Failure to return to industry,the primary feature of the sequence of Turkish migration

This article seeks to destroy the myth that the industrial experience of emigrated workers can be helpful in development efforts for the sending countries by supplying a highly qualified labor force. The extent and nature of unemployment in an underdeveloped country such as Turkey form the essential background. Insufficient demand for labor, oppressive living conditions for the unemployed, and the absence of hope for future improvement in employment conditions produce a high desire to work devoid of a specific job or career goals, tendencies which account for the willingness of workers to accept any kind of work as long as pay is adequate. Most Turkish migrant workers have been found to be oriented toward accumulating as much money as possible, not for use as a means of changing their structural situation or improving their employment qualifications, but as an end in itself. The hypothesis that polyannual migrants acquire new knowledge and ability to adapt to the mode of life of an industrial society, internalizing its structures, roles, and values, recieves little confirmation in the literature. A large proportion of Turkish migrants remain attached to preindustrial habits and preferences for work in a milieu that assures personal relationships. Few report in surveys that they learn significantly in their migrant jobs. Migrant workers who are only superficially familiar with industrial culture and who reject the mode of life of industrial society cannot be viewed as a force for change and innovation when they return. Migrant remittances are steadily increasing, but until the present, no structural changes have been made in Turkey to encourage their investment in productive enterprises. Personal or familial reasons, not desire to undertake new enterprises, are most often the cause of migrants' return; once they have done so, they aspire to new occupations in the tertiary sector rather than return to their earlier lines of employment.