An Empirical Analysis of the Effects of Syrian Refugees on the Turkish Labor Market

Abstract

This study examines the effects of the recent influx of Syrian refugees on the Turkish labor market. Exploiting this natural experiment, we estimated the causal impacts of involuntary migration on labor market outcomes. We selected the five refugee-hosting regions with the highest number of refugees as treatment regions and four comparable regions with a low refugee-to-population ratio as control regions. Using a difference-indifferences estimation, we found that informal Turkish workers in the refugee-hosting regions were about 4% more likely to leave their job than workers in regions that did not widely host refugees. Such negative impacts on labor market outcomes became larger in 2014-2015 compared with 2012-2013. Furthermore, while females and older workers withdrew themselves from the labor market, males and younger workers become unemployed after the refugee influx.

The impact of Afghan Refugee Influx on Labor Market Outcomes in Pakistan

“…Syrian refugee seemed to have more impact on informal employment level rather than formal employment (Ezen & Binatli, 2017). In another analysis it was found that inflow of Syrian refugee impact informal sector of Jordan economy which is already a vulnerable sector (Suzuki, Paul, Maru, & Kusadokoro, 2019). In case of middle income countries, a macro perspective based study compared performance of countries before and after refugee influx.…”