Is internal displacement a burden on women’s human capital accumulation? Evidence from Turkey

Abstract

Over the last 35 years, Turkey has been fighting with an outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in East and Southeast Anatolia. The increasingly fierce struggle from the mid-80s to the late 90s led to thousands of internally displaced people. Using Turkey Demographic Health Survey, we define displaced women as those who migrated for security reasons from conflict regions between 1984-99 to understand the long-term impact of forced migration on the educational attainment of displaced women. Our results show that internal displacement decreases years of schooling by one year, and the detrimental effect mainly stems from the reduced level of primary and secondary school completion. We also investigate the mechanisms through which internal displacement affects educational outcomes and show that internal displacement increased the probability of working before the age of 15. We also find evidence that internal displacement decreased marriage age and increased the possibility of being in a forced marriage.