The Journey to Becoming “Valuable” in the Neoliberal Global Health Market: A Qualitative Study on Nurse Migration from Türkiye to Usa, UK, Germany, Australia and Ireland

Büsra Göktürk, Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies
Alanur Çavlin, Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies

With aging, increasing life expectancy at birth and population growth, more and more healthcare personnel are needed worldwide. This condition accelerated the migration of healthcare personnel from developing countries to developed countries. The aim of this study is to reveal the basic mechanisms that manage the emigration of nurses in Türkiye in the international health labor market that has become increasingly tight after the COVID-19 pandemic, and nurses’ criterions to select the destination country. A qualitative research was designed and 15 in-depth interviews were conducted with nurses who had migrated from Türkiye or had made concrete preparations to migrate. The interviews were analyzed thematically using the Nvivo-14 program and a coding frame was created that migration mechanisms pointed to some theories in the literature. The findings reflects that nurses see that their labor is valueless. This situation reduces the value given to nurses in the national labor market and by society in Türkiye and they migrate to developed countries where their labor is more valuable. This migration is managed by international “head-hunter” companies and occupational networks, and nurses choose the country to migrate according to multiple criteria, such as easier settlement, welfare level, familiarity and job value.

Keywords: Qualitative data/methods/approaches, International Migration, Population, Shocks and Pandemics

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P4. Migration, Urbanization, Refugees; Economics: Population & Development; Climate Change, and Spatial Demography