The Gulf’s Immigrants

Those who believe the United States to be the world’s great country of immigrants, are mistaken. In Europe, even Germany or Sweden can’t make the claim. The Persian Gulf outclasses all of the above. In the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, over three-quarters of the population are immigrants. Kuwait clocks in at 67%, and even Saudi Arabia—often viewed as more insular—counts immigrants as around 40% of its population.

By comparison, Western democracies remain bastions of demographic homogeneity. The Gulf offers a vision of immigration as far removed from Europe’s as can be imagined: hyper-utilitarian, tightly regulated, and largely detached from the promise of integration or citizenship. Migration here is a transaction, not a path to eventual belonging—staying there comes with conditions, the right to which can be easily revoked.

Since 1980, the population figures of the Gulf states have surged. The United Arab Emirates and Qatar have grown tenfold, Kuwait sixfold, and Saudi Arabia nearly threefold. While high native fertility contributed to this rise, the dominant factor has been mass immigration—driven by a unique model of oil-fuelled development. Before the mid-20th century drilling boom, these were agrarian societies dependent on pearl diving and modest trade. In short. oil changed everything.

A Machine in Need of Migrants

Oil wealth transformed the region from a marginal player into a global node of finance, trade, and air logistics. Skyscrapers, tax-free incomes, and tightly managed political establishments turned cities like Dubai and Doha into magnets for migrants—both rich and poor. Demand for low-skilled labour in construction and services has brought in millions from South and South-East Asia; high-skilled positions are filled disproportionately by Westerners and East Asians. Emirates Airlines, led for decades by British executive Sir Timothy Clark, became a flagship of Gulf soft power. But for most migrants, life is far from glamorous. The Gulf’s labour regime is built around the kafala system, which ties workers’ legal status to their employers. It limits mobility, depresses wages, and suppresses rights. The message is clear: you are here to work, not to become a part of this society.

Oil States, Welfare States

Citizenship in Gulf monarchies is vanishingly rare—and deliberately so. Nationality grants access to generous, paternalistic welfare systems. But it also implies a limited role in the productive economy. Migrants do the labour; nationals govern and draw benefits. In Kuwait, 80–90% of employed citizens hold governmental jobs. In Qatar, the figure is similar. The private sector, by contrast, is powered by foreign workers who are cheaper, more flexible, and easier to replace. The result is a rentier-state compact unlike anything in the West: the state provides; the citizens consume. Yet Gulf leaders know the model may not endure. Oil prices are volatile, and the region remains perennially exposed to risk—particularly from Iran, whose threats to the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery of global trade, could prove economically catastrophic. Disruption could quickly unsettle populations long sedated by wealth and political stability.

Governments are responding. Initiatives such as ‘Saudisation’ and ‘Emiratisation’ impose hiring quotas for nationals in the private sector—meant to shift labour markets toward more conventional dynamics. But such efforts often reduce efficiency, forcing firms to hire based on nationality rather than merit. Saudi Arabia has also conducted one of the world’s largest deportation campaigns, expelling hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants in recent years to tighten control over the labour supply.

The Mirage of Post-Nationalism

The Gulf model captures the West’s imagination—but for very different reasons. To technologists and futurists, it represents a glimpse of a post-national future: high-tech enclaves attracting talent from across the globe, unconstrained by legacy institutions. For advocates of border restriction, the Gulf serves as proof that mass deportation—rebranded in Europe as ‘remigration’—is both possible and effective, unencumbered by liberal legalities.

Both are romanticised visions. They overlook the fragility of a system reliant on oil rents, restricted rights, and imported labour. Still, the Gulf petromonarchies remain striking artefacts of globalisation: ultra-modern in appearance, yet substantively deeply hierarchical. These might be the city-states of the future—but built on far older foundations.

Statement

The Gulf monarchies have become the most immigrant-heavy societies on Earth—Qatar and the UAE are over 75% foreign-born. Fueled by oil wealth, these states built glittering cities that attract both low-skilled labourers and global professionals. But unlike Western democracies, migration to the Gulf is strictly transactional: there is no path to citizenship, no promise of integration. Nationals dominate the public sector while migrants work in the private one, bound by the restrictive kafala system. Though efficient, the model is fragile—geopolitically exposed and demographically imbalanced. For some, the Gulf offers a post-national dream; for others, it is but a mirage.

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