Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online 2025-6
Contesting migrant precarity in the Global South? Informal labor markets,high-risk coping strategies and low-income Filipino migrants in the United Arab Emirates
Despite extensive host state labor reforms, scholars contend that temporary labor migrants are systematically subject to economic precarity under the Gulf states’ kafala sponsorship system. Using the case of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), this article posits that, despite legal and financial sanctions, low-income migrants navigate their transnational economic precarity status by strategically engaging with host country informal labor markets through three high-risk coping strategies: Accumulating debt, subleasing and enterprising. Ultimately, the study highlights low-income migrants navigate and co-produce precarity while simultaneously weaponizing informal labor markets as a (marginal yet) central “site” of everyday contestation within restrictive migration system in the Global South.
AlShehabiOH (2019) Policing labour in empire: the modern origins of the Kafala sponsorship system in the Gulf Arab States. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies48(2): 291–310. DOI: 10.1080/13530194.2019.1580183.
BabarZ (2024) The buying of freedom: migrant workers and the “Azad” visa in the Persian Gulf. International Migration63(1). Epub ahead of print, 27 May 2024. DOI: 10.1111/imig.13240.
4.
BaeyGYeohBSA (2022) Compounding precarity in migrant worker trajectories. In: YeohBSAWeeKLamT (eds) Migrant Workers in Singapore. World Scientific Press, 179–182.
5.
BantaVL (2024) Caring for indebted migrant workers: financial literacy training, debt, and Filipino migrant workers in Dubai. The Professional Geographer. Epub ahead of print, 22 October 2024. DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2024.2410764.
6.
BisharaD (2023) Introduction to a special issue on labor in the Middle East and North Africa: precarity, inequality, and migration. Industrial and Labor Relations Review76(4): 627–645.
7.
BlaydesL (2023) Assessing the labor conditions of migrant domestic workers in the Arab Gulf States. ILR Review76(4): 724–747.
8.
CreswellJ (2007) Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches. Sage Publications, Inc.
9.
CrushJTawodzeraG (2024) Informal pandemic precarity and migrant food enterprise in South Africa during COVID-19. Global Food Security43: 100804.
10.
Damir-GeilsdorfSPelicanM (2019) Between regular and irregular employment: subverting the kafala system in the GCC countries. Migration and Development8(2): 155–175.
11.
FarguesPShahNMBrouwerI (2019a) Working and Living Conditions of Low-Income Migrant Workers in The Hospitality and Construction Sectors in Qatar: A Survey Amongst Migrant Workers Through Focus Group Discussions. Research Report for The Gulf Labour Markets, Migration and Population (GLMM) Program, Research Report no. 1/2019. GLMM. Available at: https://gulfmigration.grc.net/media/pubs/rp/GLMM_EN_2019_RR01.pdf
12.
FarguesPShahNMBrouwerI (2019b) Working and Living Conditions of Low-Income Migrant Workers In The Hospitality And Construction Sectors In The United Arab Emirates: A Survey Among Migrant Workers Through Focus Group Discussions. Research Report for The Gulf Labour Markets, Migration and Population (GLMM) Program, Research Report no. 2/2019. GLMM. Available at: https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/65986/Report_GLMM02.pdf
13.
FernandezB (2021) Racialised institutional humiliation through the Kafala. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies47(19): 4344–4361.
14.
GanjiSK (2016) Leveraging the World Cup: mega sporting events, human rights risk, and worker welfare reform in Qatar. Journal on Migration and Human Security4(4): 221–259.
15.
GardnerAM (2010) City of Strangers: Gulf Migration and the Indian Community in Bahrain. Cornell University Press.
16.
GardnerAM (2014) Ethnography, Anthropology and Migration to the Arabian Peninsula: Themes from an Ethnographic Research Trajectory. Technical report for The Gulf Labour Markets, Migration and Population (GLMM) Program, Technical report no. 10/2014. GLMM. Available at: https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/34578
17.
