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Miladinov

slightly positive but statistically insignificant. The intensity of diaspora policies and the positive economic development of
Türkiye from the 1980s onward, which was driven by enlarged trade with Europe, foreign investment, and privatization,
have increased the process of industrialization of the Turkish economy (Kilic and Biffi, 2021). According to these authors,
Türkiye experienced a persistent brain drain during this period not as the result of foreign worker recruitment by the prime
European destination countries, but much rather a result of family reunion, but to a certain extent also to the political
instability in Türkiye. Political instability has been the most significant factor behind the lack of success of Turkish
governments to carry out structural reforms (Murat, 2005). Thus, Murat (2005) has shown that there have been several
structural causes of the macroeconomic crises in Türkiye, which also have been strongly connected to the major features
of the Turkish political economy. As a result of several factors, the liberal efforts in the Turkish economy underwent
sporadic difficulties in 1982, 1988, 1994, 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2001. Hence, the populist policies, the public deficits,
inflation, a weak financial system, and increasing public debt were among the leading topics that have been used in
explaining economic trends and causal relationships in the Turkish economy for this time (Murat, 2005). The impact of
the net migration on POPG during the fourth regime (2004 – 2012) as well as fifth regime (2013 – 2021) remained positive
and statistically significant. Thus, during the period of 2001 – 2023, the focus of Turkish migration policy turned to highly
skilled immigration. This was an established policy course of many developed as well as developing economies for some
time and Türkiye joined this group of countries and implemented numerous policy instruments to attract highly skilled
migrants deemed productive for the development of Türkiye (Kilic and Biffi, 2021). Therefore, immigration of high-
profile educated people was initiated as a new policy matter. In addition, during this period, the return of skilled Turkish
origin diaspora stands on the agenda as well (Kilic and Biffi, 2021). In other words, Türkiye started with the promotion
of the policy challenge of return migration of highly skilled Turkish (origin) migrants. As a consequence, and because of
successful economic development since the 2000s onward (Mihai, 2009), Türkiye experienced a lowering in population
outflows and an increase in population inflows, as migration transition theory would claim. In addition, it is argued that
the most important historical development which paved the way of Türkiye for a modernization as well as more enhanced
state-society relations in the 2000s can be directly linked with the EU membership process (Burak, 2011). It is well known
that the adoption and the implementation of the social, political, and economic policies of the EU are crucial and the basic
requirement for the candidate countries to become a full member. As claimed by Burak (2011) during the 2000s, Turkish
society went through rapid social-cultural, economic, and political changes.
The last ninth 5-year development plan written for the period 2007 – 2013, highlighted that changes in demographic
structure of Türkiye, fertility level, and age structure had started to be similar to those of developed countries (Yüceşahin,
Adalı, and Türkyılmaz, 2016). This plan is pointing to the need to re-examine policies on education, health, employment,
and social security and setting the stage for a new pronatalist approach. Given the latest values of the death rates and
fertility rates for Türkiye, in the near future, the number of deaths is expected to increase, and fertility is expected
to remain at a lower level than it is now. TFR in Türkiye reached a replacement level of 2.1 children per woman in
2016 – 2017. The tenth 5-year development plan was prepared in 2013. This plan specified a need to “increase the fertility
rate through population policies” and put forward the need for such a policy (Yüceşahin, Adalı, and Türkyılmaz, 2016).
To meet this requirement, the Turkish Ministry of Family and Social Policies coordinated an action plan in January 2015
called the “Action Plan to Preserve the Family and the Dynamic Structure of the Population.” One of the clearly stated
targets of the plan was to remain TFR above the replacement level. Nevertheless, a further steady decreasing trend of
POPG will be inevitable for Türkiye. As the population grows, a sudden or steady decline in fertility to replacement
level does not mean that there will be an immediate cessation of growth. In general, the growing populations have a
tendency to continue to grow because they have large cohorts in the reproductive age and lesser cohorts in the elderly
(Schoen, 2018). As mentioned by Horiuchi (1995), the momentum of past demographic events results in steady growth.
The experience of actual populations with high fertility usually shows that an increase due to momentum would be of
considerable importance. The very interesting question is to what extent POPG may thus depend on the contribution made
by immigrants, especially mostly those from Syria and for how long?
Using the Bai-Perron approach, this study has some limitations that future research may address. One such limitation
is the lack of exact explanation that could be provided for each of the different regimes of the breakpoint model. However,
the author tried as much as he can to cover the regimes with proper socioeconomic policies or population policies specific
to Türkiye within the exact period. However, these are different regimes quantified by the breakpoint model and hence the
author could not specifically and strictly state a specific policy exactly for each regime of the model but went more to cover
partially or completely the period for a given regime from the model. Further studies with this method may be extended to
pre-determined breakpoints or to a preferred number of breakpoints that are based on the best knowledge of the author, that
is, user specific breakpoints to provide a greater understanding of the breaks in or changes of the time series.

International Journal of Population Studies | 2021, Volume 7, Issue 1 35