Executive Summary
This synthesis paper explores the ‘Gulf Talent Retention Paradox’, where the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states succeed as global hubs for talent, but struggle to retain this talent. Instead, the region increasingly functions as a transitional stepping-stone for highly skilled expatriate workers and their families on their way to more permanent homes in Europe and North America. The Gulf states’ governments may even view this trend as an evolving national security issue that poses a threat to their economic diversification plans.[1]
Drawing on eight policy reports, a Pilot Survey Report, and a Legal Report, this paper argues that the Gulf Talent Retention Paradox is driven by a rational choice among migrants and their families in response to clear policy contradictions for non-national residents in the Gulf. While reported economic satisfaction in the region is generally high, non-nationals desire permanency, which the Gulf states do not provide for the vast majority.[2] Even for culturally and socially embedded second-generation residents, this legal precarity can persist.[3]
The pull factor of permanency and formal membership in Europe and North America is accompanied by an economic push factor in the Gulf states in the form of a ‘citizenship penalty’.[4] Here, Gulf institutions tie a worker’s wage level and career advancement potential to their passport, which creates a ceiling for both.[5] The policy reports identified severe impacts from this penalty.[6]
Yet, the reports and policy reports show that such a dynamic of onward migration from the Gulf to Europe and North America is not merely brain drain but is instead a more strategic brain circulation.[7] In other words, high-skilled workers are incentivised to leave the Gulf to find the longer-term security available in the West, only to return back to the higher-wage and more socially familiar Gulf states where they can bypass the longstanding citizenship penalty.[8]
While the Gulf states and Western nations both compete in the same ‘race for talent’[9] with tools like Golden Visas, their overarching goals differ significantly. Western policies link skilled migration to paths toward citizenship or permanent residency.[10] Gulf policies on the other hand seem to deliberately delink citizenship and migration in order to protect the long-standing advantages of Gulf citizenship stemming from the redistribution of oil wealth.[11] Yet, by not providing a path to citizenship, the Gulf states’ policies stimulate the high turnover that they are trying to mitigate. In other words, these policies push workers towards stepwise or circular mobility.[12]
Based on the findings of the policy reports and reports, this paper proposes three sets of policy reforms.
- For Gulf States: Reforms could include offering long-term residency based on tenure rather than high salaries or investment thresholds,[13] mandating the disclosure of salary ranges and providing portable investment-based pensions in order to reduce the citizenship penalty,[14] and developing diaspora networks to embrace the circularity underlying the Gulf migration system.[15]
- For Western States: Policymakers need to better account for those high-skilled migrants who are engaged in circular mobility and who will not be permanently retained.[16]
- For Sending States: Governments should amend labour and migration laws in ways that more formally “recognise and regulate stepwise migration”.[17] As Devkota recommends, this could mean creating new mechanisms that can formally validate and recognise skills and experience acquired in the Gulf, thereby ensuring this experience can count towards lifelong professional development, including in home countries or new destination states.
Introduction: The ‘Stepping Stone’ and the New Evidence
Having emerged as some of the world’s top destinations for skilled international labour flows,[18] the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have fundamentally changed the global geography of talent. These rapidly globalising economies in the Arabian Peninsula are now in direct competition for skilled workers with more traditional destinations in Europe and North America.[19]
Despite success in attracting global talent to fuel ambitious national development efforts, however, Gulf states are simultaneously struggling to retain it. Thus, the central dilemma of the ‘Gulf Talent Retention Paradox’ is that the GCC functions more as a transitional hub, described as a ‘stepping stone’,[20] ‘launch pad’, or ‘springboard’[21] for migrants on their way to other developed countries in Europe and North America. In other words, the Gulf, for many highly skilled individuals, is not seen as a final destination or long-term home.
Accordingly, the Gulf states increasingly view this growing outflow as an emerging ‘national security issue’ due to its impact on economic development, human capital retention, and local consumption.[22] Malit[23] argues that this outmigration of skilled talent “exacerbates their pre-existing domestic labour shortages, undermines economic efficiency, and compromises business competitiveness”. In response to domestic, international, and geopolitical challenges stemming from this competition for talent, Gulf states have implemented social and legal reforms, including long-term visa and permanent residency programmes, as ‘temporary coping strategies’[24] to attract and retain skilled international workers.
