Understanding South Asian Labor Migration

Migration has been a common phenomenon in South Asia for hundreds of years, especially between bordering countries. Apart from intraregional migration, the Gulf oil boom sparked a different type of labor movement from South Asia to the Middle East beginning in the 1970s. Since then, South Asian countries have sent a significant number of temporary labor migrants to work abroad and send remittances home. In this report, we examine different aspects of temporary labor migration within Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka (henceforth referred to as the study area or study region) and from the study region to the countries of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The GCC countries include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).