Reforms or deforms? The rise and decline of the rentier middle class in the United Arab Emirates

Gulf states have traditionally used their oil wealth to bankroll two parallel, interlocking ruling bargains. The first is a bargain between rulers and their citizens, wherein the rulers grant material benefits in exchange for political quiescence and loyalty. The result of this ruling bargain was the creation of a new middle class of civil servants, second to the long-established merchant class in the country. The second bargain, however, was informally forged with noncitizens, who, in exchange for wages that are not directly taxed, contended for long with precarious conditions associated with their state of permanent guesthood.

Since the 1970s, the unprecedented numerical presence of foreigners in the UAE elicited misgivings among the citizenry. These were appeased by the citizen/noncitizen differential concerning benefits and privileges that the two bargains had created, whereby citizens were ensured exclusive rights and access to welfare that maintained their socio-economic advantage over expatriates. Within this framework of bargains, the Kafala system has established a stabilizing power relationship of citizens over noncitizens by imparting a crucial advantage for the former, both in terms of material benefits and their privileged status as gatekeepers for expatriates. The new middle class, in particular, saw the Kafala system and the prospect of becoming an Arbab—a master over a fleet of employees at a public department or within the domestic sphere—as a pathway to wealth and social status.

While both bargains were never static, recent years have seen an accelerating development: The ruling bargain has been eroded as citizens’ material benefits are diminishing while burdens, such as taxes and conscription, are introduced at short intervals. For noncitizens, the bargain was never equitable, but incremental changes or reforms, such as the introduction of Golden Visas and nominated citizenship, appear to be shrinking the citizen/noncitizen differential to the point where citizens’ long-held anxieties are fueling concerns about their unique privileges and status within the country.

This article documents the evolution of the parallel bargains and the privilege differential between citizens and noncitizens in the UAE. Using the rise of the new, “fossil-fueled” middle class as a departure point, the article examines the potential causes and consequences of the current transformation of the two bargains and the unraveling of the privilege differential, especially for the new middle class. While the state employs the language of reform and progress to describe the modifications to the existing ruling bargains, I posit that changes to the ruling bargain are perceived to be detrimental to the welfare of citizens insofar as it undermines the social contract. Supplementing the relevant literature with ethnographic data derived from interviews with middle class Emiratis to construct a coherent narrative that maps out the state’s often discreet and unannounced modifications to the ruling bargains, the article responds to the question of how migration-contingent changes and reforms have contributed to the rise and decline of the citizen middle class in the UAE.

I have been researching the erosion of the social contract in the UAE since 2021, when I first began to take notes of conversations with Emiratis on how they perceived the changes around them. Many of these conversations were private, due to the overwhelming reluctance of Emiratis to appear disgruntled with or unsupportive of the state’s policies.

Sampling from these interlocutors, I approached 11 Emiratis with whom I have had conversations in the past to be interviewed for this paper. My interest in these specific individuals lies in their educational background: All 11 were the first members of their immediate families to pursue a postgraduate degree abroad. This distinction or qualification, is generally perceived to give these individuals an advantage in the local job market. Most important for the purposes of my study, they all self-identify as “middle class.”

Out of the 11 individuals approached to be interviewed, seven agreed to participate. Among them, four were female and three were male. The respondents were from the following emirates: Two from Abu Dhabi, three from Dubai and two from Sharjah. A purposive and intentional sampling was used, which I felt could provide a variation in the insights generated from the interviews. Additionally, all interview participants are employed in the public or semi-private sectors between the emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

The interviews were semi-structured, with all interviewees responding to prompts on what they perceived to be the rights of an Emirati citizen; whether Emirati citizens were “entitled” to state welfare; and how they evaluate the opportunities available to them against those that were available to the generations before them.

Findings from the interviews were interpreted in relation to themes emerging from relevant data and prior ethnographic observations. The significance of this paper lies in the novel insights it offers into Emirati citizens’ perceptions and reasoning. It sheds light on how citizens interpret the changes impacting their lives and the evolving social contract between citizens and the state.

The oil-rich states of the Gulf are striving to move their economies away from resource rentierism. As they do so, the societal and class structures that were enabled by resource wealth are changing rapidly. Understanding these socio-cultural changes and the ways in which different countries respond to with them is crucial for mapping the trajectory of current developments. The UAE is a particularly interesting case, as it combines a very high rate of noncitizen residents with a vocal determination to transition away from fossil wealth. The UAE is also a unique case wherein a small population in a rich Gulf state is simultaneously subjected to coercive upskilling and rentier-weaning in a post-Arab Spring climate in which societal pushback is less likely to occur.