This synthesis paper moves beyond a summary of pull factors to analyse this paradox by drawing on ten new, comprehensive sources: (1) A series of Policy Reports (PRs) examining the motivations and lived experiences of highly skilled foreign workers; (2) A new Pilot Survey Report,[25] which provides the first quantitative data on the migration intentions and strategies of this cohort, and (3) A Legal Report,[26] which systematically compares the high-skilled immigration policies of the Gulf and five Western destination countries. These briefs originate with a joint research project on ‘Stepwise and Return Migration between the Gulf, Europe, and North America’, developed by the Gulf Labour Markets, Migration, and Population (GLMM) Programme at the Gulf Research Centre (GRC) in collaboration with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) Regional Programme Gulf States. The themes of the briefs align strongly with questions being explored at the front of discussions on skilled migration to the Gulf in academic scholarship today.[27]
This paper argues that while Gulf states and Western nations are competing in the same ‘race for talent’,[28] the Gulf's structural delinking of long-term residency from citizenship remains the primary driver of onward migration. For many migrants, this quest for permanency is less about a desire to move to the 'West' and more about finding a 'solution to the restrictions' tied to their liminal legal status in the Gulf.[29] They are leaving to buy the legal security the West sells, only to bring it back to the high-wage, socially familiar Gulf environment. As one migrant planning this strategy stated, “So I will go back to Dubai as a European; then no one can talk to me [laughs]”.[30] This paper will first analyse the primary pull factors of permanency (Section 2) and career (Section 3), before exploring the emerging dynamic of brain circulation (Section 4) and the high-level ‘race for talent’[31] (Section 5) that defines this new, circular geography of migration.
The Primary Driver: The Quest for Permanency & Citizenship
The quest for permanent residency and citizenship is a very significant pull factor driving onward migration from the Gulf.[32] The GLMM-KAS Pilot Survey Report[33] provides new empirical evidence for the lack of alignment between Gulf policy and the aspirations of migrant workers and their families. The survey results highlight stability as the top consideration for onward migration: ‘securing permanent residence’ was rated as an ‘extremely important’ consideration by 51.4% of high-skilled migrants planning onward moves.[34] The findings are not uniform, however, but most notable among foreign professionals in their prime working age: 100% of respondents under 35 years of age intended to move to a third country, but this number drops to 41.7% for those aged 45 years or older.[35]
This data may also explain why Canada emerged as such a strong potential destination of respondents. The UK was the top first choice destination (39%) and the US had the highest weighted average score (24.6%), but Canada was rated as the single most attractive destination country for ‘migrant friendly policies’ (by 63%) and for ‘securing permanent residence’ (by 47%).[36] One potential reason noted in Atique’s legal report,[37] is that Canada offers a transparent, points-based system marked by a clear and predictable pathway to permanent stay and/or citizenship. This clarity is contrasted with the US’ more complex and politicised system. Atique’s[38] legal analysis may provide some explanations for these perceptions: The US system is characterised as ‘primarily employer-led’, which, like the Gulf states, can create dependencies and vulnerabilities for skilled workers, including ‘long backlogs for certain countries such as India and China’.[39] Nevertheless, according to the Pilot Survey,[40] the US was seen as more of an economic gamble. It was rated highest for ‘Wages and Allowance’ (by 40%), but much lower on policy-related factors.
