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The Regional Politics of Labour Import in the Gulf Monarchies

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The Palgrave Handbook of International Labour Migration

Abstract

The world’s highest ratio of migrants to national population is to be found in the Middle East,1 and the region is one of the most fascinating arenas in which to observe international migration flows, both regionally and internationally. The growth of migrant labour in the Middle East was both rapid and massive and was directly linked to the development of the oil economy in the Arabian peninsula and the Gulf and also marginally to forced migration that triggered displacement at the regional level. Interestingly, mobility in the case of the Middle East generally intertwines labour migration and refugee flows: from Palestine, Sudan and Iraq and, since 2011, Syrian refugees have found refuge in neighbouring countries. Refugees and labour migrants are often counted together in national statistics and censuses. The number of migrants in the region rose from 800,000 to 1.8 million between 1970 and 1975.2 In the 1980s, the Middle East became the largest market for migrant labour the world has ever known, and just before the 1991 Gulf War the oil-rich states of the Arab Gulf taken together accommodated more than seven million migrants, five million of whom were workers (Stanton Russell and Teitelbaum, 1992).

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Authors
  1. Hélène Thiollet
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. World Trade Institute, University of Bern, Switzerland

    Marion Panizzon (Assistant Professor of International Law) & Elisa Fornalé (Postdoctoral Researcher) (Assistant Professor of International Law) &  (Postdoctoral Researcher)

  2. Federal Office for Migration, Switzerland

    Gottfried Zürcher (Former Vice Director and Director) (Former Vice Director and Director)

  3. Directorate for Migration Policy, Switzerland

    Gottfried Zürcher (Former Vice Director and Director) (Former Vice Director and Director)

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© 2015 Hélène Thiollet

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Thiollet, H. (2015). The Regional Politics of Labour Import in the Gulf Monarchies. In: Panizzon, M., Zürcher, G., Fornalé, E. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of International Labour Migration. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137352217_13

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