Gulf's Migrant Workers Amidst Covid-19 and Workforce Nationalization: A Focus on Qatar's Social Protection Systems

Abstract

In the early 1970s, oil prices skyrocketed and the resource-rich Gulf states pursued infrastructural development. This created a massive labor demand in the construction, infrastructure, and oil sectors. Foreign labor facilitated and helped materialize development in an arguably short duration of unparalleled precedence. Thus, by the twenty-first century, the volume of migrant workers significantly surpassed those of the local employees in these countries. In 1999, the foreign workers in the Gulf states totalled 7.1 million; 70% of their total workforce. Migration has had a huge impact on the Gulf countries. Foreign labor was a central factor to the development strategies of the Gulf nations. Hence, most existing studies and research on immigrants adopt an economic or a political approach concentrating on resource-sharing, national economies, development, and remittances.