While acknowledging many issues and challenges, Western policies are explicitly designed to link skilled migration to some form of permanent settlement or citizenship. Yet, Gulf policies tend to structurally delink long term residency (and even birth in the country) from any type of pathway to citizenship or other formal membership. This promotes a pervasive sense of insecurity[41] and ‘permanent temporariness’[42] for expatriate professionals in the Gulf, regardless of their duration in or contribution to the region. Errichiello[43] provides a powerful illustration of this paradox through the case of ‘Parveen’, a 33-year-old copywriter born and raised in Dubai. Despite a high skill level and deep material roots – "I own my own apartment here... and my parents also own their home" – her legal status remains precarious. As Errichiello notes, "Parveen's case shows how material stability in Dubai...does not guarantee long-term security," and reflects "precarity produced by the UAE's structurally temporary migration regime." Even with recent reforms, according to Umar[44], the "sense of being present but not permanently included is still a determining condition in migrants’ stay".
Second-generation migrants experience this paradox most acutely, as these individuals have both high levels of socio-cultural embeddedness but remain legally insecure.[45] Despite emotional attachment and belonging, Errichiello[46] finds that these individuals suffer from legal exclusion. This qualitative finding is directly supported by new survey data:[47] A clear majority of second-generation respondents (66.7%) intend to “move to a third country” instead of returning to their country of nationality (i.e., parents’ country of origin). Such conditional loyalty reflects a legal system that feels inaccessible, as noted by another second-generation participant from Qatar: "Everyone I know who applied for Qatar's permanent residency got rejected. Most of the people who get it are well-connected. It is not really for us".[48]
Several recent Gulf state reforms like the UAE's Golden Visa Program are a direct response to the retention challenges highlighted here. Nashwan and Khan[49] find that such programmes represent a powerful pull factor and can serve as an important retention tool by converting what have historically been short-term migration motivations into longer term commitments. The programme’s success clearly lies in decoupling one's residency from the sponsorship of a single employer, as is characterised by the kafala system. Participants in their study “universally identified self-sponsorship as the Golden Visa's most transformative feature", as it proved "professionally liberating, enabling career advancement and improved working conditions." For many holders, the "10-year validity period provided profound psychological security". Multiple participants described a feeling of being ‘at peace’ and ‘like locals,’ reporting ‘reduced anxiety about renewal cycles’.[50]
However, the impact of the reform is severely limited by its exclusivity, particularly its high salary threshold (e.g., AED 30,000, or approx. USD 8,000). This, as Nashwan and Khan[51] argue, disproportionately affects mid-career professionals from lower-paid nationality groups, the very cohort the UAE seeks to retain. One physician interviewed advocated for ‘experience-based criteria,’ stating: "Eligibility should be based on 6–10 years of UAE healthcare service rather than a salary threshold, which may exclude highly qualified professionals".[52] Furthermore, the policy creates ‘renewal anxiety,’ with professionals uncertain if the high salary bar will be applied again after 10 years. As one participant worried, "What about the renewal? If I want to renew, will they ask me for AED 30,000 salary, or will it be automatic because I have it already?"[53] This exclusivity and uncertainty reinforce the ‘pull’ of more accessible Western pathways, leaving the ‘quest for permanency’ as the dominant driver of onward migration.
Economic & Career Calculations: The ‘Citizenship Penalty’
Migration decisions onward from the Gulf are a complex socioeconomic calculation that weighs the Gulf's short-term financial benefits against the West's long-term career prospects.[54] On the one hand, there is the potential for high, tax-free salaries and strong fringe benefits in the Gulf. On the other, working life in the region is marked by structural barriers to career advancement and systemic wage discrimination.[55]
The most significant barrier in the Gulf is that of the ‘citizenship penalty’, where one’s passport determines their wages and the potential for career advancement.[56] This penalty emerges across three stages of a worker's career, according to Bose.[57] First, during recruitment, employers tie salary offers to a candidate's home-country wages by requesting candidates’ salary history. Second, during employment, the kafala (sponsorship) system restricts workers' ability to change employers, which then limits job mobility and bargaining power. Third, upon retirement, traditional End-of-Service Gratuity (EoSG) systems leave workers without the same long-term, portable wealth as their Western counterparts.
