Rebuilding Working Lives After Forced Migration: Career Reconstruction as Acculturative Adaptation Among Syrian Migrants in Türkiye

Forced migration disrupts occupational trajectories, professional identities and processes of acculturative adaptation. Yet less is known about how displaced people rebuild working lives while navigating host-society legal, linguistic, economic and sociocultural conditions. This exploratory qualitative descriptive study examines career reconstruction as a domain-specific form of acculturative adaptation among Syrian migrants in Türkiye. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten participants, five women and five men, who had worked before migration and experienced occupational change after resettlement. Content analysis identified two interrelated dimensions. First, participants described barriers linked to limited institutional guidance, language barriers, legal constraints, financial pressure, perceived loss of agency and gendered responsibilities. Second, they mobilised informal social support, self-efficacy, future orientation, occupational exploration and transferable professional skills to navigate precarious labour-market conditions. The findings show that post-migration career trajectories are not simply linear stories of decline or survival, but negotiated processes shaped by the interaction between structural inequality, social networks and migrant agency. The article contributes to acculturation and migration scholarship by conceptualising work and occupational identity as central sites of social and psychological adaptation after forced migration. It also highlights the need for rights-based, culturally responsive and community-linked support for labour-market integration.