Asian and Pacific Migration Journal

Migrants represent between one-third and four-fifths of the population in the Gulf states. Despite their sizable numbers, migrants can only have temporary residency, they have no access to citizenship, and they have limited membership in society, conditions which are unique to the Gulf states as destination countries. The first section argues that non-nationals have been instrumental in shaping the social link between nationals, and the relationship between them and their rulers. The second section shows how oil-generated wealth has allowed demographic growth through high fertility among nationals, and high immigration among non-nationals. The faster growth among non-nationals has produced societies with a continuously shrinking proportion of nationals. Indeed, while policies of not allowing immigrants' integration in the citizenry have worked well, policies aiming at reducing dependency on foreign workers through indigenizing the workforce and those limiting their duration of stay have not been successful. The exceptional demography of the Gulf states is not explained by an exceptional level of immigration as much as by an exceptional closure of local societies.

This paper provides an overview of the kafala or sponsorship system, and explains the role the sponsor (kafeel) assumes in the legal and economic responsibilities for the migrant worker for the contract period. The paper then assesses the initiatives undertaken to reform it in the Gulf Cooperation Council states, as well as in Jordan and Lebanon. An analysis of the previous attempts to reform the system shows that the results have been very limited to date. The paper goes on to examine reasons behind the lack of real reform, and ends with policy recommendations for an alternative to the system.

This article examines the main institutional developments that have accompanied the economic and political changes in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the past twenty years. In particular, the different agencies of the UAE's Ministry of Interior have taken active roles in responding to the demographic changes and in developing preemptive policing strategies that include community policing, extensive surveillance networks, and increasingly individualized and standardized forms of identification. The paper assesses how that institutional growth has shaped the way the UAE has come to manage its guest worker program over time. It explains how the security apparatus is deployed by the state for managing the criminal and cultural impact of expatriates on the national body politic.

Several features of the new 2010 Labor Law could have potential impacts on the indigenous as well as expatriate labor force in Kuwait. The new Law, if implemented effectively, could enhance the welfare of all workers, including non-nationals. The elimination of the kafala or sponsorship system and regulation of foreign worker inflow by an independent authority may reduce visa trading and cost to migrant workers. Transfer from one employer to another may also become easier. More Kuwaiti women may be motivated to join the workforce due to increased benefits. Despite good intentions, effective implementation of many of the laws will not be easy.

The Sultanate of Oman has relatively high unemployment, especially among women and youth, while its economy continues to rely on imported labor. To reduce dependence on foreign labor and to tackle unemployment, the government introduced a policy of Omanization or nationalization of its labor force. As part of a wider agenda for the diversification and privatization of the Omani economy, a key aim of the policy is to increase the participation of women in the labor force, to maximize the use of national human resources and to enhance the return of investments from the rapidly expanding educational attainment of Omani females in the last two decades. This paper focuses on female labor force participation in Oman and examines the implications of Omanization for women in the teaching and nursing professions. Empirical research was carried out in Muscat to determine how labor nationalization manifests in the workplace and to what extent and in what way Omani and migrant women workers perceive and respond to the effects of the policy. The results aim to shed light on the feasibility of labor nationalization policy implementation, and how Omanization policies may lead to a more efficient and effective use of the country's human resources.

The new economics of labor migration explains migration as part of family strategies to address income risks and capital constraints in developing countries. However, it does not adequately take into account the risks and costs borne by migrant families in contemporary labor migration. This paper examines the emigration-family economy nexus highlighting the undercurrent of risks in the labor migration process. This study draws from the experiences of Bangladeshi families who have family members working in Saudi Arabia. The research reports that migrants often undertake international migration at great costs of their own, incurring large debts, risking personal savings and family assets, and accentuating income risks and capital constraints, while the remittances are meager in the repair of such family economy.

This paper focuses on the politics of states and inter-state relations, and their role in creating environments of deportability and expendability that structure trafficking-like situations for female migrant workers engaged in the sphere of intimate labor¹ in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). States have played a major part in structuring the politics of deportability, a very real, present force affecting experiences of forced labor in Dubai, as well as in painting their citizens as disposable. In this paper, I draw on four years of ethnographic research with female migrants and state officials from both sending countries as well as the US and UAE, to examine the individual and larger macro social factors structuring intimate labor and migrants' rights.

Since the late 1990s, there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of Ethiopian women working on short-term contracts as domestic workers in Gulf countries. Drawing on primary research conducted in Ethiopia and in Kuwait, this paper analyzes the gendered production of the migration trajectory of Ethiopian women domestic workers to the Gulf countries. The paper maps the linkages between the gendered political economies and the policy choices of both sending and receiving countries to argue first, that there is evidence for the Ethiopian government's role as a ‘labor brokerage state,’ although its regulatory capacity is weak. Second, the paper argues that the assumption that the demand for migrant domestic workers is driven by national women entering the workforce is not necessarily true in the Gulf countries, where the ‘social compact’ and the kafala or sponsorship system are primary institutional drivers of the demand for migrant domestic workers. The paper concludes with reflections on the consequences of Ethiopian women's migration for social reproduction across national boundaries.

This paper examines how Muslim Filipino domestic workers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia creatively assert agency and solicit recognition despite their precarious position in that country. One way that they do so is by leaving their legal employers to go ‘freelance,’ selling their labor to the highest bidder and living as best they can as irregular migrants in that country. The capacity to act in that way is enabled by the high demand for domestic labor and the wider network of relations among compatriot and kin who provide them with assistance. While effectively drawing on those social networks, migrant domestic workers, nonetheless, continue to bear the cost of a stigmatized social position among their co-nationals.

This article highlights how, in pursuing their goals, Indonesian female migrant workers exercised their agency by coping with the challenges of life and work in Saudi Arabia. Due to the lack of legal protection of their rights in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, many such workers suffer various forms of exploitation and maltreatment by actors who took advantage of them. This study examines how three Indonesian domestic workers in Saudi Arabia adapted to an alien environment, overcame problems in the workplace, and negotiated with their employers. This study reveals that these women were not passive victims of the existing social system; they were capable of exercising their agency.

Most ethnic Koreans in China live in Yanbian Prefecture. Since 1996, the population of Yanbian Koreans has registered a negative growth, which is largely attributed to population outflow. According to the 2003 Sample Survey to Examine the Negative Population Growth of Yanbian Koreans, 37 percent of the households reported having members who sought work elsewhere. Logistic regression analysis shows that people with higher educational level and those engaged in agriculture had a higher probability of leaving. Men and those who completed secondary education were more likely to choose to go to South Korea while those who are married and are engaged in non-agricultural work were more likely to participate in intra- or inter-provincial search for employment in China.