This penalty has a severe, measurable impact. AlAwad and Malit[58] provide an example of Filipina nurses in the UAE who earn an average of USD 1,569 per month. They anticipate a significantly higher average of USD 4,665 per month in the West.[59] This type of finding is not standard in Gulf migration scholarship, which instead focuses entirely on the strong relative salary of, for instance, the UAE versus the Philippines, without considering this global comparative context. Beyond financial considerations, one nurse added, "We put in the same effort, hold the same qualifications, yet they [Westerners] get promoted while we lag behind. Our nationality is the barrier".[60] AlAwad and Malit describe this professional stagnation as driving talent away. This systemic devaluation is reinforced by qualitative findings from Saudi Arabia, where individuals report perceptions that career progression and professional development are linked to nationality.[61] These forces foreign workers to come to terms with the fact that their passport creates a ceiling that high salaries cannot break.
The drive for long-term security and professional respect is so strong that migrants are willing to accept significant drawbacks in the West. This pragmatic trade-off is visible in the Pilot Survey data.[62] Expatriates are aware of significant financial and bureaucratic hurdles, such as high income-based taxes. For example, one participant remarked on the difference between “40% taxes, let's say, in Canada or the UK’ versus the Gulf's 0 tax”.[63] Other participants remarked on Germany's ‘extremely bureaucratic’ or ‘very, very primitive and rigid’ processes.[64] Qualitative interviews from the Pilot Report revealed socio-cultural concerns about the ‘language barrier’ in Germany, or ‘Islamophobia’ and public attitudes in non-Anglophone countries.[65] Based on this, one would expect the existence of co-ethnic or co-religious communities to be a pull factor for prospective migrants. However, a large majority (76.5%) rated the ‘presence of a large community from the home country’ as ‘not important/indifferent’.[66] In sum, workers thus make a strategic calculation that sees socio-cultural drawbacks as an acceptable price for a Western passport.[67]
Emerging Dynamics: Beyond ‘Brain Drain’ to ‘Brain Circulation’
The trend of onward migration from the Gulf to the West is not a simple issue of one-way ‘brain drain’.[68] Instead, the Pilot Survey Report identifies widespread circular migration, a multi-stage strategy where migrants acquire Western citizenship with the explicit intention of returning to the Gulf: 80% of respondents reported they would "return to any Gulf country once they had secured the nationality of a third country"[69]. As Shah and Jamal[70] note, respondents may plan to use the Global North as a "safe, reliable path to...citizenship, status, and security" that the Gulf denies them. They then plan to leverage this new, ‘stronger’ passport to re-enter the Gulf's tax-free environment and to ‘enhance their professional standing and earning potential’.[71] As AlAwad and Malit[72] note, the goal is often to acquire this passport specifically to ‘bypass’ the Gulf's exclusionary system and thus neutralise the ‘citizenship penalty’ discussed in the previous section.
Participants in the Pilot Survey’s qualitative interviews detailed this strategic brain circulation.[73] For example, ‘Aryan’, a highly skilled Pakistani professional stated, "I would be very much interested in getting another nationality passport and then coming back to the Gulf" and to “reach a stage where there would be no further progression...point where one does not wish to be stuck in for rest of their career".[74] For Aryan in this example, the Western passport thus enables the potential for returning to the Gulf under more favourable terms.
The motivations for this strategic approach to migration are reflected in the GLMM-KAS Pilot Survey findings about the key factors for respondents returning to the Gulf, which they identified as (1) tax advantages (0 tax in Gulf versus up to 40% in the West), (2) improved professional standing from new passport, and (3) social and cultural proximity (family networks and preference for Gulf lifestyle).[75] While the first two were discussed above, the third – social and cultural proximity – was not. The Pilot Survey’s interviews provide new insights into the lifestyle-related drivers for return to the region. Long-term residents in Saudi Arabia noted ‘competitive quality of life’ that “can compare...with Europe or...the US”.[76] Arabic-speaking residents noted the relative ‘cultural and social proximity’ to Gulf Arab populations as a driver of wanting to stay or return. Remaining in the country for Indian and Pakistani residents also includes considerations of "religion, economic factors, and geographical proximity to home".
