Marrying out: Exploring Dimensions of Cross-National Marriages among Qataris

Abstract

In an age of social transformation characterized by globalization, wireless communication, and ease of travel and migration, more and more people around the world are marrying across national boundaries. This has occurred worldwide with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as no exception to this trend. As with the rest of the GCC, Qatar has witnessed remarkable social changes because of the discovery of petroleum resources that have affected the daily lives of people within Qatar in myriad ways. This includes marriage patterns, whereby cross-national marriages (marriages with non-Qataris) have shown a marked increase during the past few years, reaching 21% of total Qatari marriages in 2015 compared with only 16.5% in 1985.