The Change in the Size and Direction of Older Adults Migration in Turkey

Starting from the foundation of Turkey, especially from 1950s Turkey has experienced a rapid demographic transition process. During the demographic transition process, as a result of the decline in the fertility and mortality rates the population of Turkey has entered a population aging process. Currently, the share of older adults population in Turkey is around 8 percent, and expected to rise 10 percent in 2015 and 21 percent in 2050. Another development observed in the process of demographic transition in Turkey is to increase in the number of older adults population who takes part in the migration process. This development falsifies most of the classical migration theories that defined the migrants as mainly males in the prime working age groups. Within this context, the main objective of the proposed study is to determine the change in the size and direction of the older adults migration process by analysing the age and location structures of the migrants along the years of 2009-2016. The direction of migration is classified under four categories: Urban to rural; rural to urban; urban to urban and rural to rural. The age groups and sex of older adults population are also considered in the study. The age groups are categorized as 65-74, 75-84 and 85 and over in order to understand how the size and direction of migration differ according to age groups. The data source of the study is from the data sets of 2009-2016 Address Based Population Registration System in Turkey. The results put forward that the number and percentage of older adults population partake in the migration process is on the way of increasing continuously, and the direction of migration is on the way of changing from a pattern of urban to rural to a pattern of urban to urban in the period of 2009-2016