Aegean Geographical Journal

Abstract

The great increase in the number of universities in Turkey, especially after 1990, has created a large literature on the various effects of universities, especially economic ones. When this literature is examined, it is observed that the publications focusing on the effects of universities on the population of cities are limited, and the subject of population is mostly used as a descriptive data in studies examining the different effects of universities. For this reason, it is difficult to find an answer to the question of what changes universities have created in the population of cities in Turkey, despite their important role in changing the demographic profile of cities. However, knowing the extent of the change created by universities in the population of cities is of great importance not only for the physical development and planning of cities, but also for the solution of problems arising from socio-cultural differences. The main purpose of this study is to contribute to a growing literature on this subject by focusing on the effects of Gümüşhane University, whose number of students and staff are increasing, on the amount of the urban population, age structure and migration data.
In the study, it was taken into account that the most striking changes in the population will be experienced here, since most of the university is located in the city of Gümüşhane. For this reason, firstly, the amount and age structure of the urban population were examined based on the data of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) and the changes after the establishment of the university were revealed. In order to determine the effects of the university on population movements, the birthplace information of the population and the population data registered to the population of other provinces were used. However, the information on the province where the population was born and registered could only be examined in the entire Central district due to data limitations. In order to question the impact of the University on population movements, the permanent residence data of Gümüşhane province were also evaluated.
The results obtained reveal that there has been a significant increase in the population of the city since 2008, when Gümüşhane University was founded. The urban population, which was 26,208 in 2008, increased to 31,011 in 2011 and 46,602 in 2017. The growth in the urban population also affected the population growth rates, and the rate of increase, which was -66‰ in the 2007-2008 period, exceeded 100‰ in 2013, 2014 and 2016. In addition, while the share of the 15-29 age group, where university students are clustered, in the urban population was 29.1% in 2007, this rate increased to 43.9% in 2015. The results reveal that the university also has effects on the migration data of Gümüşhane. Before the university was established, only 16% of the Central district population was born in other provinces, while this rate increased to 42% in 2019. There has been a great increase in the population of the central district, in the amount and proportion of the population registered in other provinces. While only 13.9% of the Central district population was registered in other provinces in 2007, this rate reached 35.7% in 2019. All these results show that universities give a new impetus to the population growth, age structure and population movements of especially small and medium-sized cities; It is important in terms of revealing the role played by these cities in their transformation into a more cosmopolitan structure.
In the decrease of Gümüşhane city population after 2018, which contradicted the main arguments of the article, some findings were obtained showing the effect of the voter mobility in the 2019 local elections and the COVID-19 pandemic.