Examinig international migration movements in Türkiye: Clustering analysis with panel data

Due to its geographical location, our country continues to exist as one of the most advantageous migration routes for the societies it has lived on and its neighbors throughout history. Turkey, one of the countries with the most intense migration movements, has become the center of a mass and irregular migration movement, especially after 2011, due to the economic and political instabilities of the surrounding countries. The concept of international migration, which is examined under the title of the necessity of individuals from different countries and cultures to live together, is discussed for Turkey in this thesis. The levels of 19 independent variables for the 81 provinces in our country between 2016 and 2022 are obtained from different sources and the impact of these independent variables on the net international migration value recorded at each provincial level is analyzed. In the study, cluster analysis is firstly performed to reveal similar subgroups of provinces for the data recorded as panel data containing cross-section and time series features. Five different clusters are obtained with the cluster analysis applied to the panel data and the characteristics affecting the dependent variable of international net migration for these clusters are revealed with the panel data analysis.