Abstract
In the early 1960s, Turkey participated in the migration movement to Western European countries which urgently needed manpower for their rapidly developing industry. Most Turkish migrant workers, about 80% of the total number, went to The Federal Republic of Germany as temporary recruited labour under the name of Guest Workers (Gastarbeiten). They were mostly young,male, skilled or semi-skilled manual workers, coming predominantly from the developed part of Turkey. They thus had industrial experience or at least experience of living in a city. The migration flow may not be characterised as spontaneous, because it has been encouraged by the Turkish Government and organised by Turkish State Organisations in the receiving countries. In other words, State agreements and encouragement of labour exportation have played a very important role. Turkey signed its first bilateral agreement with the Federal Republic of Germany on October 30th, 1961. This agreement was followed by a series of treaties with Austria (1964), France (1966), Sweden (1967), Australia (1967) and so on. It is a reasonable estimate that between October 1961 and June 1979, approximately 1,750,000 (including workers' families) Turks experienced Western European social living (culture) in a working environment. Of these, perhaps more than two hundred thousand have returned to Turkey permanently after a period of residence abroad. Half of these returned migrant workers stayed abroad for a short period of time, about a year. Abadan claims that 42% of returnees remained in immigrant countries for less than a year. However, the empirical problem which confronts the social scientist studying Turkey is that the official statistics allow for only a very rough estimate of total numbers of returnees, their period of residence abroad, and give virtually no indication of their whereabouts in the country. This study took as its starting point the incompatability of the "dependence" (centre-periphery relations) theory and the modernisation and development theory approach to labour migration. It is argued that analysis of empirical data supports the former. Data collected was intended to show the effect of the experience of working and living in western industrial societies on Turkish migrant workers who had been abroad for at least three years, returned home permanently and settled in the city of Kayseri, Turkey. In the broadest sense, the objectives of the study were two fold; in the first instance, it sought to define the demographic characteristics and motivations of the migrants and to investigate the socio-economic and socio-cultural effects that migration had upon them; in the second instance, it attempted to discover what socio-economic and cultural effects the migration experience had upon the lives of migrants when they returned to the city of Kayseri. In particular the effects of the migration experience on returnees' employment, housing (investment), family and education of their children were examined.