The abundance of oil-generated wealth expanded the horizon of opportunities for the ruling classes and the ruled populations of the Gulf. Education was not the only sector that had experienced an exponential growth in the 1970s; construction picked up too as Gulf states embarked on developing and modernizing their infrastructure (Birks et al., 1986). Due to their small populations, Gulf states needed to import labor to realize their development goals at the desired speed (Birks et al., 1986). The import of foreign labor, however, was not the common practice in the earlier decades of the 20^th century. In fact, with the beginning of oil explorations involving concessions made to oil companies by tribal rulers, agreements were signed between the sheikhdoms, the British government and oil companies stipulating that labor should be recruited primarily from neighboring sheikhdoms (Errichiello, 2012; Seccombe, 1983; Seccombe and Lawless, 1986; Thiollet, 2016). This allowed for intra-Gulf labor mobility, which appeared to have sufficiently fulfilled the needs of the local economies at the time (Kapiszewski, 2004). Furthermore, and outside of these formal agreements, indigenous members of Gulf societies took advantage of the possibility of borderless mobility in a commercially integrated region (Yanai, 2014). The fluid mobility within the region is best characterized by the seasonal migration of nomadic tribes, whose members will have also participated in the economies of the sedentary and seafaring communities across the region (Potter, 2017; Yanai, 2014).¹

Intra-Gulf mobilities were not decidedly constrained by the establishment of formal borders following the gradual British withdrawal from the region in the late 1960s. Rather, what may have stalled Gulf citizens’ labor migration within the region was the rapid development of their oil-rich nation-states and the proliferation of formal education. It could be argued that education, in effect, had contributed to changing the existing class structures in many Gulf societies in ways that inspired a desire for vertical class mobility in lieu of the horizontal cross-border mobility of indigenous labor.

Confronted by the pressing demands of a global economy, yet hamstrung by populations that were either small in size, unskilled or both, the newly established Arab states of the Gulf sought quick fixes to their deficits by inviting foreign workers to build and staff their new bureaucracies and institutions (AlShehabi, 2014). However, the open-door policy towards migration was met in the UAE with much opposition and concern. A collection of published articles by a prominent Emirati commentator in the late 1970s and early 1980s pathologized the presence of migrant labor in the UAE, correlating it to an increase in crime rates in the country. Ghanim Ghobash, who maintained a popular column in a widely circulating magazine at the time, Al Azminah Al Arabiya, lamented the self-serving and short-sighted commercial trade in visas, which he claimed many Emiratis were engaging in for self-enrichment (Ghobash, 1991). This securitized discourse on migrant labor in the Gulf and the long-term implications of their presence has endured well into the present days (AlShehabi, 2014; Lori, 2011), exacerbated by the increasing “demographic imbalance” that some Gulf states had to ultimately contend with.

Limited manpower capacity is often cited as the primary reason that drove Gulf states to rely on the importation of foreign workers, along with their inadequately skilled native populations, who had to be trained for newly emerging and specialized jobs in their developing economies. Absent in this narrative is the role played by the equally untrained ruling elites, who had to effectively oversee the development of their sheikhdoms into modern states. Abdullah Taryam (1987) alludes to this in his book, The Establishment of the United Arab Emirates, in which he argued that a lack of pre-planning compounded by the incompetence of a modestly educated ruling elite had generated inaccurate assessments of the labor needs of the country, impairing as a result the ability of the state to anticipate the long-term effects of the “alien labour on the population structure” (Taryam, 1987: 259). Despite this, the practice of importing labor did not decelerate despite the expansion of education in the UAE, a matter that Ghanim Ghobash repeatedly bemoaned in his columns. In a response to a letter sent to him by a reader in 1980, Ghobash outlines a conspiratorial scenario whereby citizens are deliberately crowded out by noncitizens to facilitate the plundering of the country’s resources:

The intention is to dilute the citizens such that they become like when you take a handful of sugar and scatter it on sand, but then when you try to look for the sugar you only see sand. This is the situation of the country, and if they do not hastily cure this problem, it could only mean that they do not see it as such, and that they intend and desire for it to be this way. But why? It is clear. The Americans want for this country to become the property of new inhabitants; Asian residents who can govern and control the country with ease, and enjoy its resources without fearing the interference of its native population, because the new inhabitants do not care except for their salaries. The citizens who demand rights and defend the dignity of their country, however, are a nuisance to the new colonialists (Ghobash, 1991: 167).²

Pertinently, the “demographic imbalance” was a recurring theme in the discourse on migration and foreign workers in the UAE. The drive to professionalize the local population through mass education allowed for the development of a class consciousness among citizens. An interview with contemporary Emirati political scientist, Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, published in 1980, provides a rare insight into how class structure was conceived within Emirati society at the time:

A small segment, less than one percent of the local population, constitutes the ruling class. I’m not talking now about foreigners. And this one percent includes industrial capitalists, emerging after 1973, financiers and traders. The shaikhs [sic] are in all these areas; they have the greatest share of the wealth and have a lot invested in the industrial projects and commercial enterprises. Next comes the commercial class who are not at the top, the middle class. The small shop owners, the petty bourgeois intellectuals and the students. I would estimate these to total together some 20 percent of the local population, including bureaucrats. The remaining 75 percent of the population are on the periphery–fishing, agriculture, marginal jobs in the bureaucracy, taxi drivers. The labor force from the local population is very small: Only some five to 10 percent work in the oil and other modern industries (Abdullah, 1980: 21).

