Migration Policy in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States: A Critical Analysis

Introduction

Migration plays a vital role in the world today. It proves beneficial to both sending and receiving countries, as it relieves unemployment pressures on countries of origin and provides productive labor and economic growth to the destination countries. International migration and movement are a consequence of the current globalized economy. The transnational nature of globalization and today’s market-led economies have facilitated a boost in the migration process. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) defines migration as the movement of people within a state or across international borders for various reasons, including but not restricted to searching for employment, economic opportunities, education, and dwindling job opportunities, and improved quality of life. Though population mobility and its disruptive effects have always been part of history, the proportions and pace of the flows and heterogeneity witnessed in the past two decades are phenomenal (Goldin et al., 2012). With greater consolidation of the world economy, characterized by the increased movement of commodities, capital, and ideas, rising income inequality, and extreme poverty, lack of viable employment opportunities further intensifies the process (Banerjee, 2002). The international migrant population numbers stood at 272 million (i.e., 3.5% of the global population; UNDESA, 2019).

International labor migration is the unique reality of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Since the beginning of the oil era, the GCC states have been a popular destination for regional and international migration. Since the late 2000s, the oil-producing GCC states have seen a rapid influx in immigration, with 35 million foreign migrants from diverse origins living here, according to the United Nations Population Division (UNPD, 2019). Today, all GCC states have a predominant foreign population. The foreign migrants’ population comprises an overwhelming majority of the people in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE, and large societies like Oman and Saudi Arabia. Foreign migrants working in the GCC exhibit demographic diversity, typically from Southeast Asia, East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. In those less populated GCC states, migrants comprise up to 90% of the local population and 98% of the workforce; for example, in Qatar, foreign migrants make up 99.8% of the private-sector labor force (Thiollet, 2016). Most foreign migrants have played a pivotal role in the economic development of the Gulf states as they have been involved in unskilled positions, such as domestic work, truck driving, construction work, office assistance, and blue-collar jobs. Nationals or elite Western foreigners occupy the lucrative white-collar/professional employment.

With the rapid movement of foreign migrant workers globally, the GCC states share a standard regulatory institutional mechanism to manage transnational labor migration. Despite seemingly open migration policies and reforms, the GCC states have recently engaged in international and domestic policies to manage the migrant population better. Considering the dependency of Gulf states on migrant labor and the constant increase in migration to these states, this article aims to understand the policies that govern the migrant labor force. It examines how states and non-state actors, including businesses, migrant networks, and brokers, operate using immigration policies and practices of control. The remainder of this article is organized as follows. First, it begins with an overview of the history of international migration in the GCC states. Second, it offers a conceptualization of migration policy and examines the GCC states’ policies and kafala governance system, explaining how the kafala system regulates their presence, conditions of residence, and integration and perpetuates the violation of migrants’ rights.

Third, it discusses the reforms undertaken by the GCC states in the past decades for migration governance processes and the implications of these reforms. Fourth, it highlights the initiatives taken by selective sending countries in response to reforms taken by destination countries, which have obvious consequences on the migration flows, migrant rights, and development benefits of migration. Finally, the findings of the research are presented, concluding the article.

Historical Overview of Migration in the Gulf Cooperation Council States

The GCC states have been experiencing inflows and outflows of regional and transnational migration in the past four decades resulting from networks and mobility for millennia. The historical continuity of migration movement and mobility is popularly divided into pre-oil and post-oil periods. However, there is a long history of international networks and interactions with neighboring countries in the Gulf states. In the pre-oil era, the influx of migration was centered around regional merchants, traders, and slaves at first, and colonial bureaucrats, technicians, and professionals later. Often the purpose of this first wave of migration was to strengthen the security forces through which the British maintained their control (i.e., mercenary forces). Migrants also formed the administrative class, and the majority of these groups came either from the Indian subcontinent or the United Kingdom itself. This migration phenomenon was limited in scope, essentially restricted to the administrative and security apparatus of the state.