The experiences of second-generation residents highlight the challenges of this strategy, which can leave individuals finding social and cultural proximity but without legal security,[77] instead feeling ‘legally and politically marginalised’.[78] Thus, for these individuals the pull to return to the Gulf may be familial and emotional. As one of Umar's[79] interviewees, a Bangladeshi ex-resident of Saudi Arabia, noted: "My father and my siblings still live in Medina. So, I feel like I should go back at some point and try to settle there."
Clearly these socio-cultural factors are important, but for some the pull to return to the Gulf is as much about financial returns and lifestyle, based on new contracts and renegotiated terms of employment: "I received a good job offer, so I decided to come back," one participant noted.[80] This sentiment is echoed by Errichiello,[81] who finds that many second-generation migrants return to Dubai after studying abroad, drawn by "family networks and a lifestyle often perceived as more desirable than staying in Western or origin countries".
Cultural embeddedness has downsides, though. For instance, the second-generation Pakistanis in Dubai described by Errichiello[82] are so embedded that they "lack fluency in Urdu, further complicating their identification with their country of origin." The upshot is an inherited temporary legal status where second-generation non-nationals must constantly renegotiate their place in Gulf society.[83]
Those who leave the Gulf as part of the strategic calculation of circular migration do not necessarily see this departure as a permanent break: “Leaving does not mean I cut off from the Gulf".[84] Instead, these workers ‘embrace a form of permanent temporariness’[85], but with the social and cultural capital now accompanied by Western passports, they do so on their own terms. Now, the Western passport becomes an insurance policy as well as a path around the citizenship penalty. Leaving for the West, then, is not an exit from the Gulf as much as a strategic manoeuvre: “leaving to pursue education, professional credentials, or permanent residency abroad, with the hope of coming back under better conditions".[86]
Emerging Dynamics: A 'Race for Talent' Defined by Policy Divergence
The challenges for retaining highly skilled migrants in the Gulf identified thus far, including the desire for permanency, the citizenship penalty, and the rise of brain circulation, are each found within a high-stakes global competition for talent,[87] where Western and Gulf states are in direct competition for the same knowledge pools.[88] Accordingly, the global competition for talent in the Gulf is now framed as a matter of state security. Malit[89] describes skilled worker outmigration as an ‘evolving national security issue central to their long-term domestic and foreign policy priorities’. But why is it a threat? Because it exacerbates the Gulf states’ domestic skilled labour shortages and vulnerabilities – which require high levels of labour importation in the first place.[90] Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Gulf states had more of a ‘traditional laissez-faire approach’ to skilled migration. Now, however, it has a ‘centralized, national-security-focused’ management of migration to protect their ambitious economic visions. Thus, the outmigration of skilled migrants has moved from lower priority to an issue linked to foundational economic and security interests.[91]
This higher priority for skilled outmigration is best exemplified by the emergence of powerful new policy measures which mimic the selective, points-based systems of the West.[92] Gulf states are rolling out new, special visa pathways to attract talent, especially in high-demand sectors like tech, finance, and healthcare, and for entrepreneurs and investors.[93] Reforms such as the UAE’s Golden Visa and Saudi Arabia’s Premium Residency are designed to attract and retain talented labour by providing them with the kind of security and mobility unavailable in traditional three-year residency permits. Yet, Malit[94] instead sees these ‘domestic socio-legal reforms’ as only ‘temporary coping strategies’ to stem the flow of skilled out-migration. The strategies can generally be divided into two categories. First, legal reforms include income-based residency schemes and expanding ‘property ownership opportunities’ for non-nationals. Second, social reforms are aimed at improving quality of life. For instance, the UAE recently liberalized its policy on the ‘cohabitation of unmarried migrant couples’. They also established a civil marriage law for non-Muslims. These social reforms are designed to create a more open and attractive social environment for retaining and localising global talent.