According to Abdullah’s account of society in the 1970s, the merchants—or the commercial class as he referred to them—constituted the middle class.³ By the 1990s, Christopher Davidson (2009) suggests that a newly elevated social stratum had entered the Emirati middle class, namely, those who had benefited from the government’s investment in public services, such as schools, universities and hospitals. The middle class—be they the traditionally wealthy merchants or the newly professionalized citizens—were presumably the new cadre of educated citizens, who performed the bureaucratic tasks in government offices. The vast majority of Emirati citizens, however, appeared to have been of relatively modest means and occupied professions that would eventually be dominated by migrant workers.

A United Nations (UN) report on world population prospects had estimated the population of the UAE in 1980 to be around 1,043,225 (United Nations, 1986). This puts the Emirati population, which made up 22 percent of the total population in 1980, at just over 200,000 (Abdullah, 1980). The sense of being overwhelmed by the growing number of expatriates in the country was very much present at the time. But Abdullah (1980) stated that, “There is a false perception that the enemy is the large number of foreigners, rather than the economic structure that produces this situation,” suggesting unambiguously that the demographic imbalance was a convenient deflection from “the unequal distribution of wealth” (Abdullah, 1980: 21).

Disregarding this sentiment among the intelligentsia of the UAE, the state neglected concerns about inequality among citizens while continuing to foreground apprehensions regarding the growing number of noncitizens in the country. In describing foreign workers, government officials and the media continued to emphasize the temporality of noncitizens using the language of guesthood and the hospitality owed to them as per local customs, while also stressing the need for citizens to upskill in order to lessen the country’s dependence on foreign labor (Davidson, 2014; Lori, 2012; Taryam, 1987). The state’s demand of its population to strive in the pursuit of higher education and relevant skills was understood to be the responsibility of the new middle class.

The socio-economic transformations that followed the discovery of commercial quantities of oil in the 1950s allowed for the burgeoning of a literate middle class that was distinct from the traditional merchant classes in the UAE. Yet, the new middle class remains insufficiently explored in the literature on class formation in the UAE and the broader Gulf region.⁴ The ascent of the new middle classes, whose upward social mobility was facilitated by the advent of oil, inculcated expectations of government-granted privileges. Calvert Jones (2017) describes this generation of Emiratis as “entitled patriots,” who despite having gone through rigorous processes of social engineering to fashion them into self-reliant and entrepreneurial citizens, have retained a sense of entitlement to public sector jobs and other state largesse. Because jobs and other government subsidies are “viewed as shares of the national oil trust” (Jones, 2017: 100), the idea that citizens will have to compete for jobs becomes incongruous with the tacit social contract between the state and its citizens.

In conversations with interviewed Emiratis, a common thread emerged—a pervasive sense of entitlement to citizen privileges, paired with a keen awareness of the rapid decline in citizen welfare, particularly in the last decade. According to Khalid, who works in a middle management position in the public sector, the minority status of Emiratis alone should warrant such government provisions. Ahmed, a junior executive in a government department, concurs with the statement, stressing the idea that “the least the government could do is take care of its minority citizens.” Ahmed referred to the “implicit agreement between the government and the people,” which according to him explains Emiratis’ sense of entitlement to government provisions. He argued that the relationship between the UAE government and its people is “familial,” and therefore querying Emiratis on “entitlement” is amiss,

It’s like asking why children expect parents to take care of them. The government and the sheikhs are parent figures. That’s the entire rhetoric. They know better; leave it to them. (Ahmed, 2024)

Deferring all matters to the ruling elites is encouraged and represents the core of the social contract between the state and its constituents, citizens and noncitizens alike. An example of this occurred during the global COVID-19 pandemic, when shoppers began to panic-buy due to anticipated lockdown disruptions to supply chains (Nasir, 2020). The UAE’s President, Mohammed bin Zayed, who was the Crown Prince at the time, reassured citizens and residents that the UAE would face no shortages in food and medical supplies, followed by “La tsheloon hamm;” commonly translated in the local English media as “Don’t worry” (Salim, 2022). Soon after, the phrase “La tsheloon hamm” went viral and various campaigns were launched bearing the phrase as a slogan (Maxwell, 2020). Emirati columnists penned articles in the local media praising what they described as an inspirational phrase that motivated them to go the extra mile. The former Commander in Chief of Dubai Police, Dhahi Khalfan, wrote in a Twitter post that the phrase “Don’t worry” prompted the world’s wealthy to relocate to the UAE (Khalfan, 2021), implying that it engendered trust that was lacking elsewhere. The phrase “La tsheloon hamm” has since become a social media hashtag, restated and recited at every perceived calamity, from unemployment grievances to the recent appeals for government compensation and support in the aftermath of the torrential rains that flooded many parts of the UAE in April 2024 (Ahmad, 2024).

