River Flowing North Migration Generating Geographies and International Irregular Migrations

Abstract

Refugees are one of the major problems for both developed and developingcountries. Currently, with the influence of the Arab spring, one of the biggest refugeecrises is experienced. The forced displaced population, which was 43.3 millionin 2009, increased to 70.8 million in 2018, reaching a record level. Most ofthis increase consist of civil wars and conflicts in Syria between 2012 and 2015.Besides, in this increase, conflicts in countries such as Iraq and Yemen in theMiddle East, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan in Sub-SaharanAfrica play an important role (UNHCR, 2018).In 2018, forced displaced refugee population reached approximately 13.6 millionpeople. While one-third of the refugees (6.7 million people) are in the leastdeveloped countries, only 16 % of the refugees are in the developed countries.According to 2018 data, Turkey ranks first among top refugee-hosting countrieswith 3.7 million people and this is followed by Pakistan with 1.4 million andUganda with 1.2 million, respectively. In the share of refugees in the country’spopulation, Lebanon, where one out of every 6 people is a refugee, ranks first,Jordan ranks second with 1/14 of the population, and Turkey ranks third with 1/22of the population (UNHCR, 2018). The refugee population in Turkey continuesto grow and has reached 3.6 million Syrians and approximately 330,000 refugeesand asylum-seekers of other nationalities by the year 2020 (UNCHR, 2020).Refugees affect host countries in many ways. Especially in countries whererefugees are concentrated, they compete with the local citizens for scarce resourcessuch as water, food, land, housing, and medical services. They can causedepress wages and inflationary pressures in many products (UNCHR, 1997). Forthis reason, it can be said that there is negative point of view toward refugeesespecially in these societies. Although the general perception is that refugees affectthe economic life negatively, in fact they also contribute to the economies ofthe host country in many ways; because refugees can contribute to the recoveryof the economy both as entrepreneurs and consumers. For example, Akgündüz et al. (2018) argued that Syrian refugees in Turkey increase firms’ profits andsales, the number of companies with foreign capital has increased with them.In sociocultural concerns, there is an opinion that refugees will harm socialharmony in most societies. In this context, Schmeidl (1997) emphasized in herstudy that with the arrival of refugees or immigrants in Peshawar Pakistan, localproperty owners benefited from this, but low-income local people had difficultypaying rising housing rents. With the addition of foreign aid to refugees, inequalitiesbetween the poorest part of society and refugees have begun to increase andthis leads to social tensions. But according to Fajth et al. (2019), cultural conflictsmay occur at the first stage; however, over time, host communities and refugeesmay establish close social relationships, and they can live in more peaceful andmore humane relationships.Refugee policies of the countries differ; refugees continue to live in morehumane conditions in some societies, and in some societies, they may beexposed to social lynching. For example, refugees in Turkey, which home tothe world’s largest refugee, has many possibilities. Less than 2 % of refugees livein Temporary Accommodation Centers, others live in urban, periurban andrural areas with local people in Turkey. Refugees have legal work permits since2016 in Turkey. Nevertheless, Syrians who work as cheap labor in illegal ways,especially in industry, agriculture and small firms, have a significant impact onthe employment of local people. Although Turkey has the largest number ofrefugees in the world, the country’s approach to refugees is generous and positive;and provides refugees access to health care, education and social services.To strengthen interaction between refugees and host communities; government,municipalities, imams and mukhtars work in cooperation. In addition, Turkishcourses are given to refugees through Public Education Centers to solve thelanguage problem (UNCHR, 2020; ORSAM, 2015). In Jordan, with the JordanConvention between the European Union (EU) and Jordan, Syrian refugees havebeen given the opportunity to work legally in certain sectors such as agriculture,construction, food and manufacturing (Razzaz, 2017). Despite civil societyand international assistance, Bangladesh faces difficulties in providing refugeeshelter, food, water and sanitation, clothing and fight against diseases that occurin refugee camps; and most of the refugees live in camps with terrible humanitarianconditions. (László, 2018; Mohammad 2012). Uganda’s refugee policiesdiffer from many countries. For example, refugees can reside anywhere in thecountry, and they can be legally employed. Refugee children also have similarrights as citizens of the country in accessing pre-school education and primaryeducation. On the other hand, in some regions, arable land support is provided for refugees. Refugees spend much more effort on their land than host countryfarms, and they get bigger crop for each unit (Taylor et al. 2016).Unemployment and inflation are two macroeconomic variables that areimportant in the local people’s approach to refugees. In the local workforce, thefeeling that their work is being taken away increases racism and nationalism. Asa result, the risk of conflict between refugees and local citizens increase (Kaygısız,2017). At this point, host refugee-countries’ rapidly and effectively regulatingjob opportunities for refugees will contribute to reducing these conflicts. In thiscontext, countries need to evaluate labor markets at the national, regional orlocal (municipal) level. For example, what skills and qualifications are neededin the host refugee-countries or in which region or municipality is there a laborshortage? Such problems should be identified, and solution models shouldbe developed according to country conditions. Thus, employment opportunitiescan be effectively coordinated for both refugees and the local citizens(Hendow, 2019).As it is known, the main components of the economic misery index are the rateof inflation and unemployment. Individuals follow these two variables closelyand react rapidly to the change of these variables. When the rate of inflationand unemployment increases, economic dissatisfaction increases. Therefore, theimpact of refugee flows on inflation and unemployment, which led to economicmisery, has been the subject of this study. In this context, the effect of refugees onunemployment and inflation was analyzed using fixed effect quantile regressionmethod for the period of 1992–2017 in top refugee-hosting countries (Turkey,Pakistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Iran, Kenya, Bangladesh, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzaniaand Chad). In the second section, following the introduction, the literature isdiscussed with transfer channels; in the third and fourth section, data, modeland analysis results are presented.