Unemployment, migration, and wages in Turkey 1962-85

The author analyzes the status and development of Turkey's labour market since 1962. He states that the estimated steady upward trend in unemployment since 1962 (to 12.7 % in 1985) may be misleading. Cyclical short term changes have been important. Unemployment was most likely declining in the early 1970s and after 1982 while it increased most between 1978 and 1982 with the stabilization program. Meanwhile, young, educated single people with little work experience and long spells of unemployment dominated the unemployment picture. Therefore, long term unemployment can be attributed to youth as much as it can be attributed to the stabilization program.. Rural - urban migration was substantial between 1965 and 1975 but, remarkably enough, was reversed between 1975 and 1980. This was probably a result of the recession accompanying the stabilization policy of 1978, which helps explain changes in rural&urban employment. In conclusion, Hansen points out that, all things considered, the long upward trend in unemployment in Turkey is partly a matter of the voluntary unemployment of a better educated population of youth, and partly a matter of involuntary unemployment related to the stabilization program.