This expectation of the government to provide and care for citizens is a middle-class sensibility, suggests Sara,

Those who come from a higher class, and by that I mean wealthier families, they tend to feel less entitled. But those, for example, who come from lower or middle income [backgrounds], you hear a lot, “we are Emiratis, we ought to be prioritized. These are our jobs” […] this sense of entitlement, I feel, becomes more prevalent the less money one makes. (Sara, 2024)

Both Sara and Ahmed believe that Emiratis are reluctant to accept low-paying jobs because they expect their income to be commensurate with their level of education. Relatedly, in her study on ascribed and achieved characteristics and their influence on one’s position in the social hierarchy in the UAE, Angela Maitner (2023) found that her Gulf citizen respondents, amongst whom were Emiratis, perceived their achieved characteristics, such as educational level, as being a primary factor in determining their salaries. Non-Gulf citizen respondents, however, viewed ascribed characteristics, such as family name, nationality and wealth, to play a greater role in determining salaries (Maitner, 2023). Maitner’s findings correspond with James Zogby’s (2007) conclusions with regard to the Emirati middle class, who reported confidence that their hard work and ambition, not family network and social status, will help them advance in their careers. Interestingly, the majority of Emirati participants in Zogby’s research indicated that they did not feel they were paid adequately for their qualifications (Zogby, 2007). It thus appears that Emiratis feel entitled to a wage premium because of their citizenship, while simultaneously justifying this demand with their level of education—a fulfilled requisite to the state’s narrative on the upskilling imperative to lessen the country’s reliance on foreign workers.

Despite the cultivated enthusiasm for mass education and the frenzy to obtain qualifications and university degrees, the reliance on foreign workers not only persisted, but continued to grow. Frauke Heard-Bey (2005) suggests that the middle-classing of the segment of society that had benefited from mass education fostered a sense of entitlement that prevented Emirati citizens from accepting work that was increasingly deemed incongruent with their new middle-class status and aspirations. Thus, the majority of those who constituted the middle class in the Gulf states and the UAE, according to Abdullah (1980: 16), became the “salaried bureaucrats and technocrats” who were largely employed by the government sector.

Alongside public sector jobs, citizens enjoy other material privileges, such as free land and low-cost housing, interest-free loans, marriage grants, in addition to free healthcare and education up to the undergraduate level. Yet, these subsidies, which were perceived as inviolable rights, available to all citizens, have eroded over time, a cause of much concern for some of my informants. Khalid says that government housing is a clear example of where welfare has deteriorated. Khalid, who is from the emirate of Sharjah, but lives and works in another emirate, says that,

If I apply for a housing loan today, the maximum I can get is 1,700,000 UAE dirham (AED) (approximately USD 463,000), whereas in the past it used to be AED 2,000,000 (USD 544,500). It used to be, if you paid off 50 percent of what you owed, the rest of the amount would be forgiven. It is no longer the case. (Khalid, 2024)⁵

The perception among Emiratis is that the creeping, covert tweaking of rules around government grants and subsidies obscures the otherwise quantifiable decline in welfare provisions. Sara, a citizen of Dubai, who is employed in a state-owned enterprise, concurs that while government provisions have not completely ceased, they have been drastically reduced over the years. Citing land grants to male citizens as an example, Sara recalls that plots for low-cost or free housing from which her father’s generation had benefited are no longer available to the younger generations.

The main way they do it is [by] adding more conditions, so fewer people become eligible. Like house loans. You need to have a minimum income of AED 15,000 (USD 4,000). You want a scholarship? They will only offer scholarships for specialized majors and specific universities. (Sara, 2024)

This erosion contradicts the original intent of these subsidies, which were meant to close the gap between the poor and the wealthy, lifting the former into the middle class. In his thesis on low-cost housing in the UAE, Mohammed Al-Mansoori (1997) documented the evolution of the federal housing programs across the country, and the role of the Federal National Council (FNC) in advocating in the 1980s and 1990s for the provision of adequate housing that better reflected the UAE’s prosperity and wealth. Although the housing projects were intended to benefit low-income households, what constituted low income in the UAE was not defined at the time, which allowed for people of varying means to qualify (Al-Mansoori, 1997).

A few FNC members, Al-Mansoori (1997) reported in passing, raised the issue of class disparities that came to surface as a result of government housing intended for low-income families. Crucially, the clustering of low-cost government housing, known as Sha’bi houses, in specific areas, Sha’biyaat, had inadvertently created a class distinction associated with the people who would inhabit these locales.⁶ Nevertheless, the size of plots on which Sha’bi houses were built grew from 400 square meters (m²) to 1,650 m² within a decade (Al-Mansoori, 1997). However, in a 2019 study conducted by Alawadi and Benkraouda (2019) in which they surveyed opinions on densification through the implementation of compact forms of development for sustainability, the authors describe the size of the plot granted to citizens as averaging only 10,000 square feet (929 m²).⁷ The 175 Emirati participants surveyed in the study opposed the proposal to reduce plot sizes, citing cultural insensitivity and the disregard for the plot’s symbolic significance to citizens in terms of financial security and future investment, indicating that land was perceived as a “right” (Alawadi and Benkraouda, 2019). Curiously, there was no indication that the surveyed participants were aware of the reduction in the plot size from 15,000 square feet (1,393 m²) to the current standard provision. During our conversation, Khalid shared that he had received a land grant from the government this year (in 2024). The size of Khalid’s plot was 8,000 square feet (744 m²), indicating a further reduction in the size of plots relative to the grants compared to five years ago.

