Migrant Labour and Social Reproduction between the Gulf and India

International labour migration flows to the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) are among the largest in the world and, as a result, the Gulf region has the highest proportion of non-citizens in any country or region in the world. In the labour force, this percentage is even higher. Migrants make up between 70 and 85 percent of the workforce; in Qatar and the UAE this proportion rises to 95 and 93 percent. Migrant labour is typically male, single and temporary and mostly concentrated in the private sector and low- and semi-skilled jobs. This paper contributes to recent literature researching the systemic role of this migrant labour regime to the political economy of the Gulf. Drawing on feminist political economy, this study examines the social reproduction of Gulf migrant labour, primarily occurring at the home site in the countries of origin. This paper also contributes to the rising engagement in migration studies with the concept of social reproduction. In contrast to most studies analysing how migrant labour contributes to the ‘social reproduction’ of ‘people’ in the countries of destination (often in the Global North) (for example, nurses, nannies, maids, cleaners), our study centres on the social reproduction of migrant labour itself. Our analysis focuses specifically on India, the most important origin country in the Gulf’s migrant population (an estimated 7.3 million individuals). This research is based in part on primary fieldwork conducted in Sultanpur district in eastern Uttar Pradesh in collaboration with a local construction workers union (BNKMU). This fieldwork consists of twelve semi-structured interviews with Gulf migrants and their families. Our research shows that Gulf migrant labour is sustained by the labours of social reproduction performed by wives and kin at the home site. Similar to other places in the Global South characterised by semi-proletarianization, these labours of social reproduction next to uncommodified domestic and care work also crucially consist of simple commodity production and subsistence agriculture. The unique transnational configuration of the Gulf migrant family contributes to the formation of a transient, precarious and exploitable labour force. Social reproduction contributes directly to the exploitation of migrant labour by allowing Gulf capital and state to spatially externalise the costs of social reproduction onto the families back home.