Movement as Culture: Dance in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Diaspora

The Movement of Indian Labor Migrants to the Arab states of the Persian Gulf

As I discussed in the introduction, the oil price boom in 1973 (see more information here) resulted in a larger opportunity for infrastructural development in GCC countries, as they had an abundance of wealth from the inflated oil prices. Resultantly, these countries began importing Indian workers for both work depending on the specific infrastructure that each country was focusing on building. Weiner (1982) and Ahmad and Khan (2011) detail the breakdown of labor in each country over time. At first, the majority of the migrant workers were educated, as there was a high unemployment rate among the educated in India at the time (Weiner, 5). The surplus in the Indian educated workforce provided the perfect solution for the Gulf countries who needed properly educated workers, since their education systems were all relatively new (see more information here). Most migrant workers were men who sent remittances home to their families who remained in India (Weiner, 6). Over time, as watnis (natives of the region) reaped the benefits of the developed and successful industries, the import of domestic workers for the homes of wealthy watnis became common, increasing the number of female migrant workers who, along with their working husbands, moved whole families to GCC countries (Ahmad and Khan, 1154). In addition, the Indian diaspora began developing abroad, with communities for specific Indian subcultures, which improving the living conditions for Indians in the Gulf and further incentivizing Indian labor migration in general, especially for technical laborers and construction workers who initially had to live in barracks (Weiner, 6).

Below, find two graphs telling the story of Indian migration to GCC countries from 1990 to 2017 - the first illustrates the number of migrants in each country and the second graph shows those same numbers in relation to the total population of each country.

I. Total Numbers of Migrant Laborers

To begin, we can look at a trend graph illustrating the size of the population of Indian migrants over time, where the numbers in each country in the GCC is graphed separately. This way, we can clearly see the labor migration to each country, as it relates to policies and different programs for industrial development in each country. I've taken the information provided by the PEW Research center on populations of Indian migrants in each country in the given year (“Global Migration Map”), and graphed these numbers using a line graph to connect the measured points, so we can see the differential change in Indian migrant population over various periods of time. There are several significant findings in this graph, which all relate to the growth of the Indian migrant population in GCC countries. To start, Saudi Arabia begins with an Indian migrant population significantly larger than that of the other countries, which correlates to the oil boom in 1973 that greatly increased infrastructural development in Saudi Arabia, whose population is much larger than that of the other countries. Furthermore, the increase in Indian migrant population in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar between 2000 and 2010 are noteworthy. This finding is corroborated by the next graph, which takes a closer look at the proportional change in migrant population size with respect to the population sizes of each country.


II. Percentage of Migrant Laborers

It is helpful to understand the different sizes of populations in each of these countries. Bahrain has a population of ~700 thousand, so while the growth in numbers pales in comparison to a country like Saudi Arabia, with a population of ~27 million people, the percent growth in relation to population size is actually statistically comparable (Ahmad and Khan, 1146). Thus, it is more helpful to compare the change in proportional migrant population in over time in each country. Using the above numbers of Indian migrants in the given years, I've normalized the data using the total population of each country in 2017 and calculated the percentage of the Indian migrant population in each country as it relates to the population of the relevant country (United Nations). With this lens of analysis, the most noteworthy changes in Indian migrant population are in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar between 2000 and 2010 and in Oman and Kuwait between 2010 and 2017.





Resources:

Ahmad, Ishtiyaq, and Bilal Ahmad Khan. “INDIAN MIGRANTS IN GULF STATES: Issues and Problems.” The Indian Journal of Political Science, vol. 72, no. 4, 2011, pp. 1143–1164., www.jstor.org/stable/41856546.
“Global Migration Map: Origins and Destinations, 1990-2017.” Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project, Pew Research Center, 28 Feb. 2018, www.pewresearch.org/global/interactives/global-migrant-stocks-map/.
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2017). World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision, World Population 2017 Wallchart. ST/ESA/SER.A/398. Accessed at: https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2017_Wallchart.pdf.
Weiner, Myron. “International Migration and Development: Indians in the Persian Gulf.” Population and Development Review, vol. 8, no. 1, 1982, pp. 1–36. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1972688.

 

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