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Kuwait's Migration Policy since the Gulf Crisis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Sharon Stanton Russell
Affiliation:
Research Scholar at the Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. 02139
Muhammad Ali Al-Ramadhan
Affiliation:
Associate Researcher at the Techno-Economics Division, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, P.O. Box 24885, 13109 Safat, Kuwait.

Extract

Kuwait has long been one of the most demographically self-conscious countries in the world. Since 1965, Kuwaitis have been a minority in their own country, outnumbered by migrants who had come there to find work and flee adversities elsewhere in the region. Between 1957 and 1985, Kuwait conducted a census at least once every five years. Even before its independence in 1961, Kuwait had constructed, and has since reworked, a complex set of policies and regulations for the control and management of migration, albeit with varying and often limited degrees of success.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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