The situation changed fundamentally once the oil was discovered. The first oil well was drilled in Bahrain in 1931, and the rest of the Gulf did the same in the following two decades (AlShehabi, 2015). In Saudi Arabia, the first oil drilling camp was set up in 1934 in Dhahran, and employment rose from less than 150 employees in 1935 to 3,641 in 1939 for the California Standard Oil Company (CASCO; Thiolett, 2016). Between 1933 and 1936, gas production infrastructures were established in Bahrain, generating a surge in employment from 610 to 5,038 employees for the Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO; Seccombe, 1983). The GCC countries that had just discovered oil resources on their land processed a small native population who lacked formal education and specific skills to work in the oil and gas industry or the ancillary infrastructure developments. Their solution was to import foreign managerial, technical, administrative personnel from Western countries, such as Holland, Britain, and the United States, to meet the diverse needs of commercial oil exploration and production (Randeree, 2012).

In the second phase, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, most of the workforce came from the neighboring Arab states such as Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon, and Palestine due to the Palestinians’ linguistic, cultural, and religious homogeneity (Babar, 2014). Though the cultural assimilation between nationals and Arab migrants once attracted them to the Gulf states, the booming oil industry forced local leaders to reassess the presence of other Arabs in the Gulf. The third stage, 1985–1995, is known as a period of “replacement migration.” The steep rise in oil prices, the Gulf War of the 1990s, and the change in skill sets in demand due to the stages of development the countries were going through resulted in the shift of demand to Asian migrants (Ali, 1986; Kapiszewski, 2006). The GCC states began to see Asian migrants as a less potential ideological threat to their political legitimacy than Arab neighbors. Second, the shift in preferences occurred due to the Asians being less expensive to employ, easier to lay off, believed to possess higher educational qualifications and skills (although this is contested), and easily manageable; in addition to this, they tended to migrate without their families (Thiollet, 2019).

On the other hand, Arab migrants brought their families with them and hoped to immigrate permanently, which was not acceptable to GCC nationals and their governments. This resulted in the GCC nationals attempting to distinguish themselves from the Arab migrants by forbidding them from wearing local dresses (the physical similarities between the nationals and migrants made it hard for them to differentiate themselves from the migrants; Kapiszewski, 2006). In addition, investors and political leaders began to harbor suspicions about Arab labor, considering them as a primary cause of Arab nationalism, Nasserism, and leftism in the Gulf. The selection of Asian migrants above Arab nationality reveals the politics behind migration management in the GCC states and the emancipation of the Gulf state from regional Arab policy (AlShehabi, 2015).

In the fourth phase after 2000, the region experienced an increase in migration, which correlated with the rise in oil prices and the development of infrastructure and housing. The percentage of migrants in GCC populations consistently increased from 31% in 1975 to more than 38% in the mid-1990s. By 2002, the collective population of the GCC states had increased to 32.5 million; 38.5% of them were immigrants (12.5 million). In Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Bahrain, migrants represented a significant share of the total population: 26%–40%. In Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait, migrants constituted a large majority of the population; in the UAE, foreign nationals represented almost 80% of the population (UNDESA, 2019). The dominance of migrant workers in the workforce was even more pronounced than in the total population. By the end of 2001, the number of migrant workers in the total labor force of 12–13 million workers (in the GCC countries) was 8.0–8.5 million. In Qatar and the UAE, 80%–90% of the labor force were foreigners. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia had lower rates, with expatriates constituting 60% of the workforce; in Kuwait, 72% of the workforce were foreign nationals in 2002 (Kapiszewski, 2006).

More recent data from 2019 indicates that Saudi Arabia is home to over 13 million (38.3%) migrants out of 34 million people. However, expatriates account for 70% of the labor force and 95% of the labor force in the private sector. In the UAE, expatriates constitute 80% of the 4 million residents and 98% of private-sector workers (Shah, 2006). The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated that in 2017, the Arab states were home to a migrant population of 23 million; of these 9 million (39%) were women. By 2019, 35 million international migrants were residing in the GCC, Jordan, and Lebanon (31% of them women), according to a report from the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic Affairs (UNDESA). Migrants in the six GCC states represent more than 11% of all migrants worldwide. Saudi Arabia hosts the third-largest migrant population globally, while the UAE stands at the fifth place.

