ view, this option is popular due to the migrants’ perception of borders as ‘gateways’ or ‘openings’ rather than ‘barriers’. They argue that a way of life with cultural, symbolic, concrete and affective dimensions based on contacts in two countries leads per se to dual-residence. Besides such internal factors, there are also external ones, such as the migration policies of the two countries concerned, which influence decisions (Ref. 7, p. 1372).

The symbolic orientations as well as the material and social resources of migrants have a strong influence on preferences for residence in retirement. The first may be summarized as the cultural identity of the older immigrant, ranging from a strong and almost exclusive identification with the native country, to successful symbolic integration into the host country. The second dimension involves social and economic resources, such as incomes, housing and eligibility for subsidized health care services that elderly immigrants require.

Accordingly, the migrants who have a strong symbolic orientation towards their home country choose the return option while those who are more symbolically oriented towards the host society, and in most cases benefit from the advantages of a ‘duality of references’, tend to choose one of the other two options. The determining factor concerning the decision to remain or ‘to come and go for good’ after retirement is their socioeconomic situation. Those who prefer to ‘come and go’ are mostly migrants whose socioeconomic resources are higher, while those with fewer resources rather prefer to stay in the host country. On the other hand, the migrant's socioeconomic situation is not decisive for the option of returning to the native country. Thus, there is an obvious complexity in the decision-making process about retirement. As KingReference King⁸ points out, migrants are subject to complex influences and they develop strategies that enable them to preserve the connections to their host country as well as to their native country, which is a situation the ‘classical’ binary distinction between staying and returning does not imply. As in the case of Turkish migrants in Europe, the emerging pattern is a circulation model that allows migrants to maintain contacts with their origins as well as with both realities that are essential for them. Thus, once social and economic resources permit, this is presently the most popular preference among elderly immigrants (Ref. 7, p. 1373).

Turkey as a Country of Emigration and Immigration

Turkey has actually always been an immigration country for different groups. One of the population flows into Turkey consists of migrants of ‘Turkish’ descent. Between the establishment of the Republic and the mid-1990s, more than 1.6 million immigrants settled in Turkey. Immigration was encouraged and resources for this were provided by the state until the beginning of the 1970s. The settlement and integration of immigrants coming mainly from the Balkan countries as well as the small number of Turkish-speaking Muslims originally fleeing Sinkiang after the arrival to power of Mao Tchetung in 1949 was supported by the responsible bureaucracy. The encouragement of Turkish speaking communities after the collapse of communism in the Balkan countries, the increasing possibility of crossing borders, the expansion of business and closer cultural relations between Turkey and the Balkan countries, the pressure for these communities to migrate to Turkey, have all decreased and consequently this ‘traditional’ immigration into Turkey has stopped.Reference Avcı and Kirişçi⁹

Part of the immigration into Turkey consists of refugee movements. Following the onset of the Nazi regime in Germany in 1933, German speaking refugees, among them university professors, scientists, artists and philosophers sought asylum in Turkey. These intellectuals most of whom were Jewish, left a major imprint on Turkish art and sciences, universities as well as the society at large and the professors played a central role in the reorganization of the Turkish university system. They were admitted to Turkey as a result of a deal that was brokered with the encouragement of Kemal Atatürk (Ref. 9, p 230f.).

Many people from the German-occupied Balkans, such as Bulgarians, Greeks, especially from the Greek islands on the Aegean, as well as Italians from the Dodecanese islands, also sought refuge in Turkey during the course of the Second World War. According to VernantReference Vernant¹⁰ there were approximately 67,000 internees and refugees in Turkey at the end of the War. While those who fulfilled the conditions set by the Settlement Law stayed in Turkey, the majority of these people subsequently returned to their own countries. After the Second World War, Government policy was not to accept immigrants who were not of ‘Turkish descent or culture’. The Cold War became a determining factor in Turkish policy that had become firmly embedded in the Western Bloc. In close cooperation with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Turkey received refugees from the Soviet Union and from the Communist Bloc countries in Europe. During their stay in Turkey, these refugees enjoyed all the rights provided for in the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, but only a minority were allowed to stay on in Turkey, often as a result of marriages with Turkish nationals. The others were resettled elsewhere. Turkey also experienced mass refugee influxes in 1952, 1988, 1989 and 1991, of which the influxes in 1952 and 1989 involved Turks and Pomaks from Bulgaria who were allowed to settle in Turkey. In both cases, integration into Turkish society was supported by the government through special policies. The refugee influxes in 1988 and 1991 consisted primarily of Kurdish-speaking people. In this case, Turkish policy supported repatriation and/or resettlement. These mass influxes were perceived as potential threats to national security. Therefore, Turkey attempted to convince the international community of the necessity to create a ‘safe haven’ in northern Iraq in order to ensure the return of these refugees. The estimated 20–25,000 Bosnian Muslims that came to Turkey between 1992 and 1995 were granted a ‘temporary asylum’ that gave them access to education, employment and health possibilities. Nevertheless, an overwhelming majority of these refugees subsequently returned home. The approximately 17,000 Kosovars who came to Turkey fleeing the crisis in 1999 were granted similar rights.Reference Vernant¹⁰

