They warned us before we came here not to bring up politics but that doesn't mean people aren't talking. We attended a talk at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar last night called "Economic Migration in the GCC." Remember that the GCC includes the following countries: Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE. The following is some stuff I learned from last night's speaker, George Naufal, an assistant professor of economics at the American University of Sharjah in the UAE.
The GCC is a fascinating place to study labour policies because there is a) a ton of money from oil and b) a very low population, hence the need to bring in a very large migrant workforce. While many people come to Qatar to work, non-Qatari residents are prohibited from becoming citizens or from buying property here so most of the money made here gets sent home (and it's A LOT!) and eventually the workers follow. So migration to the GCC is often temporary, unlike say, migration to Canada or the United States where citizenship and home ownership is possible.
Why people want to come work in the Gulf:
-From WWII to the start of the Arab Spring the Middle East region has seen 28 major conflicts. However, only one conflict (first Gulf war) was in the GCC meaning this region is relatively stable.
-In many South Asian and South-east Asian countries (where many of the workers come from) there is low economic performance, a low-income for many and a very high population.
-In 2010, the standard of living in Qatar was 23 times that of Sri Lanka, 35 times Yemen, 50 times Sudan and 70 times the standard of living in Bangladesh.
In 1909 the first oilfield in this region was discovered in Iran. Now fast forward several decades and the GCC needs to recruit a very large workforce to build up its infrastructure. In the 1970s and 1980s, the majority of workers were Arabs who came from outside of the GCC. However, the GCC put a stop to this in the 1980s because these workers often brought domestic ideologies from home, which were not welcome in the GCC. So, starting in the 1980s, the GCC began not renewing work permits for non-GCC Arabs but instead began to hire a large number of people from South Asia and South-east Asia. These workers would often accept worse working conditions and at a lower rate of pay, plus they didn't bring their politics with them.
Now I mentioned earlier that most of the money made by migrant workers here is sent home (something called remittance) but the actual amount is staggering. In 2011, $71 billion dollars was sent from the GCC to outside countries. Before 1989, most of this money was going to other countries in the Middle East, but afterwards, the majority of the money went to countries such as India, Nepal, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. The Middle East has the youngest population in the world; a young, educated and frustrated population, says Naufal, because good work is hard to find. And while there are about 1 million jobs created in the GCC each year, these jobs aren't going to locals, but instead, to migrant workers. So, what impact has this had on the Middle East where, according to the IMF, youth unemployment is estimated to be 22%? Well, I'll let you draw your own conclusions, we're not supposed to talk about politics.
Now, what's the health of these workers like? Well, considering that migrant workers are the ones I've seen working outdoors here, it's not great. In Qatar, 94% of the workforce are foreign, the majority being unskilled, migrant workers. A recent study, "A Portrait of Low-income Migrants in Contemporary Qatar" published in the Journal of Arabian Studies reveals the following:
- Of the workers surveyed, 56% lacked a government-mandated "health card" which is needed for accessing health care in the state's expansive public health system (we see many patients who lack health cards at Heart Hospital).
-90% of respondents reported that their employer possessed their passport.
-21% of low-income workers in Qatar reported that they received their salary on time only sometimes, rarely or never.
-According to Human Rights Watch, Qatar has the highest ratio of migrants to citizens in the world. In 2012, migrants made up 70% of the population and 94% of the workforce.
-Migrant workers suffer from a range of problems including low wages, extremely poor working conditions and living conditions, passport confiscation and segregation (and heart disease!)
-The majority of migrants are young, unskilled, male, single and have a low level of education
-In Qatar, there is a 5:1 male to female ratio between the ages of 25-54.
Nurses fall into the "skilled" category so the previous stated facts don't really apply. Qatar views and treats nurses from "the west" differently than it treats nurses from India and Philippines (and other non-western countries). One of my Filipino colleagues told me that nurses trained in the west receive a higher salary here than nurses trained in other places. Western-trained nurses are also the only nurses hired at Aspetar, Doha's first specialized orthopedic and sport's medicine facility, which we visited today. The head of nursing (who told us it was not her decision) said this hiring policy reflects a belief that nursing education in the west is superior to nursing education in other countries.
You can hardly call Aspetar a hospital. It only has a 20-bed capacity and doesn't treat trauma cases but it does perform surgeries. It's reserved for elite athletes, so anyone registered as an athlete by the Olympic committee, visiting athletes, soccer players, etc. "We've had Beckham walk through our doors," the head of nursing told us. It's just another example of where nurses in Qatar can work. It's also one of the places U of C student nurses can work during their month in Qatar. I have a colleague coming to work here in November.
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