Figure 1 showcases a picture of the trends and flows of migration. Saudi Arabia is the largest importer of foreign workers in the region and has grown consistently since the 1990s. The UAE experienced two distinct peaks in the 2000s, with technology-intensive investment sectors driving the influx of skilled migrants. While no fall can be observed except in Kuwait during the Gulf War (1990–1991), Bahrain and Kuwait have managed to level the line (possibly due to their nationalization policies). The proportion of non-nationals in the GCC workforce is 70.4%. A majority of migrant workers are unskilled or semiskilled private-sector workers (IMF, 2013). With the changing labor market, the region is now striving to attract and retain highly skilled talent. The UAE is the most successful at transforming economic activity into higher value-added and technology-based sectors (World Bank, 2018).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Source: Computed by the authors from Migrant Stock Data Flow, United Nation Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2019).

The GCC states are considered the largest corridor for international labor migration in the world. Several push and pull factors can be attributed to the continued increase in migration to the GCC countries. A significant pull factor for migration to the GCC is the high demand for labor in the region (Pineda et al., 2017). This corresponds to a lack of sufficient domestic employment opportunities in sending countries due to extreme poverty (AlShehabi, 2015). Migrants from these countries are unskilled or semiskilled; they take the jobs perceived as inappropriate by most Gulf nationals (Girgis, 2002).

In some cases, the increasing trend in the influx of South Asian immigrants was due to the policies of the sending countries. For example, in response to a UN request in 2009, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and also Indonesia indicated they had policies to raise the level of emigration (Shah, 2012). The higher wages offered for the same jobs in the GCC states (compared to wages in the home country) proved to be an additional incentive. This phenomenon is explained by the neoclassical theories of migration which postulate that the wage difference between nations is the most significant reason for labor migration (Massey, 2015; Morawska, 2007). A deteriorating “quality of life” in some home countries (Osman, n.d.), in contrast with a higher standard of living and higher wages, attracts the potential migrants easily (Pineda et al., 2017). Another primary driver of inflow migration is the relative political stability in the GCC states in comparison to many African and South Asian countries plagued by political and economic instability (Atong et al., 2018).

Religious minorities in South Asian countries prefer the GCC due to religious insecurity in their own countries. For example, Indian Muslims are the most significant Indian religious group in the Gulf (Chanda & Gupta, 2018). Community network is crucial for migrants; to elicit a feeling of home away from home, the strong “diaspora networks” built by migrants in the Gulf has served as network building opportunities and aided job searches (De Bel-Air, 2018). Migrant women represent a large proportion of migrants entering the GCC. Though restrictive, the GCC states provide opportunities for low-skilled women which are unavailable in their home countries. For example, Filipino women familiarize themselves with the English language and the knowledge of Arabic among North African women have opened up domestic opportunities as homemakers, nannies, and handmaids. Domestic workers constitute approximately 70% of the total female foreign labor force in the GCC countries (Fargues, 2013).

With the rapid growth of foreign population in the Gulf states and the financial dependence of Asian countries on the GCC, and the large supply of labor desperate for job opportunities and a standard of living with better income, there is a labor market power imbalance always favoring the Gulf states. Despite rising migration rates, information on migrant stocks and flows, countries of origin and destination, or the demographic composition of migrants has not been officially available. However, the GCC states have much in common: They share similar histories, social environments, political systems, and economies, which has resulted in similar labor and migration policies (Kapiszewski, 2006). The following section explains the conceptual framework of migration policy to understand how migration policy determines the population movements across international borders.

Conceptualizing Migration Policy

The emergence of “migration policies” is a direct result of the formation of modern nation-states and their inherent need to control “legitimate means of movement” (Torpey, 1998). Migration policies can be defined as rules (i.e., laws, regulations, measures, and procedures) that national states enact with the explicit objective of affecting the volume, origin, direction, and composition of migration (Czaika & de Haas, 2013; Freeman, 2004). Recruitment and controlling of migrants has been going on for a long time. At the beginning of modernity, slave trade was part of the colonial political economy. When slavery was abolished, it was replaced by contractual labor systems, where colonial states played a central role (Castles, 2001, 2004). Colonial states also played an essential role in the attraction of free immigrants to colonial settlements. During World War I, the main combatant states recruited workers from their colonies (Britain and France) or European sources (Germany). The economy of Nazi warfare depended heavily on the work of migrants, many of whom were recruited by force (Homze, 1967).

