The Impact of Syrian Refugees on the Overeducation of Natives: Evidence from Turkish Labour Markets

This paper analyzes the effect of Syrian refugee inflows into Turkey, beginning in 2011, on the education-job matching of the native population. Using the 2004–2019 Turkish Household Labour Force Survey and regional refugee data, we employ a difference-in-differences strategy that accounts for the endogenous location choices of refugees.

A 10 percentage point increase in the refugee-to-population ratio is associated with a reduction of about 1.2 percentage points in the likelihood of overeducation among informally employed native men, with similar associations for men who are low-educated or aged 18–34, and, in separate subgroup analyses, for young women and for low-educated women in the formal sector. As all estimates are conditional on employment, these changes are consistent with compositional shifts rather than occupational upgrading alone: low-skilled refugees compete with natives in informal work, and relatively educated workers appear to reallocate towards better-matched formal jobs.