SUDANESE TRANSIENT LABOR MIGRATION TO QATAR: IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN SUDAN

Abstract

The established primary incentive structure of South-South migration compels transient labor migrants in host destination countries to sustain relationships and connections with their families in their countries of origin. This motivation stems from the ongoing effort to meet their responsibilities including giving financial assistance for the expenses of living to their immediate families and relatives consistently. Therefore, these expenses enable migrant families to achieve a higher quality of living compared to non-migrant families in their communities. From this perspective, migration and remittances can have a mutually beneficial relationship, with migrants typically transferring financial and social remittances, which include both financial support and transfer of skills, ideas, experiences, practices, social norms, and values as a consequence of their migration. This study explores the impact of Sudanese transient labor migration to Qatar on social development in Sudan, emphasizing the impacts of social and financial remittances on education, health, housing, and gender dynamics within migrants' families. Nonetheless, transient labor migration across borders and the flow of financial and social remittances from host countries to home countries significantly impact quality of life. These impacts encompass fundamental services, such as education, healthcare, and housing to migrant families in developing countries. This is because South-South migration predominantly consists of migrants who are participating in temporary work abroad and legally obligated to return to their home countries upon completing their employment contracts. This dissertation employs a qualitative technique, inductive reasoning, and semi-structured interviews for Thirty-Three participants. This dissertation also adopts a constructivist perspective, and it is based on specific case studies of Sudanese with varying skills, male and female migrants in Qatar and their families in Sudan. The findings suggest that both financial and social remittances significantly improve the delivery of education, improved healthcare services, greater quality of life through better housing, increased or stable sources of income, and improved gender roles/relationships in Sudan, particularly within the framework of social development and the context of South-South migration. This leads to significant improvements in overall quality of life and accessibility to these services compared to the families of non-migrants in the same communities.