The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of experimentation with migration control. The democratic revolution and industrialization led to greater freedom of movement than ever before and the need to record national membership and personal identity. The emergence of the welfare state strengthened the distinction between citizens and foreigners, which led to the emergence of the modern passport and visa systems. While these were initially focused on controlling the departure of citizens, the removal of exit controls by many states (Zolberg, 2001) since the late nineteenth century has coincided with a shift from states controlling emigration (of citizens) to controlling immigration (of foreigners) (de Haas & Vezzoli, 2011).

The post World War II migration shifts have been predominantly directional, reflecting the transformation of (Western) Europe from a region of colonizers and emigrants into predominantly a region of immigration. Political concerns about “unwanted” migration increased in the 1960s in Britain, in the 1970s in Western Europe and Australia, and later in North America. By the 1990s, migration control had shifted from a merely domestic issue to become part of “high politics”, that is, an aspect of “problems affecting relations between states, including questions of war and peace” (Hollifield et al., 1994). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, efforts to control migration were stepped up in developed countries. In addition to several measures taken by the different states, attempts have been made to create multilateral or supranational regulatory systems. Paradoxically, the capacity to control migration has decreased even as the desire to do so has increased (Bhagwati, 2003).

Migration policy reflects different national attitudes toward migration and migrants (Kushnirovich, 2012). In some countries, migration policy is at the core of nation building, as, for example, in the major immigration countries—the United States, Canada and Australia—where immigration was viewed, at one time or another, as a way of enriching a country’s cultural makeup or bringing in new creative energies to sustain growth. In other countries, migration policy can be considered simply as an instrument to meet the economy’s needs, for example, foreign workers being brought in during peak periods of construction activity. Migration policy is an increasingly important part of the economic growth and development of the Global North as states face a set of common challenges relating to the sustainability of their economic growth and welfare. These challenges include declining birth rates, aging populations, and workforces that have become more educated even as the low-skilled job sector, especially in the services such as care of the elderly, cleaning, and food preparation, has grown. At the same time, neoliberal economic development has always needed forced labor, and its policies encourage the free flow of mobility of labor and capital from the Global South (Skrentny, 2013).

International migration has accelerated over the past decades, with migrants traveling over increasingly long distances and increasing diversity between origins and destinations (Arango, 2000). Scholars have argued that there has been a “globalization of migration,” which is “the tendency for more and more countries to be crucially affected by migratory movements at the same time” (Castles & Miller, 2009). Since the 1970s, the Gulf countries and their rich oil-producing states have emerged as global migration destinations. Looking at the increase of migration flow, each country has developed a migration governance system to suit its national interest and support the flow of temporary migrants and marginalize the pathways to permanent settlement. The following section addresses migration policy and the system of governance in the GCC states.

Policies Governing Migration to the Gulf Cooperation Council

The migration policy and governance of GCC states have taken a sovereign turn and have marked a gap between international policy and realities on the ground. The GCC states have geared toward direct and indirect control over immigration, minimizing the possibility of migration integration and socioeconomic rights, practicing selective deportation, restricting the pathways of citizenship, and enforcing “nationalization” policies to boost the presence of nationals in workforces and toward establishing structural labor reforms limiting the dependence on foreign workers (Shah, 2009). The GCC states’ fundamental strategy for managing and regulating migrants’ entry, residence, and exit rights is based on the kafala or sponsorship system. The inflow of migrant workers in GCC countries has been persistent since the 1950s. However, migration was not strongly politicized and vaguely governed because of the significantly lower participation of the government of these states at the time (Thiollet, 2016).

The kafala system, which was introduced in 1950, worked as a convenient method to regulate and monitor migrant’ workers in the hands of nonstate actors and the state, backed up eventually by labor legislation and laws on the entry, exit, and residency of foreign workers. As Babar (2013) explained, this kafala arrangement may be a “privatization of migration governance” that guarantees the exclusion of foreign migrants within the sociopolitical power structure. Thus, in the kafala system, the state disclaims all liability. There is no direct control over migrant workers, and it provides active opportunities for employers to exploit migrant workers (Gardner, 2010).

The kafala system requires migrant laborers to have a sponsor in the destination country, which ties each laborer to a kafeel (sponsor), who takes financial and legal responsibility of the migrant worker and controls their basic needs like food and shelter, working hours, and pay, as well as their passport. This forced dependence of the worker on the sponsor makes the workers vulnerable to exploitation, low wages, delay in payment and nonpayment of wages. The kafeel informs the government of any change in the employee’s employment contract (such as termination, renewal, expiry, or escape). Migrant workers are only required to work for their sponsor and cannot switch employers without the written permission of their sponsor (Jureidini, 2017). Shaping the relationship between sponsors and migrants, the system removed the onus of the welfare of the immigrant worker from the government, meaning that they are not obliged to uphold their rights or administer benefits that they do for nationals.

