Migration and Social Change in the Gulf: A Comparative Study in the Six Gulf States

Abstract

Migration and flow of people across the world is rapidly growing today. It was estimated that there were about 272 million migrants globally in 2019 which roughly constitutes of 3.2% of the world population. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is emerging as one of the major sources of the destination of millions of migrants. The six GCC countries together constitutes over more than 52 per cent of the non-nationals in their population. It has been noticed in the last few decades that made new provisions of Immigration policies to protect the welfare of the local national population and control the outflow of the remittances to other countries. But this is not happening as it was expected that there would be the impact of immigration policies of GCC countries directly or indirectly on the size, flow, stock, trend, magnitude, and characteristics of immigrants. The size and volume of non nationals are still increasing. It is also evident that the India-Gulf migration has emerged as the second-largest employment migration corridor in the world. The main aim of the paper is to discuss the role played by expatriate workers in bringing tangible changes in the Gulf society where they are working. This paper identifies the changes in individual states in the Gulf and compare such changes among these six countries. This comparative analysis is expected to provide patterns and outcomes of migration-induced changes that are so far understudied in the region. The paper will also examine the role of GCCs to provide economic and social security to expatriates. An attempt will also be made to understand the changing dynamic trends along with socio-demographic profile of migrants in the Gulf countries.