Published Paper Details:

GCC countries can be seen as a region of extreme mobility, be it voluntary or forced. It is one of the largest recipients of labour migrants in the entire world. The history of migration inflows in the GCC countries can be segregated into pre-oil and post-oil periods. Mass migration to GCC countries started in the 1960s, however, post the discovery of oil reserves and the oil boom in 1970, these GCC countries became the magnets for international migration attracting all sorts of people towards them. Moreover, the Arabian Gulf has a long history of global connectivity and interaction with its neighbouring countries. So, the oil boom in the area had pushed rapid development, which further necessitated a demand for labour. Due to small population sizes in the Gulf, GCC countries relied on imported labour to balance out their local labour deficits, which have primarily been sourced from the Indian subcontinent and South Asia. According to the data released by UNDESA in 2019, there were 35 million international migrants in GCC Countries (ILO 2021). Saudi Arabia stands first, receiving more than 13 million migrants among other GCC Countries. Moreover, more than 9 million migrants (almost 50 per cent of India's total migrants) reside in GCC countries, which is again more than 25% of total Gulf migrants directly coming from India. Hence, the large number of migrants in these Gulf countries, bring not only their skills but also their social, gender, cultural, religious and political identities. In this regard, this paper tries to highlight the issues of labour migration in the GCC countries peeking through the socio-economic and cultural dynamics of labour migrants.