Migration and Exclusion

Discussions of the kafala system are predominantly focused on the exploitation of blue-collar workers; it is often under-discussed that the kafala also historically differentiated treatment, creating class-based migration governance between high-skilled (primarily Western immigrants) and low-skilled professionals for residence or access to socioeconomic rights (Diop et al., 2018). Even as the temporary-contract nature of employment is being upheld for the laborers, business owners, investors, and people with special skills are being provided with the option for a more extended residence visa. Recently, the Gulf states have emphasized class-based migration by allowing high-skilled, high-income foreign nationals and business owners a more extended residence visa in the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia through investment. The aptly named “golden card” is provided for those making investments worth Dhs 10 million (US$2,722,000) in the UAE; 5-year retirement visas and 10-year-long term visas are being provided (at a premium cost) to retain the wealthy and highly skilled migrants in the country. The “gold visa” issued by Saudi Arabia provides permanent residency without a sponsor at 800,000 riyals (US$213,280). The class-based migration governance has become progressively institutionalized.

The kafala system has promoted short-term contracts to hire workers to prevent family reunification, limit socioeconomic rights, and implement strict deportation programs to ensure that the migrants leave at the end of the contract. In the UAE, for example, family reunification rights are only allowed to high-skilled laborers, such as doctors, engineers, teachers, or, in the medical sector, males, whose monthly income is more than AED 4,000 (US$1,088.80) or AED 3,000 (US$816.60; plus accommodation) (plus accommodation) and women earning more than AED 10,000 (US$2,722) per month or AED 8,000 (US$2,177.60) plus accommodation. These successful policies are now known as the “Gulf Model” (Thiollet, 2016).

However, no Gulf state has achieved an effective and practical implementation of private-sector kafala to date. Private firms are reluctant to replace existing workers at the end of a contract due to the high cost, time, and effort invested in bringing the expat workers to the Gulf and training them. They also recognize that new hires may lack the necessary skills and experience. At the same time, migrants who have already traveled to the Gulf for work prefer to stay, especially over the possibility of lower wages or the added costs of navigating the process yet again to find a new job abroad. Private actors, both companies and employees, see no incentive to maintain the rotation regime that the Gulf states had initially envisaged for kafala (Diop et al., 2018).

The kafala system has a wide range of negative consequences and is riddled with exclusion practices. It was designed to treat migrants as the “other” and used short-term work contracts to keep the migrant workers thinking of their host country as a temporary abode, thus not giving them reason enough to build a social life. The GCC states also practiced social exclusion by restricting migrant workers from public places, such as shopping malls and other leisure spaces, subjecting them to intersectional policing. Young men of particular appearances are identified by the police and private security agents and prevented from moving freely (Thiollet, 2019). In addition, commercial family centers in Saudi Arabia also serve to exclude migrants from places of social integration. Another form of social exclusion is that children of migrant workers are not allowed to attend state schools. Economic exclusion is accomplished through paying the migrant workers a meager wage or delaying their payment compared to the natives, and withholding from the migrants perks natives enjoy, making living more expensive for migrant workers in the region.

In February 2008, around 1,300 migrant workers, mostly Indians, who were building a luxury coastal development, the Durrat Al Bahrain, demanded higher wages by laying down their tools. Economist Khalid Abdullah explained that this strike provided an image of protesting workers. In the past, they were obedient because their remittances were sizable. The decline in the value of the dollar has eroded their purchasing power and is affecting them. The government also takes advantage of this, because it limits the role of the government in protecting the socioeconomic rights of workers (Kamrava & Babar, 2012).

In the GCC states except the UAE, domestic migrant workers are excluded from labor laws to protect migrant workers (Motaparthy, 2015). This lack of legal redress for domestic workers also constitutes a gender-based exclusion, given the overwhelming number of domestic workers. A form of spatial segregation is followed by housing laborers in labor camps situated far away from the city and with little to no access to public transport, restricting their movement (Thiollet, 2019). The GCC states prefer to exclude the migrant labor population from the legal framework of the country, because when their grievances are not engaged in legal affairs, they pose less of a threat to the political and economic structure present in the country (Ali, 2010).