GardnerAPessoaSDiopA, et al. (2013) A portrait of low-income migrants in contemporary Qatar. Journal of Arabian Studies3(1): 1–17.
18.
HalabiR (2008) Contract enslavement of female migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Human Rights and Human Welfare8(1): 43–58, Available at:https://digitalcommons.du.edu/hrhw/vol8/iss1/31/
IshiiM (2019) Empowerment of migrant domestic workers: Muslim Filipinas in the United Arab Emirates. In: LianKFHosodaNIshiiM (eds) International Labour Migration in the Middle East and Asia: Issues of Inclusion and Exclusion. Springer Singapore.
23.
IskanderNLandauLB (2022) The centre cannot hold: Arrival, margins, and the politics of ambivalence introduction to ‘arrival at the margins’, a special issue of migration studies. Migration Studies10(2): 97–111.
24.
JohnsonM (2011) Freelancing in the Kingdom: Filipino migrant domestic workers crafting agency in Saudi Arabia. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal20(3–4): 459–478.
25.
JohnsonM (2018) From victims of trafficking to freedom fighters: rethinking migrant domestic workers in the Middle East. In: BraceLO'Connell DavidsonJ (eds) Revisiting Slavery and Antislavery: Towards a Critical Analysis. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 179–205.
JureidiniR (2018) Wage protection systems and programmes in the GCC. In: FarguesPShahN (eds). Migration to the Gulf: Policies in Sending and Receiving Countries. International Organization for Migration (IOM).
KhalafSAlKobaisiS (1999) Migrants’ strategies of coping and patterns of accommodation in the oil-rich Gulf societies: evidence from the UAE. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies26(2): 271–298, Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/195926
31.
KhondkerHHJahanM (2015) Coping and overcoming: South Asian domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates. In: SahooAK (ed) Diaspora, Development and Distress: Indians in the Persian Gulf. Rawat Publishers.
32.
LewisHWaiteL (2015) Asylum, immigration restrictions and exploitation: hyper-precarity as a lens for understanding and tackling forced labour. Anti-Trafficking Review (5): 1–10. DOI: 10.14197/atr.20121554.
33.
LoweCHagen-ZankerJMazzilli, et al. (2023) Extending social protection to migrant workers in the region of the Gulf Cooperation Council for the Arab states of the Gulf (GCC): an analysis of enablers and barriers. International Social Security Review76(4): 89–110.
34.
MalitF (2025) Defying the “illiberal” gig economy: coping strategies of freelance domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates. Global Labour Journal16(1): 26–45.
35.
MalitFTJrNaufalG (2016) Asymmetric information under the Kafala sponsorship system: impacts on foreign domestic workers’ income and employment status in the GCC countries. International Migration54(5): 76–90.
36.
MalitFTJrTsourapasG (2021) Migration diplomacy in the Gulf – non-state actors, cross-border mobility, and the United Arab Emirates. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies47(11): 2556–2577.
MehtaSR (2017) Contesting victim narratives: Indian women domestic workers in Oman. Migration and Development6(3): 395–411.
39.
NaufalGMalitJF (2018) Exploitation and the decision to migrate: the role of abuse and unfavorable working conditions in Filipina domestic workers’ desire to return abroad. In: Discussion Paper for IZA Institute of Labor Economics, Discussion Paper No. 11677, July. IZA Institute of Labor Economics. DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3217495.
40.
NgehJ (2022) ‘Bed-space’ housing in Dubai: African migrants, ambivalence towards authorities, and gender differences. Ethnography (London). Epub ahead of print 06 May 2022. DOI: 10.1177/14661381221098610.
41.
ParreñasRS (2021a) Discipline and empower: the state governance of migrant domestic workers. American Sociological Review86(6): 1043–1065.
42.
ParreñasRS (2021b) Unfree: Migrant Domestic Work in Arab States. Stanford University Press.
