Systematizing the Kafala System: Essays on International Migrants, Gulf Citizens, and Institutions in the Middle East Catalina Udani

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Udani, Catalina, author.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania. Political Science., degree granting institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

0555.

0601.

0616.

Local Subjects:

0555.

0601.

0616.

Physical Description:

1 electronic resource (253 pages)

Contained In:

Dissertations Abstracts International 87-07A

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 2025

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of the Middle East, rentier state economies and rapid development over the past century resulted in states in which low-wage labor migrants frequently outnumber national citizens. Variations of the kafala system--formal and informal practices governing labor migrants in the region--which give citizen employers significant control over the status, rights, and welfare of migrants, and there exists little labor competition between low-wage migrants and citizens. Through three essays on kafala institutions, this dissertation aims to further systematize kafala practices through institutional frameworks. The first essay examines international migrant destination choice to the GCC compared to similar labor markets in Southeast Asia, such as Singapore or Malaysia, given structural labor demand. Using survey data from male Bangladeshi migrants and informed by focus groups and interviews, I argue that aspiring international migrants in less-developed sending states make decisions in a poor information environment, due to complex migration policy institutions, unregulated business practices, and biased social networks. Less-educated migrants are more vulnerable to incomplete information and thus choose costly GCC migration over destinations in Southeast Asia. These findings suggest a further puzzle: how do GCC societies perceive a low-wage labor population of distinctly foreign and undereducated migrants? The second essay applies the extensive attitudes towards immigrants literature to the GCC through a novel survey of citizens of Qatar and the UAE, and finds that participant attitudes are characterized by negative prejudices towards South Asians, who make up the largest group of migrants in the region and and are systematically associated with a labor social role. Participants' negative attitudes were also exacerbated by gendered concerns of security and respect. I find no evidence for concerns of economic competition with migrants or preferences for culturally proximate coethnic or co-religious migrants. I suggest that long-held negative stereotypes towards South Asians may be reinforced by kafala recruitment institutions targeting undereducated migrants. The third and final essay examines the policy instruments that may ward against migrant abuses in divided GCC societies and identifies bilateral labor agreements (BLAs) the most salient policy instruments governing migrant rights in the absence of unilateral policy or robust multilateral migrant rights agreements. To explain variation in bilateral policy on protections of migrant workers between sending and receiving states, I examine the determinants of BLA protections in a mixed-method approach. I find that that incentivized and empowered sending states can successfully bargain with to receiving states, using deployment bans and voluntary repatriation, when receiving states are politically and economically incentivized to accept a deal for a BLA with greater protections. When migration is salient, sending states may respond to migrant abuses by bargaining for specific kafala system reforms

Notes:

Advisors: Simmons, Beth Committee members: Sil, Rudra; Vitalis, Robert

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-07, Section: A.

Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 2025

Vendor supplied data

Local Notes:

School code: 0175

ISBN:

9798276007373

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license