Migration in the Middle East: Transformation and change

Abstract

The large-scale international movement of manpower is one of the most dramatic effects of the oil price increase and related events of 1973. The issues raised by migration in the Middle East have not received the attention they deserve from political analysts, economists, or area specialists. Yet the economic development of the Arab region is critically tied to manpower requirements; many of the bottlenecks and constraints on economic growth stem directly from the flow of labor across national borders. So, too, labor migration is changing the political demography of the region, shaping the parameters for political and social conflict in the years to come. This paper places contemporary migration in the Middle East in its historical context and then reviews the transformations in migration over the past ten years. It seeks to trace the evolution of migration processes. The basic, guiding proposition is that the "reality" has changed. The challenge lies in delineating these transformations and identifying the various flows and sequences in the evolution of the migration process.