THE IMPACT OF CHANGE UPON RURAL-URBAN MIGRANTS IN TURKEY

The focus of this study is people's perception of their housing. The s tudy took place in Ankara, Turkey, during the 1990-1991 academic year. The intention was not to test a particular set of hypotheses but to c ompare and contrast the lives of people who had migrated to squatter s ettlements in Ankara with those who had remained in rural settings. Th e key idea in selecting the two communities was to have a pool of inte rviewees who were reasonably similar with regard to life experience ex cept for the recent migration of the one group. The migrant group sele cted was living in a well-established squatter settlement which is loc ated about a 10-15 minute minibus ride south of the city center. The s ample of non-migrants came from a rural farming community about an hou r drive northwest of Ankara. Data was collected utilizing a questionna ire during interviews conducted in the residents' homes. Questions dea lt with both objective issues regarding their housing as well as their evaluations of the quality of their housing. The data analysis went t hrough a series of stages, each stage reflecting another way of viewin g the information. First, each set of evaluative variables and objecti ve variables was analyzed, utilizing factor analysis and multidimensio nal scaling respectively, to derive a smaller number of index variable s. Second, the total population (N=102) was segmented into the rural a nd urban groups and a t-test was performed to identify significant dif ferences between these two populations. Third, the total population wa s segmented into four subgroups (urban male, urban female, rural male and rural female), which were compared utilizing analysis of variance to determine the impact of gender and environment on the residents' re sponses. Finally, a multiple linear regression analysis of the total p opulation and the rural and urban subgroups was done to identify the s ubset of independent variables that are most useful for predicting res ident satisfaction. The results indicate that there is a difference be tween rural and urban residents' perceptions of their housing. Rural r esidents are generally more satisfied with their housing than their ur ban counterparts. It seems that these differences in perceptions are i nfluenced less by gender than by environment. Finally, although there is an objective difference in the quality of housing, the results sugg est that subjective evaluations may have a greater impact on satisfact ion than objective measures of residential quality.