Reforms in Labor Migration Policies

The illiberal migration policies of the GCC nations have long resulted in reports of unfair treatment of workers, abuse, unsafe working conditions, and nonpayment of wages in international media. They range from human rights violations and confiscation of passports to severe restrictions placed on workers’ movement, nonpayment of wages, strenuous work, and unsafe conditions; several allegations have been made against the GCC states by thousands of workers. This has led to mounting pressure from the Western world, rights activists, academicians, and nongovernmental watchdogs, such as ILO, Human Rights Watch, and governments of labor-sending countries to modify or eliminate kafala. In March 2014, ILO called for reforms to Qatar’s labor migration policies after it investigated the kafala system and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) report that alleged the death of 1,200 construction laborers in the country since the opportunity to host the FIFA World Cup 2022 was won by the country in 2010 (ITUC, 2014). The 2013 Human Rights Watch report detailed the abuses faced by domestic workers in the UAE, which led to an international outcry. In January 2020, the body of a Filipino maid working in Kuwait was uncovered in a home belonging to her employer. These are just a few examples of cases that have come to light in these countries.

Even after much international pressure, instead of eliminating the entire system, each GCC country has taken a piecemeal approach by introducing specific reforms to address the issues raised. The GCC states’ labor migration policies are studied together because of their shared values and ideals and similar labor migration policies. While all the GCC states began with similar migration policies, each country undertook reforms based on local policy, underlying alliances and links with sending-country governments.

Nationalization Policies and Migrants

Given their small and unskilled population, the GCC countries have struggled to obtain the necessary human resources for economic development. They have solved this problem by employing skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled foreign labor to satisfy their rapidly growing economies (Randeree, 2012). As a result, the percentage of migrants in GCC populations has increased systematically. However, the predominance of migrant workers in the labor market quickly became apparent. By the end of 2000, the GCC’s overall number of foreign workers was between 8.0 and 8.5 million. The migrant foreign population also accounted for the largest proportion of the workforce in each country. In Qatar and the UAE, 80%–90% of the labor force were foreigners. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia had the lowest rates, with expatriates accounting for 60% of the labor force; in Kuwait, 72% of the labor force were foreign nationals in 2002 (Kapiszewski, 2006). Recent data suggest that Saudi Arabia is home to 7 million (or 30%) migrants out of 23 million residents. However, migrants comprise 70% of the country’s workforce and 95% of the private-sector workforce. In the UAE, expatriates account for 80% of the 4 million residents and 98% of private-sector workers (Shah, 2006).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 2.

Source: Computed by the authors from Migrant Stock Data Flow, United Nation Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2019).

Figure 2 shows the proportion of the migrant population in each GCC country in 2019 and drives home the harsh reality of the overwhelming presence of migrant workers in these countries. The UAE (87.9%), Qatar (78.7%) and Kuwait (72.1%) are home to more migrants than native people. As a result, GCC countries have embarked on nationalization of the workforce—the process of reducing the number of expatriates in the workforce by increasing the presence of citizens in the workplace (Randeree, 2012). The first effort to establish nationalization policies as an essential component of migration governance began in 2004. The draft resolution to bring down the number of foreign workers was discussed at the annual GCC summit held in Bahrain after describing the presence of expatriates as “a danger for our Arab-Islamic culture.” Since then, each nation has fine-tuned its policies and has actively worked toward this cause (Shah, 2006).