Yet, these policies, which are bold by any measure for the region, may not be enough to counter the stepping-stone phenomenon. The boldest and most progressive reforms in the region, including the Golden Visa, are really just glorified long-term residency permits. They do little to remove the state of ‘permanent temporariness’[95] or ‘structural exclusions’[96] that defines life for foreign professionals in the region. This policy divergence is the central paradox at hand. According to Umar[97], these reforms are limited by design to avoid undermining the ‘basic structure of the migration governance’ and the divide between citizen and non-citizen. The delinking, in other words, is a deliberate policy choice to ‘limit migrants’ long-term presence to protect citizens’ advantages and keep demographic control’.[98]
The brain circulation strategies identified by the Pilot Survey are manufactured by the linking of migration and citizenship in West and delinking them in the Gulf. According to the Pilot Survey, for instance, Canada is the most attractive destination for securing permanent residence, in part, because it has the shortest 3-year requirement. From the start, the country’s ‘Express Entry’ system is a formalised immigrant pathway, unlike even the EU’s non-immigrant pathways or the backlogs in the US system.[99] Yet, even as the permanency versus temporariness divergence persists between the Gulf and Western countries, Western policies are increasingly moving more in the direction of Gulf methods. Employment-based, non-immigrant pathways like the H1-B visa have much in common with kafala, most notably, with its dependence on one’s employer/sponsor. President Trump’s new ‘Gold Card’ seems to mimic aspects of the UAE’s Golden Visa. Thus, it may be more difficult in the future to delineate clear divergences between Gulf and Western regulatory frameworks for skilled migration.
Conclusion & Policy Recommendations: Navigating the Retention Paradox
This synthesis paper has examined the ‘Gulf Talent Retention Paradox’. In this paradox, the GCC states succeed in attracting high-skilled international workers but struggle to retain them. The analysis drew on a series of eight policy reports, a new Pilot Survey Report, and a Legal Report.
The Gulf’s revolving door thus presents a failure to capitalise on human capital investments and directly threatens both national security and economic diversification goals. Conversely, for sending and receiving states, this circular flow also presents new challenges in governance, ethics, and human capital. Addressing the Gulf talent retention paradox requires moving from short-term ‘coping strategies’[100] to more sustainable and predictable pathways for permanent residency. Based on the policy, survey, and legal reports, the following recommendations are proposed.
Policy Recommendations for Gulf States
- Reform long-term residency: Prioritise tenure over thresholds. The Golden Visa is a positive step but is limited by its exclusivity. The high AED 30,000 salary threshold excludes the many mid-career professionals from lower-paid nationality groups the UAE seeks to retain. Nashwan and Khan[101] argue that policymakers should ‘automatically qualify’ key professionals, such as healthcare workers, for the 10-year Golden Visa based on years of service in the UAE rather than based on the high salary threshold. This would ‘allow lower-paid nationalities to gain equitable access’ and alleviate ‘renewal-related anxieties’.
- Actively dismantle the ‘Citizenship Penalty’. To compete on career terms, Gulf states must address the systemic wage discrimination identified in Section 3. One solution would be to implement mandatory salary-range disclosure at the recruitment stage, as suggested by Bose[102] in order to reduce passport-based anchoring and improve transparency. Another recommendation is to introduce ‘investment-based, portable pensions’ as an alternative to EoSG. This, as Bose[103] argues, would give migrant professionals a stake in the local economy which could provide a viable, portable alternative to Western social security systems.
In sum, the ‘permanent temporariness’ that defined the Gulf migration model is no longer sustainable in today’s more dynamic global competition for talent. To compete with the West and retain talents to advance their socioeconomic transitions, Gulf states should take more measures to codify and capitalise on foreign residents’ alignment with both institutional context and values. As discussed throughout this paper, the most explicit way to do this is to formalise more predictable and equitable pathways to long-term membership.
Policy Recommendations for Western States
- Anticipate and leverage transnational citizenship. Western nations are the primary beneficiaries of the Gulf's retention failure, but this ‘brain gain’ may not be permanent as described above. For example, the survey finding that 80% of foreign professionals intend to return to the Gulf after securing a new passport indicates that destination states like Canada are not just gaining permanent, tax-paying residents.[104] Instead, they are creating a new class of ‘transnational’ or ‘circular’ citizens. Western policymakers could take steps to anticipate this circular flow. They could develop policies focused on leveraging these new transnational ties for business and policy instead of operating under assumptions of permanent and linear settlement.
