Evaluation of individuals' perspective on transnational migration in the context of demographic characteristics: Emirdag case

People may leave the place where they were born, raised or live due to socioeconomic and natural reasons and migrate to another settlement. This population mobility causes a two-way exchange between immigrants and places of migration. Before and after the establishment of the Republic of Turkiye, various internal and external migrations took place in the country. One of these displacesment movements is the transnational migration to European countries as of the 1950s. Turkiye and West Germany signed a labor agreement on October 30, 1961. In the following years, some other European countries signed agreements with Turkiye. These agreements paved the way for mass migration from Turkiye to Europe. In this context, many Turkish citizens migrated to Europe as workers and participated in transnational population movements. European countries, which lost a significant portion of their working population after the Second World War and needed intensive labor, encouraged other nations to transnational migration in order to fill the labor shortage. In this way, they aimed to both revitalize their damaged economies and maintain continuity in production. Turkiye, on the other hand, expected a positive effect by reducing the unemployment rate and accelerating the flow of foreign currency to the country with transnational migration. There were individuals from different settlements in many geographical regions of Turkiye who participated in the transnational migration that started approximately 65 years ago. Afyonkarahisar Province, Emirdag district is one of the settlements with the highest number of immigrants. As of today, most of those who migrated abroad from Emirdag have settled in Western European countries such as Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Germany. Individuals who participated in this displacement movement from past to present have different demographic characteristics in terms of age, gender, socioeconomic status, education and marital status. Especially with the Family Reunification Agreement in 1974, the demographic characteristics of the immigrants diversified as those who had previously migrated as workers invited all their family members to join them. However, the number of people participating in transnational migration through marriage is increasing day by day. In this study, the extent of transnational migration within the borders of Emirdag district was examined. Within the scope of the study, it is aimed to reveal the perspective of transnational migration in the context of the different demographic characteristics of the people living in Emirdag. In this regard, a survey consisting of open-ended questions was applied to 160 randomly selected people. The findings obtained as a result of the survey were categorized according to the answers given and all questions were analyzed by transferring them to the SPSS program. In the context of the analyses, it is inevitable that the district people's vi ideas and opinions regarding migration will differ depending on their sociodemographic characteristics that have changed over the years.