Abstract
Temporary international migration for employment is not a new phenomenon and much has been written about ‘guest workers’ to European countries. Labor migration to the oil producing Middle East countries is, however, a relatively recent occupation — one that is likely to have far reaching impacts on both labor importing and exporting countries. Serageldin et al. (1983) have estimated that from about 1.6 million migrant workers in 1975 the number would increase to about 4.3 million in 1985 in the major capital rich labor importing countries.1 In some oil producing countries, such as Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, non-national workers comprise over seventy percent of the total labor force. In recent years, the relative proportion of non-Arab migrant labor has increased, proportionately more South and South East Asian and East Asian workers are now employed in the Middle East than in the mid-seventies.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.