Mohammad Amaan Siddiqui (Oxford University)
Migration Patterns in and from the Arabian Gulf
Migration planning and migrant identities in the Arabian Gulf are taking increasingly heterogeneous shapes as global and regional social, economic, and political dynamics transform. While migration to the Arabian Gulf is a centuries-old phenomenon, as the region is integrated in the Indian Ocean maritime networks, the mass migration of the modern era followed the oil boom and the development of restrictive jus sanguinis citizenship policies. In the shadow of this context of noncitizenship, migrants have engaged in diverse patterns of mobility.
First, migrants in the Gulf were and still are often defined as contract workers with an explicit expectation to eventually return to their home countries, even when they spend decades in a Gulf state. Accordingly, the bulk of migration flows to the Gulf are accompanied with return migration once contract terms are over, terminated (as observed through the mass layoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic), or reach a person’s age of retirement. This trend is most common among those who lack the resources to creatively prolong their stay in the Gulf or those who genuinely intend to return “home.”
Second, scholars also identify a “stepwise migration” pattern through the region. According to this stream of migration theories, migrants first emigrate from an economically or politically challenged Global South country to the Gulf, another Global South state that offers comparatively better economic conditions. Stepwise migrants, however, envision their stay in the region as temporary in a different way—they intend to migrate “onward” to a third destination. Such third destinations generally tend to be a Global North country where migrants use the capital they accumulate in the Gulf to further “upgrade” themselves and even pursue naturalisation elsewhere for permanent settlement.
Third, the serial migrants described above who migrate onward also often return to the Gulf to position themselves differently with new education or new nationalities. This dynamic is similar to those who wish to naturalise by permanently settling in the Gulf and finding ways to do so and hold citizen-like sentiments despite their legal experience of protracted noncitizenship. The difference is the strategising of the time in between. Those who stay have accepted the inaccessibility of local citizenship but instead rely on capital accumulation, starting businesses, and leveraging non-sponsored visa statuses for longer stays. For example, while a standard work visa is sponsored by a company that eventually cannot be renewed beyond the age of retirement, families can register their own businesses and hold visas through that investment, circumventing age limits.
Since 2019, moreover, the Gulf states have rolled out 5-15-year, renewable, sponsor-free residencies as ‘golden visas’, premium residencies, or even permanent residencies, though the final category is highly selective. In the UAE, golden visas can also be accessed through graduation merits, artistic endeavours, humanitarian contributions, experience in industries of national importance (such as healthcare), and other creative aspirations, in addition to the standard investment and salary thresholds that are now available across the Gulf.
However, onward migrants who eventually return to the Gulf are also cognizant of the “citizenship penalty” in the region, and they may pursue Western citizenship to circumvent it. The citizenship penalty is another colonial legacy in the region through which employers leverage the Gulf’s laissez-faire migration management to set wages based on country-of-origin reference points, resulting in nationality-based wage discrimination. Resultantly, migrants may aim to naturalise in the West to change this reference point for higher pay, while their social, economic, and cultural commitments remain in the Gulf. As the experience and process of naturalisation in the West is fast changing, whether or not this exercise remains worth it while migrants’ emotional loyalties remain to the Gulf comes increasingly into question.
The Contemporary Noncitizen Experience Privileging Life in the Arabian Gulf
Based on fieldwork conducted to unpack the dynamics of emigration and immigration decision-making in UAE-based migration, our research found that individuals made conscious decisions to choose the Gulf over the West and also deliberately avoided “onward” migration even when they had the resources to do so. The primary reasons that emerged even prior to the recent restrictive citizenship turn in the West had to do with the experience of life and naturalisation in the Gulf compared to the Global North.
First, residents in the UAE consider the country to be among the safest places globally, ranked higher than other places in the Global North and their countries of nationality. Apart from the general perception of law and order, families who held strongly to their culture, and especially to Islam, found the region to be a safe haven for their practice, as both the West and South Asia see an increasing level of Islamophobia and politically motivated violence. This sense of safety, on average, remained even during Iranian strikes in the first half of 2026. While the turbulent period saw some emigration, residents noted that departures were either temporary wartime decisions or were taken by those who spent the least time in the region and did not actually see it as home.
Second, although the region is frequently and increasingly criticised for policies under monarchical rule, many residents do not believe that democratic governance is inherently superior. Essentially, where individuals value the outcomes of governance more than its process, they accept the foreclosures of liberal democratic freedoms, including of speech and public protest, as positives. Our interlocutors often pointed to the social disorder and lack of political change that follows most recent Western protests. Instead, they find that a focus on consultation is superior to an “unconditional freedom of speech” and maintains order. It was also common for our interlocutors to note that they did not even feel the need to protest about anything as their social needs were met through high pluralism and the economic needs were met through non-taxation and opportunity. The experience in the West, meanwhile, was perceived as one that would mandate taxation, still without political rights (as an H1B or Green Card holder) while also taking away general and cultural safety.
Where the West provides a higher income in currency conversion rates, guarantees liberal rights, and has relatively reliable pathways for naturalisation, many individuals ultimately noted that the passport was “not appealing enough” to “endure” the pain of the actual process. A number of interlocutors in Siddiqui, Nadeem, and Vora’s research spoke to this. Afiya, a young Pakistani UAE resident, reflected on her brother’s stories from Canada to conclude that she would not travel to Canada for a years-long residency in pursuit of its permanent residency or citizenship. As reasons, she cited the pervasiveness of drugs and alcohol among the youth, lack of safety, and cultural mismatches with the Pakistani and Emirati identity. Other South Asian interlocutors also frequently cited the prevalence of Islamophobia and anti-South Asian racism as social risks that make Western citizenship uncomfortable.
Noncitizenship itself emerges as a valid experience that many families choose. In a context where individuals have naturalised, as many of our interlocutors were essentially second-generation immigrants in the UAE, the region is home, independent of their nationality. While the state and some individuals may indeed see citizenship as having the final say on one’s identity and belonging, this cannot be assumed as the natural or dominant thought. Amna, another Pakistani resident who has lived across the Gulf, noted that her family has declined job offers to relocate to the United States because they wish to remain in the wider Gulf region and feel a strong sense of belonging. Addressing the challenge of noncitizenship, she asserted her “patriotism to a country that was never [her] nation,” even expressing to “give [her] life to this country]” based on “genuinely” feeling a sense of belonging in the UAE.
Clearly, the pathways to formal citizenship are ignored by many of the Gulf’s noncitizen residents, even in the face of precarity, as a calculus may deem the prospect “not worth it”, or one’s affective connections to their current context may be too strong. The importance of this finding should be emphasised, especially considering that the Gulf region is frequently discussed through the vocabularies of precarity and victimhood in citizenship studies. While this blog should not be read as a complete and glamorous account of the Gulf nor as only a damning account of the Global North, it stands as a reminder that citizenship and noncitizenship are imperfect containers and imperfect tools, regardless of their access.
References
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