Since the beginning of the 1980s, the regime change in Iran and instability in the Middle East as well as in Africa and Southeast Asia led to an increase in the number of asylum seekers in Turkey. As long as these were recognized and resettled out of Turkey the government cooperated with UNHCR. Following the increase of illegal entries into Turkey and in the number of rejected asylum seekers stranded in Turkey, the government constricted its policy. The number of deportations due to this policy led to a growing criticism from refugee advocacy and human rights circles. These events led to a new system of asylum developed by UNHCR in close cooperation with Turkey that today handles approximately 4000 to 4500 asylum applications a year. These asylum seekers come mainly from Iran and Iraq with smaller numbers coming from more distant countries. Compared to the rate of refugee recognition in European countries, the Turkish rate of recognition is very high: nevertheless the UNHCR arranges for the resettlement of the majority of recognized refugees to third countries (Ref. 10, p. 233).

Another form of immigration into Turkey is transit irregular migration, which involves nationals of Iraq and Iran as well as nationals from more distant countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan who pay large fees to people smugglers to get themselves admitted into western European countries. They usually enter Turkey through its Eastern borders; they then travel through Turkey and try to enter Greece illegally across the land border and the Aegean Sea or they are smuggled directly to Italy or France by boats. According to government statistics, more than 622,000 such persons were apprehended between 1995 and 2006. It should be noted that these numbers also include nationals of former Soviet Union countries who have violated their terms of stay in Turkey and do not intend moving on to Europe. Those who try to use Turkey as a transit country are mostly the nationals of Middle East and Asian countries.

Trafficked persons, particularly women who have either been coerced or deceived into travelling to Turkey for purposes of prostitution and remain in Turkey against their wish, should also be added to these groups. This is a problem that is attracting growing government and societal attention. Consequently, the International Organization for Migration and the US Department of State have been monitoring the situation in Turkey and the Turkish Police have developed close cooperation with civil society in order to fight against trafficking and protect and support its victims (Ref. 10, p. 234f).

There are, moreover, nationals of neighboring countries who work illegally in Turkey such as Moldavian women working in middle-class homes. Although the Turkish state adopted new legislation that allows such people to obtain proper work and residence permits partly in attempt to regularize their status and partly in the context of EU reforms, many continue to work illegally. There is also an increasing number of students coming from different countries and especially from the former Soviet Union and the Balkans. In addition, the number of European Union member state nationals and spouses engaged in professional activities settling in Turkey – particularly in Istanbul – as well as the number of retirees in some of the Mediterranean resorts is growing. In the context of immigration into Turkey this is a relatively new phenomenon. KaiserReference Kaiser¹¹ reports their number to be around 100,000 to 120,000. Finally, there is an increasing volume of ‘retirement migration’. These retirement migrants can be compared with the above-mentioned Turkish retirees who have chosen the ‘third option’ of bi-local residence, except that they are not Turks by birth. Among the towns and districts in Turkey where such European migrants reside are Antalya, Bodrum, Marmaris and Didim as well as other tourist resorts. The number of retired Europeans in all of Turkey is estimatedReference Unutulmaz¹² to have neared 20,000.

Turkish Return Migration from Europe

Germany is the European country hosting the biggest group of Turkish migrants and therefore the literature on this topic consists of data obtained mainly in Germany. The Turkish migrants to Europe were initially expected to return to Turkey. They are now elderly persons who are retiring in their host countries. Every year about 40,000 Turks return from Germany to Turkey.¹³ Their reasons for return have not been researched extensively. Yet they have, without doubt, much to do with the difficulties of this first group of migrants to establish external contacts and to become integrated into German society. Since their reasons for migrating to Germany were diverse, they probably also have a variety of reasons for returning to Turkey. Their plans for a return probably vary according to their experiences as a minority in the host society as Bollini and Siem noteReference Bollini and Siem¹⁴ and also their progress in becoming transnational families, as Bryceson and Vuorela add.Reference Bryceson and Vuorela¹⁵

In the rather limited literature on return migration, economic achievement, health care, other social entitlements and location of the family have been singled out as decisive factors for return migration.Reference Razum, Sahin-Hodoglugil and Polit¹⁶