The feeling of indignation over being let down by the government stems from citizens’ perception that they have held up their end of the bargain by becoming the educated middle-class bureaucrats they were supposed to be. Yet, not only are their benefits eroding, they are also admonished to transition to the private sector, another proposition that feels like a demotion.

Michael Herb (2014) argues that the labor markets in rentier states produced two classes among citizens: Capitalists and public sector employees, with the latter being overwhelmingly dependent on oil revenues to fund their salaries and the public services provided to them by the state. Consequently, public sector employees, who constitute today’s middle class in the Gulf region, are less invested in the success of the private sector, as they are presumably not dependent on it for their employment (Herb, 2014).

Capitalists, on the other hand, who comprise the business oligarchs and count themselves among the elites, are committed to the success of the private sector as they are among its main drivers and investors (Almezaini, 2013). Kamrava et al. (2016) illustrate the multifaceted entanglement between merchants, members of the ruling elites and the state, which complicates the division between the public and the private sectors in the Gulf. While this has allowed business-owning elites to monopolize the private sector and exploit the abundance of cheap labor, it has also contributed to the emergence of what many scholars refer to as a brokerage culture (Hertog, 2010; Kamrava et al., 2016).

While elites captured the largest part of the profits from brokerage via exclusive franchise rights, the educated middle class wanted to accelerate their own ascent through the adoption of entrepreneurial practices that could draw them in closer financial proximity to the established merchant classes. Kafala became the state-sanctioned brokerage system that would facilitate the new middle classes’ aspiration for upward mobility through the supplementary income that could be gained by way of sponsoring individuals or business enterprises.

Becoming an “Arbab,” or a sponsoring employer, was thus a way for new middle-class Emiratis to leverage their citizenship and access to individuals and institutions in ways that are not available to expatriates (Hertog, 2010), while also becoming a marker of social status (Sabban, 2002). It was not, therefore, the “low societal capacities,” as Steffen Hertog (2010) suggests, that had held Gulf citizens back from participating meaningfully in the job market, but the desire to speedily join the ranks of the privileged and wealthy classes.

Hertog (2010: 287) argues that brokerage became the means through which “semi-educated nationals” endeavored in the pursuit of state resources “rather than in private activities that generate value-added.” Brokerage, it can be argued, was practiced actively but also passively through state laws mandating that foreign ownership of private companies was contingent upon the involvement of a national sponsor, who was entitled to 51 percent of the stakes (Sater, 2014).

But the private enterprises in which new middle-class Emiratis became owning partners were in no way similar to the large corporations owned by prominent families that make up the traditional merchant class in the UAE. The small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) and micro-firms were largely a means to financial independence or self-enrichment (Almezaini, 2013), and while they may have contributed to creating job opportunities in the country, no data exists to corroborate the role of SMEs in creating employment opportunities for Emirati citizens. On the contrary, Sterling Jensen (2018) states that the ability to earn a passive income through the co-founding of micro-firms and SMEs has had the reverse effect, deterring Emirati citizens from seeking gainful employment in the private sector.

In the imagination of my informants, the private sector was largely the playfield of noncitizens. Two of my informants kicked off their careers post-graduation in the private sector, but quickly transitioned to the public sector after being head-hunted. While they recognized the value of gaining professional experience in the private sector, they were candid about their motivation to work in the private sector at first. Maryam, who works in a semi-private corporation, states that “having private companies on one’s resume is more attractive, especially when eventually you want to move to the government sector.” Like Maryam, my informants acknowledged that the private sector represented professionalism, specialized knowledge and career growth, but they were unanimous in regarding private sector employment as demanding and insecure.

Jassim, a citizen of Sharjah, who works in a semi-private organization in another emirate, articulated the idea of private sector jobs as transitory spaces that are incompatible with the permanence of Emiratis and their livelihoods. Jassim argued that the private sector is not rooted in the country and could decide to leave to greener pastures if corporate tax becomes burdensome, and running a business no longer justifies the associated costs.

Expatriates can work in the private sector, because it probably offers better opportunities than what was available in their home countries. If they lose their jobs, they can go back to their countries or travel to another destination. It is not in our culture to move to another country for work, so if I lose my job, how will I pay my bills? (Jassim, 2024)

The aversion that Emiratis feel towards the private sector has an emotional dimension, too. Ahmed, who started working two years ago, described how a close Emirati friend with whom he had studied abroad landed a lucrative job in government where he is paid three times what Ahmed earns in another government department. Ahmed was unemployed for a year and chose not to look for opportunities in the private sector, focusing his efforts solely on finding a job in the public sector.

Obviously, my friend got the job because he is also a [redacted family name]. He comes from a wealthy family as it is, which comes with social capital and connections. I like my job, but I might have to work many years before I am paid what he is paid now. By then, he might even be paid more. So why should I work in the private sector? They want to save the best government jobs for their own people and expect the rest of us to scramble for jobs in a competitive private sector? (Ahmed, 2024)

A prevalent perception among my informants was that wealthy Emiratis have access to opportunities unavailable to all Emiratis. The exclusivity of these opportunities and their inaccessibility to most Emiratis with limited social capital is perceived to hinder middle-class Emiratis’ ability to accumulate wealth and climb up the social hierarchy. The desire to attain economic equality or proximity to the upper classes is an under-explored factor in the motivations and career aspirations of Emiratis. Thus, the government’s refrain for middle-class Emiratis to join the private sector is construed as callous gatekeeping.