About the Author
Michael Ewers is an Associate Professor of Geography in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. As a human geographer, his research and creative scholarly work focus on three areas: 1) migration and globalisation, 2) worker welfare and inequality, and 3) human capital and sustainable economic development. His overall goal is to understand who moves where and why in a global context; how individuals and groups experience and navigate migration and work differently across space; and how places create human capital for sustainable urban-economic development. His teaching and research interests are integrally linked, emphasizing global trends and particular expertise in the Middle East region. After graduate school, he
was an Assistant Professor of Geography at Texas A&M University and subsequently a Research Associate Professor and Senior Policy Analyst at Qatar University’s Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI).
Endnotes
[1] Malit, Froilan T., Jr. 2025: From Laissez-Faire to A Centralised State Approach? A Critical Policy Analysis of the UAE's Attraction and Retention Approach Towards High-Skilled Migration in the Post-COVID-19 Era (Policy Report No. 2), in: GLMM/GRC-KAS/RPG project "Highly Skilled Migration to the Gulf States: How Do GCC Countries Fare in the Global Competition for Talent?” https://gulfmigration.grc.net/projects-highly-skilled-migration/; Jamal, Areej/Shah, Nasra M./Shivakoti, Richa 2025: Retaining Talent: Strategic Pathways for Highly Skilled South Asian Migrants in Saudi Arabia's Knowledge Economy, in: GLMM/GRC - KAS/RPG Project Policy Report; Bose, Anushka 2026: Passport-Based Wage Differentials in the Gulf: A Driver for Onward Migration, in: GLMM/GRC - KAS/RPG Project Policy Report;
[2] Shah, Nasra M./Jamal, Areej 2026: Stepwise and Return Migration Between the Gulf, Europe, and North America, in: GLMM/GRC - KAS/RPG Report on the Pilot Survey; Umar, Sharique 2026: Migration Policy Reforms and Mobility Decision-Making Among High-Skilled Second-Generation Residents in Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, in: GLMM/GRC - KAS/RPG Project Policy Report.
[3] Errichiello, Gennaro 2026: Second Generation Highly Skilled Pakistanis in Dubai: Drivers of Secondary Migration, in: GLMM/GRC - KAS/RPG Project Policy Report; Umar 2026, N. 2.
[4] Bose 2026, N. 1.
[5] AlAwad, Mouawiya/Malit, Froilan Jr 2025: Beyond the Gulf: Rethinking Stepwise Migration, Citizenship Penalty, and Filipino Nurses in the UAE, in: GLMM/GRC - KAS/RPG Project Policy Report, Draft Version 1; Bose 2026, N. 1.
[6] AlAwad/Malit 2026, N. 5.
[7] Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2.
[8] AlAwad/Malit 2026, N. 5; Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2.
[9] Atique, Asma 2026: Comparative Legal Frameworks for Highly Skilled Migration: A post-COVID Analysis of Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, in: Highly skilled workers’ onward migration from the Gulf to the EU and North America: Trends and patterns of the global competition for talents, 24.10.2026; Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2.
[10] Atique 2026, N. 9.
[11] Umar 2026, N. 2.
[12] Bose 2026, N. 1; Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2; Umar 2026, N. 2.
[13] Nashwan, Ayat/Khan, Sadia 2026: The Impact of Long-Term Residency Policies on the Migration and Retention of Healthcare Professionals: A Case Study of the UAE's Golden Visa Program in the Gulf Context, in: GLMM/GRC - KAS/RPG Project Policy Report.
[14] Bose 2026, N. 1.
[15] Errichiello 2026, N. 3; Jamal/Shah/Shivakoti 2026, N. 1.
[16] Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2.
[17] Devkota, Anurag 2026: Regulating Stepwise Migration in the Nepal-Gulf-Europe Migration Corridor: Challenges and Recommendations, in: GLMM/GRC - KAS/RPG Project Policy Report.
