Conference Paper
The Impact of Syrian Refugees on the Overeducation of Natives: Evidence from Turkish Labor Markets
No.
ERF29AC_103
Publisher
ERF
Date
May, 2023
The effects of migration on labor market outcomes, such as earnings and employment, have been well-studied in literature. However, there is little attention to how natives adjust their skills to educational requirements of jobs they occupy when they face a massive migration shock. This paper analyzes the effect of Syrian refugee inflows into Turkey beginning in 2011 on the education-job matching of the native population.
By using the 2004-2019 household labor force surveys and the regional-level Syrian refugee data, we employ a difference-in-differences methodology that takes account endogenous location choices of refugees as well. We find that a one-point increase in the migrant-to-native ratio significantly reduces the overeducation of the native men in informal employment by 9%. However, this effect, according to employment model, is
result of the overeducated native men who have been crowded out of this labor market. On the other hand, since we find no displacement effects on younger native men, reducing overeducation effect of migration stems from the switching of them through occupation ladder, arguing that they are more likely to change their occupations to ones that are suitable for their educational background. Finally, since younger women
leaves formal labor market in higher migrant regions, negative overeducation effect of migration also implies the crowding out mechanism.
Authors
Uğur Aytun
Assistant Professor, Kutahya Dumlupinar University
Research Fellows
Seyit Mümin Cilasun
Professor of Economics, TED University