Research Information System
30th International Population Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 13 - 18 July 2025, pp.324, (Summary Text)
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.
Key words: healthcare labor
market, neoliberal globalization, nurse migration, qualitative demography