The employment of UAE nationals in the private sector has always been a topic of contention. While the UAE was never oblivious to the finite nature of its hydrocarbon resources, its efforts to diversify its economy have not seen the government successfully become independent of oil revenues. As a result, the public sector remained the primary employer of UAE nationals, becoming seemingly oversaturated with time and purportedly unable to absorb the large number of graduates (Forstenlechner, 2008; The Economist, 2021). However, neither government-subsidized salaries, nor aggressive quota and nationalization measures to persuade UAE citizens to seek employment in the private sector or entice the latter to recruit citizens have yielded the desired outcomes (Sarker and Habibur Rahman, 2020).

In addition to prevalent notions on the private sector’s disinclination to hire UAE citizens due to the perceived high costs of their recruitment and retention (Bocanet and Grassa, 2023) and, more ubiquitously, the persistent stereotypes regarding the inadequacy of Emirati citizens’ professional skills and their level of preparedness for the job market (Al-Waqfi and Forstenlechner, 2010; Ewers, 2016; Karam et al., 2023), the apprehensions expressed by Emirati citizens regarding the relatively lower remuneration offered by the private sector as well as job insecurity is seldom interrogated in the context of their middle-class aspirations (Al-Waqfi and Forstenlechner, 2012).

While Emiratis have to contend with the erosion of material benefits, public sector jobs and a difficult transition to the private sector, they also experience the cessation, or even reversal, of another privilege, namely, the aforementioned “Arbab entrepreneurialism.” Until 2018, Emirati citizens were able to perform the role of an Arbab, becoming themselves private sector employers. This avenue of wealth accumulation was undercut by the UAE’s introduction of a legal reform that would allow for 100 percent foreign ownership of private businesses in the country (Al Lawati, 2018). While the common perception of Emiratis as Kafeels, or sponsors, and business owners had once placed Emiratis at the top of the economic hierarchy, the government’s withdrawal of that “privilege” inverted the perceived relationship between citizens and noncitizens. This experience is mirrored in my informants, of which only one, Jassim, is an Arbab, who is also the most financially well-situated of the group.

Although state, semi-state and family business enterprises predominate the private sector as its primary employers (Almezaini, 2013), the firms they oversee are overwhelmingly staffed by expatriate workers. The front-facing expatriates holding senior positions in management and the human resources departments become the embodiment of this inverted relation of Kafala. The reshuffling of economic relations that the private sector projects tends to blur the direct relationship between the actual employer—oftentimes the state and its clients—and the citizens. The incident that came to be known colloquially as “sandwichgate” provides an illustrative example of this.

In December 2022, the Kamal Jamjoom Group, a private holding conglomerate, came under investigation by the UAE’s Public Prosecutor when one of its franchise fast food restaurants advertised a “sandwich maker” job as part of its drive towards Emiratization (Ullah, 2022). The advertisement triggered a nationwide fury over what was deemed as a “mockery and insult to Emiratis,” with Sultan Almoathen, a former member of the Federal National Council, tweeting that “Offering such jobs (showing contempt and mocking citizens) is evidence of some expats’ hatred and envy against us” (Ullah, 2022). The “ideological animosity,” which Faisal Hamadah (2022) purports as characterizing the relation between citizen-employers and foreign workers is inverted in this instance, with citizens feeling they are being exploited by the class of expatriate-employers.

The fast food chain had advertised the position through Nafis, a government recruitment portal that provides Emirati jobseekers with opportunities in the private sector. Some of the informants relayed incidents with Nafis applications that elicited emotions similar to “sandwichgate.” Alia, a citizen of Abu Dhabi, who works for a semi-private entity, recalled:

The private sector looks down on Emiratis, regardless of their qualifications. I wanted to explore opportunities in the private sector and registered on the platform. I received calls with offers for receptionist or data entry positions. I thought they were prank calls! My qualifications, years of experience, current post and salary are all registered on the system. They offer lower salaries, and when I quiz them about that, they are quick to remind me that the government will top up the pay. (Alia, 2024)

Jassim shares similar views on the private sector and the persistent stereotypes against Emiratis, which he believes are deeply ingrained. “They have cliques in the private sector,” he says, “and in order to retain their jobs, [noncitizens] have to make sure they don’t hire qualified Emiratis that can replace them.”

In parallel to citizens, expatriates have lived under a different, complementary bargain with the government. Central to this bargain was, more than the much-vaunted expertise and human capital, the precarious nature of their residency that made expatriates politically useful. Christopher Davidson (2014) made a foresightedly compelling argument about the changing role of expatriates in the Gulf region, particularly following the Arab uprisings. According to Davidson (2014: 274), expatriates in the Gulf region “have no sustained interest in the politics of their host country” and often find themselves inadvertently becoming the “loyal, silent support base for the ruling families,” whose presumed ability to maintain stability allows resident expatriates to enjoy “a higher standard of living than they would experience in their country of origin”—an argument that parallels Ghobash’s (1991) aforementioned description of noncitizens in the UAE.

