Constructing Measures of International Migration in the Turkish Demographic and Health Survey

Kari White, University of Texas at Austin

Although the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) routinely collect information on migration, detailed information is lacking. In this analysis using the 2003 Turkish DHS, we describe an approach to construct measures of international migration and women’s migration exposure from the household roster and individual questionnaire. After comparing our measure with other provincial-level migration estimates, we restricted our analysis to women living in higher migration provinces to better reflect Turkey’s regional patterns of migration intensity and identify the effect of migration-related role and attitude changes in areas with well-established networks. Next, we employed our measures of migration exposure to explore the effects of migrant selection and migration-related changes on the number of children born. After adjusting for selection characteristics, return female migrants and migrant wives were not significantly different from women in non-migrant households; roles and attitudes did not explain differences between groups. Recommendations for improving DHS migration measurements are discussed.