Middle East Focus: Saudi Census Highlights a Tough Gulf Demographic Issue………

Arabia Deserta

Saudi Census Highlights a Tough Gulf Demographic Issue………

“As 37,000 teachers begin knocking on doors today to gather data on the kingdom’s population boom, there are signs that the Arab World’s largest economy will not be able to handle the strain of more people, analysts say. The teachers, who were employed by the statistics bureau, will be counting people over the next two weeks for the kingdom’s census, which is taken every five years. With every head counted, the fears of a shortage of jobs, especially for the huge number of young people, grow. Asaad Johar, a economics professor at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, said: “Social factors, particularly religion, are fuelling the population growth that is outpacing the economic growth and availability of services and proper infrastructure in the country. "There is a widening gap between the ability of the economy to create jobs and the number of people who are added to it every year, and narrowing this gap is a dilemma.” Saudi Arabia is facing difficulties in providing jobs, water, food and energy to its indigenous young population, which is growing at 2.34 per cent annually, according to official figures from the statistics bureau………..”

For a long time, the ruling oligarchies of the Gulf, and most of the Middle East, deliberately sought larger populations for purely political reasons. They thought the more people they had, the more important they are. Later, another factor was added.

Somewhere between 10-12 million of the Kingdom’s population of about 25 million are foreign expatriates who are in the country temporarily. Saudi Arabia, like the Persian Gulf states, also started at some point to encourage growth of the native population as a means to reduce the number and share of foreigners. That policy has had the opposite effect in all cases. Each new citizen of every one of these countries needs the direct and indirect services of more expatriates from housemaids to cooks to drivers to doctors to engineers. The more natives, the more expatriates. It is that simple, but the oligarchs and their retainers who make policy don’t seem to get it.

Actually they do get it, but they pretend they don’t. They realize that they have built in some ways for a larger population, for example in terms of rental property which would collapse if expatriates are reduced. Besides, who is going to buy all the over-priced junk the potentates and plutocrats import from China, Taiwan, Thailand, and other places.
It is the economy, it truly is, stupid.
Cheers
mhg

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