In addition to the relatively higher living standards that expatriates—but not low-paid foreign workers—get to enjoy by living and working in the Gulf, Davidson argues that political motives pertaining to home-country politics or instability may induce a sense of political apathy in or towards their host country, as noncitizens prefer to keep a low profile to preserve their temporary guesthood in order to save up for their onward journeys (Davidson, 2014).

The state of “permanent deportability” (Lori, 2013) under which noncitizens continue to live in the UAE has cultivated a form of complacency (Al-Suwaidi, 2023) that incentivizes quietism. Furthermore, the presence of an overwhelmingly apolitical class of expatriate workers legitimizes the ruling elites in many ways (Al-Suwaidi, 2023; Davidson, 2014), mainly by lending credence to the perceptions popularized by elites about the constituents over whom they rule as being in perpetual transition to professional maturity (Jones, 2015), thereby necessitating the indefinite reliance on foreign workers.

Unsurprisingly, policies pitting citizens against noncitizens, such as the various modes of socio-legal and urban segregations (Longva, 1999) and the favoritism that Emirati citizens enjoy (Davidson, 2014), have all created a societal rift that has only deepened in the post-oil transition period.

Khalifa Al-Suwaidi (2023) provides a helpful synopsis of the public debates that had emerged over the subject of the “demographic imbalance” at the turn of the century. The UAE population census of 2005,⁸ argues Al-Suwaidi (2023), generated a tense debate around national identity and citizenship, revealing at times a deep-seated fear of an imagined takeover. While some pundits have proposed to address the demographic imbalance through granting permanent residency (Al Gergawi, 2009) or naturalization (Al Qassemi, 2013), such views remain controversial and divisive among Emiratis (Habboush, 2013).

Although Al-Suwaidi (2023: 29) points perceptively to “ethnic background and degree of tribal affiliation” as indicators of such liberal views, socio-economic status may be a better explanatory variable. The proponents of permanent residencies and naturalization tended to be affluent members of prominent ruling or merchant families, as well as foreign-educated individuals. As such, they are less vulnerable to job market competition from noncitizens than the fossil-fueled middle class. In fact, the ruling and merchant classes in the UAE dominate the private sector, as previously mentioned, becoming the primary employers of the noncitizen workforce (Almezaini, 2013). Thus, permanent residency and naturalization can sustain the workforce supply for the private sector, while also providing an elegant way to fulfill the state-imposed quota on hiring Emirati nationals.

However, Emirati citizens’ receptiveness to appeals for permanent residency and naturalization diminishes when noncitizens begin to make claims to entitlements and demand recognition for contributions made to their host countries. Social media is rife with squabbles between citizens and noncitizens, with the former triggered by the latter’s persistent claims to have built the country. “We built this country” is a recurring theme in the literature on migrant workers in the UAE and the wider Gulf region (Leonard, 2005; Rothenberg, 2010; Vora, 2011).

Both Ahmed and Maryam agree that “migrant workers” built the country, but “those taking credit for building the country or having a substantial impact on its development are privileged expats, not the migrant workers,” says Ahmed. To Sara, the main contention regarding the statement lies in the fact that it dismisses Emirati labor and contributions. She says,

This logic is flawed. When people say, “we built this country,” the underlying assumption is that the UAE was a clean slate and foreigners came from overseas to build it from scratch. This is offensive. [Expatriates] came and found a people with history and a visionary leadership. The merchant class in this country laid the foundations for education and trade. They financed the country before there was oil. It’s really offensive when Emirati labor is erased. (Sara, 2024)

Yet, contested as the assertion that noncitizens “built this country” is among citizens, the government has seemingly sided with noncitizens, through its recent liberalization of citizenship laws. When the UAE announced in 2021 that it was granting citizenship to noncitizens, including investors, scientists, artists and talented individuals (Magdy, 2021), the news was met with a sombre and silent displeasure (Al Hussein, 2021). The government’s perceived reneging on the sacrosanct exclusivity of citizenship represented yet another violation of the social contract. Hessa, a citizen from Abu Dhabi, who works in a semi-private entity, described how she received the announcement on naturalization:

I know this is not a popular opinion, but I don’t see a problem with granting citizenship to deserving expatriates who have lived in the UAE for decades. I guess the issue for many of us was that those who were granted citizenship turned out to be actors and singers. It degrades the value of our citizenship when it is granted to individuals for merely being rich or famous. They have no connection to the land and may have only moved here recently. (Hessa, 2024)

My informants shared Hessa’s view on the ethical value of granting citizenship to individuals who have resided in the country for many years and made positive contributions to it. Remarkably, some of my informants highlighted that noncitizens who were granted citizenship would not be entitled to all the same privileges as “first degree Emiratis”—something my male informants found particularly reassuring. While my informants were satisfied with the idea that naturalized citizens will not have a share in government subsidies, they were generally disinterested in the fact that new citizens are not currently required to complete military service.