Saudi Arabia was the first country to announce the “Nitaqat Law” in 2003, intending to limit the number of expats and their dependents by 20% by 2013 (Ahmed, 2016). This immediately resulted in firms registering fake Saudi employees to boost their “Saudization rate.” These ghost employees (mostly Saudi women) who did not perform any duties were paid compensation for the use of their name and credentials (Koyame-Marsh, 2016). The ministry of labor has attempted to remedy this by imposing heavy fines on companies and Saudi nationals involved in this practice. Kuwait in recent years has been aggressive in its pursuit of “Kuwatization”; first introduced in 2017, the country has achieved 100 %employment of Kuwaitis in 13 out of 16 government agencies after having forced out expat workers holding positions (Gulf News, October 8, 2020). Kuwait also announced a law on expatriate quotas, which will force millions of expatriates out of their jobs, including 800,000 Indians (The Asian Age, 2020, July 4). Beyond these measures, the government has used the COVID-19 pandemic to accelerate the process by not renewing the expired visas of approximately 70,000 residents currently stranded outside the country. These drastic measures have resulted in 90% (1.4 million citizens) Kuwaitis occupying public-sector jobs (Arab Times, 2019, December 2; Gulf News, 2020, August 4), growing from 81% in the second quarter of 2019. Some GCC countries’ targeted strategy is to identify occupations that are gradually retiring from expatriates on a priority basis. In Kuwait, the law requires private banks to employ nationals in 60% of positions, 56% for telecommunications companies, and 40% for marketing and investment firms; additionally, the private oil and refinery industry is required to employ nationals as 30% of their workforce (Global Bankers Institute, n.d.).

In the UAE, the banking sector is one of the sectors where quotas for the Emiratis have been put in place. However, it has been found that over half the banks have not complied with this quota. They were willing to pay the penalty over not hiring nationals, indicating the difficulties of implementing government policies on this matter (Gulf News, 2004, September 22). The UAE has pushed Emiratization further by awarding initiatives taken by firms, like the telecommunication provider Du (formerly known as Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company) for its Emiratization efforts. The Emirate has ordered that public relations jobs be restricted to UAE nationals to generate more jobs for local job seekers.

In Oman, where the proportion of nonnationals is the lowest among all GCC countries, the Omanization policy began in 1995 (Das & Gokhale, 2010). The government has also provided subsidies to businesses to hire local employees to reduce reliance on foreign workers gradually. Bahrain, for its part, has also undertaken localization measures, calling it Bahrainization. The Labor and Market Regulation Authority has imposed the hiring of a Bahraini for four foreign workers. Companies that fail are penalized with non-approval of foreign worker visas (SG Analytics, 2017). This interference with private-sector hiring will make the process challenging and expensive for businesses. In particular, in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, these rigorous efforts have resulted in the dismissal of foreign workers who have held these public positions for several years. Kuwait’s hard-handed attempt to force expats out of the country, refusing to allow employees in the public education sector to transfer their jobs to the private sector, is bound to result in families losing their livelihoods. Thousands of workers will be forced to return to their countries of origin with low job prospects and even lower wages. The implementation and results of these nationalization policies are widely contested (Hertog, 2013). However, these policies exemplify the sovereign turn’s uncertainty regarding the contradiction between “illiberal” claims and the politics of developmental state discourses.

Conclusion

This article has examined migration policy and practices in the management and regulation of migration and migrants in the GCC states from a historical perspective. The GCC countries’ policies continue with the use of oil and gas wealth for economic development and low-cost, temporary foreign workers to meet their developmental aspirations. Despite a steady migratory flow, the numbers have only increased since the beginning of migration in the 1970s. The GCC states continue to view foreign workers as temporary, restricting workers’ stay to short-term contracts. In contrast to other states where migrants form a primary source of new citizens, in the GCC, migrants have been alienated by the institutions and policies and practices designed by the states.

The kafala system is the obvious reason for the complications involving labor migration in the GCC. The lives of migrants are regulated by the kafala system that produces hierarchical and exploitative relations between nationals and foreigners. The latter subpopulation often remain on the periphery of Gulf societies. Not only are they physically marginalized from the cities of the Gulf, but they are also socially and politically excluded from the society. Over the past few years, the GCC states have faced some pressure from international organizations and immigrants’ countries of origin to reform and address the negative consequences of the kafala system. The Gulf states have undertaken some reforms and measures, such as the WPS, transfer of sponsorship, and provision of medical insurance to migrants, which are positive and laudable. However, the governments need to reform the system of regulation of the migrant population to provide forms of inclusion for the migrant laborers residing in the GCC. Further, immigrant-sending countries need to play a more active role in ensuring that the rights of their citizens are upheld.

This article has attempted to fill the gap in migration policy research on the Global South, which usually focuses on emigration countries and diaspora policies and underestimates the role of immigration policies. However, there is a need for further academic research on migration policies, management, and labor laws and their implementation in GCC states. Continued academic research on the subject will persuade governments to reconsider their methods and draw on the policy recommendations of international organizations.