As not all Turkish work migrants have been able to achieve their economic goals, economic failure could be one of the reasons for return.Reference Massey and Constant¹⁷ On the other hand, the unemployment rate among Turkish migrants is presently high but they do not return, as Elkeles and SeifertReference Elkeles and Seifert¹⁸ have shown. Furthermore, Turkish migrants in Germany are confronted with considerable health risks.Reference Collatz^19–Reference Oppen²¹ They are, for instance, more often victims of occupational accidents in comparison to Germans,Reference Weber, Abel, Altenhofen, Bächer, Berghof and Bergmann²² and chronic illnesses are more widely spread among Turkish migrants.Reference Elkeles and Seifert²⁰ Many studies in non-migrating populations show that low socioeconomic or minority statuses are closely associated with increased morbidityReference Marmot, Smith, Stansfeld, Patel, North, Head, White, Brunner and Feeney²³ and high mortality.Reference Geronimus, Bound, Waidmann, Hillemeier and Burns^24–Reference Helmert²⁵ Therefore, it is self-explanatory that population segments such as Turkish migrants who are socially or economically disadvantaged experience a higher risk of illness or premature death. On the other hand, the fact that their observed all-cause mortality is actually lower than that of Germans, and of comparable urban populations in TurkeyReference Razum, Zeeb, Akgün and Yilmaz²⁶ indicates that return migration may be selective with regard to health status. In other words disabled or critically ill individuals might wish to return to their country of origin.Reference Abraido-Lanza, Dohrenwend, Ng-Mak and Turner^27–Reference Raymond, Fischer, Fioretta and Bouchardy²⁹

However, bearing in mind that in Germany, the financial and geographical accessibility of health care is better, and social security benefits are more generous than they are in Turkey, it may be argued that illness may not be a powerful motive for Turkish migrants to return. The observed low mortality among Turkish migrants could be associated with the probability that individuals and families who are socially and economically well-off stay in Germany; whereas those who fail, and thus might experience a higher mortality in future, return, even before becoming manifestly ill.Reference Razum, Zeeb, Akgün and Yilmaz³⁰

SchiffauerReference Schiffauer³¹ argues that migration can be associated with a loss of social relations and roles; this may become a powerful incentive to return home. WhiteReference White³² notes that German policies towards foreigners have been criticized for focusing too much on assimilation and not being supportive towards integration that would allow Turks to retain their identity. Further, as CollatzReference Collatz³³ notes, Turkish migrants have a concept of health that is different from that of Germans; this, in combination with language problems, may lead to poorer access to medical care. On the other hand, by living transnationally, migrants may manage to profit in various ways from the different systems, or fail to realize their entitlements both in Turkey and in Germany.Reference Bryceson and Vuorela³⁴ The latter may be a problem in the case of some second-generation Turkish nationals born in Germany who are not fully integrated into either German or Turkish culture (Collatz 1996).Reference Collatz³³

As transnational ties have considerable impact on the life of migrantsReference Bryceson and Vuorela³⁴ the location of the family is important in the decision to return. Turkish migrants who have close family members, such as a spouse or children living in Turkey, will tend to return, in contrast to others whose close relatives live in Germany.Reference Fabian and Straka³⁵

It should be kept in mind, however, that most of the studies on return migration to Turkey included Turkish migrants who were still residing in Germany. Therefore, the findings are related to return intentions rather than to reasons for an actual return.Reference Fabian and Straka³⁶

The weather or climate in Germany seems to be one of the most important factors concerning the decision-taking process in the context of returning to Turkey. Migrants older than 50 years often consider the weather in Germany as unhealthy because of the cold and damp. A temporary or permanent return to Turkey is perceived as a means to improve health. Alongside Turkey's climatic advantages, the Turkish lifestyle in general is also perceived as healthier than the German one, which is considered as stressful due to the heavy workload. Furthermore, cultural differences that hinder satisfactory social contacts with Germans often appear to be insurmountable. The ‘fear’ of ‘moral degradation’ of their children also had an impact on the decision to return as the migrants perceived the moral climate in Germany to be a risk for their offspring. Religion however was not overtly mentioned as a reason for return.Reference Razum, Sahin-Hodoglugil and Polit³⁷

It was thus value-oriented and emotional issues rather than purely economic or health-related motives that led to the decision to return (Ref. 37, p. 732). Especially interesting was the finding that better qualified workers were more likely to leave Germany than less qualified ones.Reference Gundel and Peters³⁸

For a long time Turkish migrants themselves expected that they would work in Germany for a limited period of time and then return. Therefore, most of their life plans and personal projects were oriented toward a return to Turkey. But the longer they stayed the more they became involved with the social and cultural conditions in Germany, which led to a kind of stable bi-national or transnational orientation. In addition, the official recognition of Germany as an immigration country since 2000 changed the initial context significantly. Today, due to the fact that increasing politicization and societal mobilization of migrant integration is perceived as a nation-wide, multilevel and cross-sectional task, the opportunities of migrants’ political and social engagement are expanding as well as chances for new jobs. In the context of so-called ‘diversity management’ programs this new situation leads to the encouragement of migrants to bring in their particular experiences and competencies based on their migration background.

In many cases, the related practices of Turkish migrants in Germany also include some kind of transnational activities and relations as a by-product of their efforts toward resident state-oriented incorporation. Therefore, in the German-Turkish case, a shift from return-oriented to integration-related migrant trans-nationalism takes place.Reference Gerdes and Reisenauer³⁹