[18] De Bel-Air, Françoise 2024: As the Gulf Region Seeks a Pivot, Reforms to Its Oft-Criticized Immigration Policies Remain a Work in Progress, in: Migration Policy Institute, 05.12.2024.
[19] Ewers, Michael C./Khattab, Nabil/Babar, Zahra/Madeeha, Muznah 2022: Skilled migration to emerging economies: The global competition for talent beyond the West, in: Globalizations 19: 2, pp. 268–284, in: https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2021.1882816.
[20] Jamal/Shah/Shivakoti 2025, N. 1; Valenta, Marko/Garvik, Marianne 2023: The dynamic of stepwise migrations of Nepalese high-skilled migrants via the Middle East, in: Contemporary South Asia 31: 4, pp. 547–566, in: https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2023.2271861.
[21] Devkota 2026, N. 17.
[22] Malit 2026, N. 1; Jamal/Shah/Shivakoti 2026, N. 1.
[23] Malit 2026, N. 1.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2.
[26] Atique 2026, N. 9.
[27] Paul, Anju M./De Bel-Air, Françoise 2025: Highly Skilled Migrants and the GCC Countries: Drivers, Perceptions, Policies, and New Dynamics [Workshop description], in: 15th Gulf Research Meeting, Cambridge, 22–24.07.2025.
[28] Atique 2026, N. 9; Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2.
[29] Akinci, İdil 2024: Circumstantial Citizenship: UAE Born Syrians and Their Complex Journeys to Long-Term Security, in: International Migration Review 58: 3, pp. 1172–1195, in: https://doi.org/10.1177/01979183231162625.
[30] Akinci 2024, N. 29.
[31] Atique 2026, N. 9; Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 6.
[32] Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2; Umar 2026, N. 2.
[33] Shah/Jamal 2025, N. 2.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Atique 2026, N. 9.
[38] Atique 2026, N. 9.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2.
[41] Bose 2026, N. 1.
[42] Errichiello 2026, N. 3.
[43] Ibid.
[44] Umar 2026, N. 2.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Errichiello 2026, N. 3.
[47] Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2.
[48] Umar 2026, N. 2.
[49] Nashwan/Khan 2026, N. 13.
[50] Ibid.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Ibid.
[54] Bose 2026, N. 1.
[55] Ibid.
[56] Ibid.
[57] Ibid.
[58] AlAwad/Malit 2026, N. 5.
[59] Ibid.
[60] Ibid.
[61] Jamal/Shah/Shivakoti 2026, N. 1.
[62] Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2.
[63] Ibid.
[64] Ibid.
[65] Ibid.
[66] Ibid.
[67] Ibid.
[68] Bose 2026, N. 1; Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2.
[69] Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2.
[70] Ibid.
[71] Ibid.
[72] AlAwad/Malit 2026, N. 5.
[73] Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2.
[74] Ibid.
[75] Ibid.
[76] Ibid.
[77] Umar 2026, N. 2.
[78] Errichiello 2026, N. 3.
[79] Umar 2026, N. 2.
[80] Ibid.
[81] Errichiello 2026, N. 3.
[82] Ibid.
[83] Umar 2026.
[84] Ibid.
[85] Errichiello 2026, N. 3.
[86] Umar 2026, N. 2.
[87] Atique 2026, N. 9.
[88] Atique 2026, N. 9; Shah/Jamal 2026, N. 2.
[89] Malit 2026, N. 1.
[90] Ibid.
[91] Ibid.
[92] Atique 2026, N. 9.
[93] Ibid.
[94] Malit 2026, N. 1.
[95] Errichiello 2026, N. 3.
[96] Umar 2026, N. 2.
[97] Ibid.
[98] Ibid.
[99] Atique 2026, N. 9.
[100] Malit 2026, N. 1.
[101] Nashwan/Khan 2026, N. 13.
[102] Bose 2026, N. 1.
[103] Ibid.
[104] Jamal/Shah/Shivakoti 2026, N. 1.
