Demographics

02 THE INHABITANT MIGRANT WORKERS OF SHARJAH

Understanding the lifestyle and environmental requirements of the inhabitant is vital to creating a pragmatic design. This chapter analyses the demographic trends of migrant construction workers and their living conditions in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

2.1 Demographics

A few decades ago, the Arabian Gulf was a vast desert, with regional trade at the city’s center and easy access to trading ports. However, for these economic activities and trade, migrant workers were needed to compensate for the sparse local population. And therefore, as the demand for labor increased, migrant populations grew significantly in Sharjah, proving to be the most effective and efficient source of laborers.

Figure 2.1 shows the demographics of migrant workers in Sharjah. As noted, the Building and Construction sector is the most popular among workers, which can be attributed to higher wages across the industry. The sector had a total wage share of 11.8% in 2010 compared to 1.8% in the Community and Personal Services industry and 3.5% in the Hotel and Restaurant Industry. However, this figure has since dropped, with the construction industry representing about 10.7% of total wages in 2020. The total number employed in this sector is close to about 1.6 million compared to 0.2 million in the Community and Personal Services Industry and 0.59 million in the Hotel and Restaurant Industry (United Arab Emirates Ministry of Economy 2020).

In terms of diversity in Nationality, the migrant labor force consists of a vast

Figure 2.1 Demographic trends for labor workers in the UAE (Source: UAEMOE 2020)