Abstract
The difficult economic situation of many Arab and Southeast Asian countries in the last few decades has made labour emigration an attractive option for citizens of these states. Such emigration has generally been supported by their governments to ease labour market pressures, reduce unemployment, and accelerate development. The migration of the workforce has become one of the most dynamic economic factors in the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries; remittances from migrant labour exceed the value of regional trade in goods as well as official capital flows (Nassar and Ghoneim, Trade and Migration, Are they Complements or Substitutes?: A Review of Four MENA Countries. Cairo, Eygpt: Economic Research Forum, 2002). One of the largest markets for Arab and Asian job seekers has been that of the states in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), including Qatar. Since the discovery of oil and gas, Qatar has had to supplement a tiny local workforce with large amounts of expatriate labour.
This process has had a significant impact on Qatar’s economy, politics, and the social structure. It has allowed for a rapid development of Qatar economically, but at the same time involved the Qatari government and society in various foreign affairs developments and brought a number of negative cultural and socio-economic consequences. Although foreigners in Qatar have not created problems of the magnitude of those found in other immigrant countries of the world, different economic and political interests of governments and individuals have brought numerous tensions and conflicts, such as the recent focus on workers’ human rights which intensified after Qatar won its bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
This chapter analyzes Qatar’s population dilemmas as well as their effects on the labour force structure. In particular, it discusses such issues as the heterogeneity of the local populations, the composition of the national and foreign workforce, the segmentation of the labour market, and the localization of the workforce.
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Notes
- 1.
Qatar ranked no. 31 in the Human Development Report of 2014. For further information about the HD index, refer to HDR, 2014, UNDP.
- 2.
The author conducted personal interviews with 39 senior officials in different sectors during the period of June–October 2014.
- 3.
Focus Group Interview by the author.
- 4.
Article 27 states, “the employer who employs foreign experts or technicians shall train an appropriate number of Qatari workers to be nominated by the department on the work carried out by the experts and technicians or employ assistant Qatari workers for them for purpose of training and gaining expertise.”
- 5.
As stated in Article 16, “Residence permits shall be granted to the spouse of the person granted a Residence permit and to his/her male children who have not completed their university study up to the age of 25 years and to his/her unmarried daughters. Subject to the consent of the Minister or his nominee at his sole discretion, the parents of the person granted a residence permit may also be granted residence permits.” (The Minister identifies the granting of these permits to expatriates with high level of expertise).
- 6.
In this regard, the 2012 survey results showed that there were 47 % of Qatari males and 72 % of Qatari females in senior positions (Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics, May 2013: 14).
- 7.
Qatar ranked low (number 50) on the 2011 Education Development Index (EDI), indicating that much progress is still required for Qatar. (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international agenda/efareport/statistics/efa-development-index/).
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Al Muftah, H. (2016). Demographic Policies and Human Capital Challenges. In: Tok, M., Alkhater, L., Pal, L. (eds) Policy-Making in a Transformative State. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46639-6_10
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