A RESEARCH ON THE EFFECTS OF SYRIANS IN IZMIR ON THE LABOR MARKET AND THE INTEGRATION PROCESS
Project no. 952 · Status: Kapanmış · 2017
Summary
The mass demonstrations which originated in Tunisia and then spread to Egypt, Libya, and the other Arab countries and defined as ‘the Arab Spring’ soon led to changes in regime in these countries, and they have also spread to Syria since March 2011. The rebellions in Syria and the reflections of the Arab Spring in Syria gradually turned into a human crisis upon the severe interventions of the Assad regime in the opponents and civilians. Doubtlessly, both Syria and the countries neighboring Syria were substantially affected by these conflicts and exposed to a serious flow of refugees in the same process. Likewise, it is expressed that the number of Syrian refugees who have arrived in Turkey since April 2011 has exceeded 4 million (Karadag, 2020). The first group of Syrian refugees that arrived in Turkey (252 people) entered through the Hatay border on April 29, 2011. When 2018 arrived, however, this figure reached 4 million, with 200,034 of them living in 21 refugee camps on our borders and about 750,000 of them living primarily in our border cities and nationwide. Although there is no organized camp in İzmir, our study area in the paper, it is known that the total number of refugees who particularly live around the bus station of the city and in neighborhoods such as Mersinli, Çamdibi, Pınarbaşı, Altındağ, Doğanlar, and Naldöken or in neighborhoods affiliated to Konak and Çiğli has exceeded 400,000, with 90 000 of them being registered (The Governorship of İzmir, 2018). The spatial changes that have occurred at the metropolitan center of İzmir, where the Syrian refugees who were headed for Turkey following the events experienced first during the Arab Spring and then in Syria settled down temporarily but for an uncertain period, will be addressed in the paper that is planned to be presented in the congress. Later on, the socio-economic impacts on the everyday life of the city and particularly the quality of urban life, urban services, job & employment and security problems will be discussed comparatively from the perspectives of the Syrian refugees and the local people of İzmir. The statistics and reports obtained from the Turkish National Police and the AFAD (the Disaster & Emergency Management Presidency) constitute the main sources of these evaluations. In addition, the results of the comparative analysis of the data collected via the questionnaires applied to some 200 Syrian refugee families and the same number of İzmirian families that were reached with the fieldwork carried out in the districts where the Syrian refugees were concentrated at the metropolitan center of İzmir will be shared with the participants of the symposium. Along with the Syrian businesses that were included in the field study on "The Effects of Syrians in Izmir on the Labor Market" and who own businesses in Izmir, Syrian businesses in Izmir were interpreted one by one, and the effects of Syrians in businesses employing Syrians in Izmir on the urban economy and the labor market were revealed tried to be put. In this sense, comes the important work done in the Izmir example. Finally, it will be intended to express the expectations of the Syrian refugees who are going on their lives at the metropolitan center of İzmir and of the people of İzmir, the scene for socio-spatially significant changes upon the arrival of the Syrian refugees whose number has skyrocketed for the last one year, in this process and the problems they are confronted with.