Publisher's Synopsis
This is a ground-breaking study of one of the most significant events in Pakistan's recent history - the migration of more than one million Pakistani workers to the oil-exporting countries of the Middle East. The jobs provided and the foreign exchange earned play a critical role in Pakistan's economy. The changes unleashed by migration also affect Pakistan's social and political life in a variety of ways. >LAddleton's pioneering study focuses on the decentralised nature of the Gulf migration. Hundreds of thousands of rural and urban households and large numbers of skilled and unskilled manual workers have been involved, representing a section of society that benefits only marginally from official development programmes. This in turn has important implications for the political, economic and social development of the country. As Addleton shows, the Middle East connection will continue to have an important impact on Pakistan, even for those migrants who return home.
