July 11-13, 2023, Cambridge UK

3 DAYS / 10 Workshops
MORE THAN 200 ACADEMIC PAPERS

Population, Labor Markets and National Identity

Even among high-income rentier states, the Gulf states are characterized by a unique demography: No other states in the world are so rich while at the same time having such low wage levels on large segments of their private labor market. No other systems in the world have opened the floodgates of international labor migration to the extent the GCC monarchies have, resulting in the domination of private labor markets by non-citizens. This conf ...


Even among high-income rentier states, the Gulf states are characterized by a unique demography: No other states in the world are so rich while at the same time having such low wage levels on large segments of their private labor market. No other systems in the world have opened the floodgates of international labor migration to the extent the GCC monarchies have, resulting in the domination of private labor markets by non-citizens. This confronts the Gulf monarchies with a unique set of development challenges that are both economic and political, and that have been thrown into increasingly sharper relief in recent years. Issues of demography and labor market policy have become crucial not only for the long-term socio-economic prospects of Gulf nationals, but are also increasingly linked to the burgeoning debate about national identity and security in the GCC countries. Currently, all Gulf governments afford socio-economic protection to their national population through a number of mechanisms: privileged public employment, the de facto provision of better labor rights and, in many cases, entitlements to subsidies and cost-free public services not available to foreigners to the same extent. Many of these measures impose a significant fiscal burden on Gulf governments. Arguably more important, they exacerbate the existing segmentation of national and non-national populations in Gulf monarchies, which is unparalleled in scale and depth among modern nation states. 

The workshop will discuss whether there are affordable long-term solutions to the dilemma of segmented labor markets and try to establish how real the perceived threats are. To which extent have recent policy moves played to specific internal or external audiences, to which extent were they serious? What do government approaches to expatriates and labor regulation tell us about elites’ concepts of citizenship and long-term visions of their societies? Is the national identity debate an elite phenomenon or are citizens playing an active role in it? 

The workshop hopes to attract labor market experts, demographic experts, but also academics interested in issues of national and ethnic identity in the Gulf. We welcome case studies, cross-sectional papers, as well as conceptual papers. Topics that could be tackled in the workshop include, but are not limited to: 

Current attempts and future policy options of integrating labor markets and increasing national employment in business, both in terms of state strategies and business reactions 

Attempts to upgrade local labor and entrepreneurial skills 

Changes in expatriates’ legal status, and the interplay of expatriate rights’ issues with international diplomacy 

Attempts to create a more clearly delimited national identity 

Issues of citizenship and nationalization 

patterns of ethnic division of labor and their social, political and cultural corollaries 

the internal structures of expatriate “enclaves” and parallel societies, and the ethnic division of labor between different expatriate communities 

The genesis of transnational identities within expatriate communities 

state attempts to redraw the boundaries of privilege between nationals and expatriates (regarding public services, employment, legal protection etc.) 

female labor as a further dimension of segmentation 

the changing cultural, economic and political meaning of citizenship 

security and stability issues: social and economic burden of expatriate employment, marginalization of nationals etc. 




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Details


Workshop

Directors


Steffen

Hertog

-
The London School of Economics and Political Science



Dr. Rola

Dashti

Activist -
Kuwait Economic Society


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