The Cost of Belonging: Citizenship Construction in the State of Qatar

Babar, Zahra

doi:10.3751/68.3.14

Cited by 62 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…However, the more highly skilled foreign workers, who are the focus of this paper, originate from a wider variety of countries. With few exceptions, Qatar does not offer a path to naturalisation (Babar, ). Like other Gulf countries, Qatar has made few efforts to admit refugees, including those from countries embroiled in armed conflicts such as Syria and Yemen (M. Ewers & Gengler, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attracting and retaining expatriates in Qatar during an era of uncertainty: Would you stay or would you go?

Ewers

Shockley

2017

Population Space and Place

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How do foreign workers navigate competing pressures when deciding to remain in a place or leave for a new destination? Here, we explore migration decision-making across a diverse set of migrant nationalities using an innovative survey experiment implemented in the Arab Gulf state of Qatar. Extending recent work that highlights the contribution of experiments to the study of complex migration decision-making choices, we employ a conjoint survey experiment that asks respondents whether they would remain in the country or seek to leave under randomised scenarios. Responses to conventional migration questions about past and future migration decisions are compared with experimental findings, covering a range of economic, social, and political factors. Both the conventional and experimental results are analysed across nationality subgroups. We find that local security and stability underpin both the reasons that migrants were attracted to Qatar and their propensities to leave, conditional on regional background. This has major implications for migrant decision-making calculus in light of regional economic and political deterioration. The results confirm the importance of a variety of economic factors for complex migration decision-making and suggest that survey experiments present a fruitful option for future research on this topic.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attracting and retaining expatriates in Qatar during an era of uncertainty: Would you stay or would you go?

Ewers

Shockley

2017

Population Space and Place

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“…These differences may be largely due to unmet expectations among citizens [7]. Several unmeasured socioeconomic variables may have contributed to these expectations among citizens relative to noncitizens, including recent increases in national wealth, and by extension the wealth of the national population [22,46]. The unprecedented growth in the industrial and commercial sectors along with rapid expansion in urban planning and infrastructure may have triggered similar expectations for parallel growth in the health services sector among citizens.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Migrants have almost no pathways to Qatari citizenship. As such, the citizenship plays a crucial role in maintaining the distinct Qatari cultural and social identity and is concomitant with high expectations [22]. In this context, expectations are most likely shaped by citizenship status and are based on normative beliefs of what 'should be', which serve as the standard for their evaluation of Qatar's healthcare [23].…”

Section: The Context Of Qatarmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of citizenship status on service utilization and general satisfaction with healthcare: a cross-cultural study

Khaled

Shockley

Abdul-Rahim

2016

Int J Qual Health Care

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Objective: To explore the role of citizenship status as a predictor of general satisfaction with healthcare services in Qatar, including potential interaction with utilization and health insurance coverage type. Design: A cross-sectional survey conducted in 2012. Setting: A household survey in the State of Qatar in the Arab Gulf. Participants: A nationally representative sample of 2750 citizens and noncitizens aged 18 years and older. Main Outcome: General satisfaction status with Qatar's healthcare system. Measures: Citizenship status, healthcare utilization, health insurance type. Results: Citizens were significantly less likely to be satisfied with Qatar's healthcare system than noncitizens (odds ratio (OR) = 0.30, P < 0.001). The association between private health insurance and overall satisfaction was not significantly different between citizens and noncitizens (P = 0.19). However, the association between utilization of healthcare services and overall satisfaction was moderated by citizenship (P < 0.001). Among citizens, non-users were less likely to be satisfied than recent users (OR = 1.88, P < 0.05), while the opposite pattern was observed among noncitizens (OR = 0.51, P < 0.05). These patterns persisted even after controlling for potential confounders. Conclusions: The study revealed significant population differences in satisfaction between recent users and non-users within citizenship groups. These differences may stem from different expectations with respect to healthcare services. Understanding these expectations may have important policy implications for cross-cultural contexts.

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“…Needed to fill skilled and unskilled positions in the oil-based economy, foreigners are employed under a temporary labor system that offers no political rights, reduced welfare benefits compared to nationals, and no path to citizenship (Okruhlik 2011). Qatari law, for instance, caps naturalization at 50 cases per year (Babar 2014). Ever-expanding non-citizen populations are a source of public discontent in most Gulf countries, as citizens must compete with white-collar expatriates for high-salary professional positions and view expatriates as dissipating government resources at the expense of nationals (Mitchell and Gengler 2019;Al Muftah 2016).…”

Section: Group Conflict and Nationality-of-interviewer Effects In Thementioning

confidence: 99%

Citizenship and Surveys: Group Conflict and Nationality-of-Interviewer Effects in Arab Public Opinion Data

Gengler

Wittrock

2019

Polit Behav

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More research than ever before uses public opinion data to investigate society and politics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Ethnic identities are widely theorized to mediate many of the political attitudes and behaviors that MENA surveys commonly seek to measure, but, to date, no research has systematically investigated how the observable ethnic category(s) of the interviewer may influence participation and answers given in Middle East surveys. Here we measure the impact of one highly salient and outwardly observable ascriptive attribute of interviewersnationality-using data from an original survey experiment conducted in the Arab Gulf state of Qatar. Applying the total survey error (TSE) framework and utilizing an innovative nonparametric matching technique, we estimate treatment effects on both nonresponse error and measurement error. We find that Qatari nationals are more likely to begin and finish a survey, and respond to questions, when interviewed by a fellow national. Qataris also edit their answers to sensitive questions relating to the unequal status of citizens and noncitizens, reporting views that are more exclusionary and less positive toward out-group members, when the interviewer is a conational. The findings have direct implications for consumers and producers of a growing number of surveys conducted inside and outside the Arab world, where migration and conflict have made respondent-interviewer mismatches along national and other ethnic dimensions more salient and more common.

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The Cost of Belonging: Citizenship Construction in the State of Qatar

Cited by 62 publications

References 16 publications

Attracting and retaining expatriates in Qatar during an era of uncertainty: Would you stay or would you go?

Attracting and retaining expatriates in Qatar during an era of uncertainty: Would you stay or would you go?

The effects of citizenship status on service utilization and general satisfaction with healthcare: a cross-cultural study

Citizenship and Surveys: Group Conflict and Nationality-of-Interviewer Effects in Arab Public Opinion Data

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