Patterns of Remittances and Labor Migration in the Arab World

International Migration, December 1989.Refereed Journal ArticleThe past decade has witnessed a significant change in the nature and volume of Arab migration. The rapid increase in the financial assets of the major oil producing states in the region since 197 3/74 and their adoption of ambitious development plans provided a qualitative transformation of the migration process among the Arab states. The transformation was multifaceted. Some of the oil-producing states, such as Iran and Iraq, ceased to be labor exporters and became the importers of labor from non-oil neighbouring states and from Asian countries. As a result, the unemployment problems of some of the non-oil producing states such as Jordan and, to a lesser extent, Egypt vanished in the late 1970s. The purpose of this paper is to survey the record to date. What have been the major migratory patterns? How have these affected the flow of remittances in the Arab world? What structural characteristics have been associated with these developments