ABSTRACT
International migration for employment in the Arab region is pervasive and increasing.[ 1 ]. The nine capital rich states of Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates together had imported 1.6 million migrant workers by 1975. By 1985 the stock of migrant workers in these nine states is projected in the World Bank Study to increase to 4.3 million workers. This background paper, however, is concerned chiefly with establishing the 1980 pattern of labor migration in the Arab World, rather than with projections, although some mention will be made of underlying trends in international labor migration in the region.
