Changes in Highly Skilled Migration Policies: Turkish-German Medical Migration since the 1960s

Turkish physicians have been migrating to Germany since the 1960s to obtain professional experience. Therefore, this article takes a long-term perspective: How and why did the careers of physicians with medical degrees from Turkish universities change through time? This study is based on 29 semi-structured and three expert interviews. The results show that the migrant physicians can be classified as three generations, whose qualifications have been viewed variably through time: The first generation (migrated 1961-1974) was welcomed because of a lack of doctors. They got special permits to practice medicine, which was usually bound to German citizenship. The second generation (migrated 1979-1990) only got permission to treat Turkish immigrants – because of both an excessive amount on doctors and ethnicization. The third generation (migrated 1999-2012) was affected by Europeanization and the competition with immigrating physicians from Eastern Europe. The findings show how medical migration changes due to migration and healthcare policies, thus highlighting the context-dependent nature of skill valuation processes.