43.
ParreñasRSSilveyR (2016) Domestic workers refusing neo-slavery in the UAE. Contexts (Berkeley, Calif.)15(3): 36–41.
44.
ParreñasRSSilveyRHwang, et al. (2018) Serial labor migration: precarity and itinerancy among Filipino and Indonesian domestic workers. International Migration Review53(4): 1230–1258.
45.
PessoaSHarknessLGardnerAM (2014) Ethiopian labor migrants and the “free visa” system in Qatar. Human Organization73(3): 205–213, Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44148781
46.
PiperN (2022) Temporary labour migration in Asia: the transnationality-precarity nexus. International Migration60(4): 38–47.
47.
PiperNRosewarneSWithersM (2017) Migrant precarity in Asia: ‘Networks of labour activism’ for a rights-based governance of migration. Development and Change48(5): 1089–1110.
48.
RahmanMM (2018) Beyond labour migration: the making of migrant enterprises in Saudi Arabia. International Sociology33(1): 86–106.
49.
RajPRahmanMM (2023) Migration, debt, and transnational livelihood: Indian labour diasporas in the GCC states amid the pandemic. South Asian Diaspora15(2): 233–254.
50.
SaundersP (2021) Loan sharking: changing patterns in, and challenging perceptions of, and an abuse of deprivation. Journal of Public Health43(1).
51.
SchierupCUJorgensenMB (2017) From ‘social exclusion’ to ‘precarity’. The becoming-migrant of labour: an introduction. In: Politics of Precarity: Migrant Conditions, Struggles and Experiences. Brill.
52.
ShivakotiRHendersonSWithersM (2021) The migration ban policy cycle: a comparative analysis of restrictions on the emigration of women domestic workers. Comparative Migration Studies9(36): 36.
53.
SilveyRParreñasR (2020) Precarity chains: cycles of domestic worker migration from Southeast Asia to the Middle East. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies46(16): 1–15.
54.
SunamR (2022) Infrastructures of migrant precarity: unpacking precarity through the lived experiences of migrant workers in Malaysia. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies49(3): 636–654.
55.
ThiolletH (2011) Migration as diplomacy: labor migrants, refugees, and Arab regional politics in the oil-rich countries. International Labor and Working-Class History79: 103–121, Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41306911
56.
ThiolletH (2019) Immigrants, Markets, Brokers, and States: The Politics of Illiberal Migration Governance in the Arab Gulf. Working paper for International Migration Institute, Working paper no. 155, November. Available at: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-02362910v2/document
57.
ThiolletH (2022) Illiberal migration governance in the Arab Gulf. In: HollifieldJFFoleyN (eds) Understanding Global Migration. Stanford University Press, pp. 50–80.
58.
UddinN (2024) Decentralized migration governance in migrant-sending states: examining incentives for advocacy, refusal, and reluctance in the Bangladesh-Qatar corridor. In: ShahNMDe Bel-AirF (eds) Migration to the Gulf: Possible Scenarios for the Future. A View from the GCC and from Countries of Origin, Cambridge, United Kingdom. 09-11 July 2024. Available at: https://gulfresearchmeeting.net/documents/1720010201FinalWS10Agenda.pdf
59.
VardhanJBohraSAbdullahA, et al. (2020) Push or pull motivation? A study of migrant women entrepreneurs in UAE. International Journal of Family Business and Regional Development1(1): 8–24, Available at: https://www.inderscience.com/storage/f749610111125328.pdf
60.
VoraNKochN (2015) Everyday inclusions: rethinking ethnocracy, Kafala, and belonging in the Arabian Peninsula. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism15(3): 540–552. DOI: 10.1111/sena.12158.
61.
WoolfsonCFudgeJThörnqvistC (2014) Migrant precarity and future challenges to labour standards in Sweden. Economic and Industrial Democracy35(4): 695–715.
