Exploring the Emigration Mechanisms of Nurses: A Qualitative Study from Türkiye

Abstract

While there has been a shortage of nurses worldwide, especially in the last few decades, due to aging, epidemiological transition, and population growth, this shortage has become more evident with the COVID-19 pandemic. Developed countries, which were already importing nurses from abroad before the pandemic, have made these policies aggressive with the pandemic. While nurses in Türkiye were in an almost untouched position before the pandemic, with the pandemic, they were noticed by developed countries and started to look for a new path due to the negative factors in Türkiye. This thesis investigated the mechanisms and motivations of nurse emigration, which has emerged as a new highly skilled migration trend in Türkiye, and what manages this migration. With a qualitative research design, snowball and quota sampling strategies were used, and semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted. Thematic analysis was used as analysis method. This study concludes that the biggest migration motivation of nurses is the value mechanism, that migration is governed by neoliberalism and the occupational network, and that nurse emigration is much more common than thought.