Migration in the Middle East: Old economics or new politics?
What we have in the Middle East today is a very distinctive and peculiar phenomenon that can be understood only in the context of the realities of the past decade: almost everyone is on the move. Nowhere do we see a truly national labor market. While declining oil prices will almost certainly reduce...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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© Middle East Research Group
2022
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| Online Access: | https://www.proquest.com/docview/225003955 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/141538 |
| Summary: | What we have in the Middle East today is a very distinctive and peculiar phenomenon that can be understood only in the context of the realities of the past decade: almost everyone is on the move. Nowhere do we see a truly national labor market. While declining oil prices will almost certainly reduce the growth of the labor mobility, even perhaps eliminating it entirely, the fact remains that almost every country relies on sending labor, or on receiving labor, or on both. This fact will remain with us well into the foreseeable future. For example, over 80 percent of Kuwait's labor force is composed of nonnationals; 50 percent of the country's population are noncitizens. While this is indeed a stark profile, it is certainly unreasonable to expect that all foreigners will be "returned." There is almost no scenario one can conjure to reestablish truly national labor markets that would, in turn, eliminate this internationalization of employment practices. This is precisely what makes the issue of labor migration an intensely political, rather than simply an economic, issue in the Middle East today. The foreign policies of nations, Arab and non-Arab, are increasingly shaped by manpower connections, and issues that were conventionally thought to be in the realm of "low politics"--to be dealt with by technocrats, bureaucrats, economists, and the like--have been catapulted into the arena of "high politics," pressing themselves upon the attention and shaping the priorities of almost every leader in the region.
Remittances from employment abroad are a major feature of the manpower mosaic in the Middle East. By official estimates, Egyptians remit about $3 billion per year. (But there are indications that this figure may be falling because migration is tapering off.) This is an official figure, accounted for in the country's balance of payments. Once these earnings are remitted, it is conventionally believed that a whole variety of economic effects takes place. This added income in the hands of consumers, translated into more purchasing power, leads to increased aggregate demand and eventually increased output. Most observers believe, however, that remittances are essentially "squanderables," going into consumer goods, luxury items, TV's, and so forth. No one knows for sure what happens to the remitted earnings, but analysts have tended to focus on their impact for the real side of the economy, that is, the goods market rather than the monetary side, money supply, and foreign exchange markets. Generally, almost everyone attributes the growing inflation in the labor-exporting countries to the flow of remittances. On balance, then, there are "goods" and "bads" associated with remittances; how much of each remains quite unclear.
The revolutionary uprising of Palestinians within the occupied territories, and within Israel, is tying labor issues to security concerns, connecting both with strong contentions against authority of the occupying power. The simplicity of conventional definitions is being challenged: are Palestinians working in Israel "migrant labor," "citizens," "refugees," or some other category? In a region where people are intensely politicized, issues of mobility, migration, employment, and labor are increasingly ones of "high politics." |
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