The UAE, along with other Gulf states, introduced mandatory conscription for all males between the ages of 18 and 30 (Salem, 2014). In the past, citizenship demanded obedience and loyalty to the state and its leadership, but the introduction of military conscription added a new duty towards the state that was not counterbalanced by any perks or privileges (Al Hussein, 2021). In fact, the introduction of military service had not only coincided with the start of diminishing welfare, it also occurred at a time when oil prices plunged, resulting in substantial job losses (Kerr, 2016), including among Emiratis.

While none of my informants experienced job loss in 2014, the majority shared stories of family and friends who have been made redundant as a result of job cuts in the public and private sectors. Khalid expressed alarm at the precedent that was set by this practice,

Many people lost their jobs during the recession of 2008, but not Emiratis. It used to be unlawful to fire an Emirati. There were safety nets. I was shocked when my friend lost his job at [Airline]. My first thought was, did he underperform? Because that is now a valid reason to terminate an Emirati, you know. But no, the company was cutting jobs because of the oil crisis, and he was among many Emiratis who were let go along with other expats. (Khalid, 2024)

The parity that the implicit modifications to the social contract have generated seems to provoke angst among my informants. Citizenship and minority status were invoked by respondents to explain why this development is concerning. Ahmed insisted that citizens of any country expect to be given preferential treatment by their government; “We are not the exception, but when we ask to be prioritized, we are treated like spoiled brats.”

Sara, who lost a government position in 2020 due to the economic slump triggered by the global pandemic, narrated a conversation she had had with a former colleague,

My former colleague, an [Arab] who holds an American passport, once told me that “you Emiratis are ungrateful. Your country does so much for you. I wish my country took care of me the same way, or gave me a scholarship.” This colleague had student loans to repay, which is why she came to work in the UAE. But I was upset, because she holds an American passport, and that automatically gives her a higher pay than Emiratis. Her education is more valued than mine, even though I studied abroad. (Sara, 2024)

Sara’s sentiments were shared by Ahmed, who disagreed with the idea that Emiratis got more out of their country than other nationalities do. Ahmed, who completed his postgraduate degree in the United Kingdom (UK), said,

The talk about Emirati privileges is a red herring. My British classmates in the UK also had free education and healthcare. Sure, they pay taxes, but who said we don’t? Just because they don’t call them taxes here, it doesn’t mean we don’t pay random fees. They don’t even have to do military service! And if they come [to the UAE] for a job, they will earn more than me! (Ahmed, 2024)

Public data through which to validate Sara and Ahmed’s claims regarding the wage disparities that some Emiratis presume certain noncitizens enjoy does not exist. Both citizens and noncitizens face a myriad of challenges in the job market, but in the absence of sector or company-specific data, these views remain anecdotal.

Jassim, on the other hand, who works in senior management, acknowledged that “Emiratis likely earn more,” but attributed that to their being citizens, and therefore entitled to a premium wage. Jassim’s main grievances are reserved for other changes that are perceived to primarily cater to the comforts of noncitizens. He referred to the change in the weekend that was introduced in 2022, when the UAE announced that the work-week will shift to Monday-Friday, in line with global markets (Barbuscia and Ghantous, 2021),

The public message of the government is, “we want to promote happiness,” but this happiness is tailored to expat standards. Making alcohol consumption legal, and changing the weekend does not benefit me as an Emirati. For us, they talk about tolerance […] to tolerate these new laws. (Jassim, 2024)

Some of my informants were unbothered by these changes, as it agreed with their liberal sensibilities and did not disrupt their lifestyles. What irked them about the changes, however, was that they were not introduced with the citizens in mind. Maryam summed up the general sentiments,

I don’t feel threatened by progress. The less intervention and control the authorities have over people’s lives, the better. Whether it comes through external pressure or to appease expat demands, it makes no difference. We all benefit from it. (Maryam, 2024)

In this article, I have described the dual bargains of the Emirati government that are vital to its political stability. Using interviews with middle-class Emiratis as well as publicly available primary and secondary sources, I shed light on how the social contract between government and Emiratis created a fossil-fuelled middle class, and how recent changes have caused anxieties among middle-class Emiratis. These anxieties stem from a decline in material government benefits, a push out of secure public sector employment into precarious private sector jobs and the termination of “Arbab entrepreneurship.” In addition to the material deterioration, they are also apprehensive of the diminishing citizen/noncitizen differential, going so far as to fear a reversal of roles: Instead of being the Arbab, they become employees working under expatriate management. These perceptions have created a feeling that the government has stopped catering to its citizens and instead tailors its policies around expatriate needs. The tearing down of the once inviolable exclusivity of citizenship is only the latest factor in a long series of policies that have created feelings of disposability and even replaceability. As a result, the discourse on labor reforms and economic growth does not connote positive change for Emiratis.

We thus seem to witness a resurfacing of apprehensions of a foreign takeover last seen in the early oil years. With the prospect of shrinking upward mobility, and the inability to redress or even just to address their grievances, citizens may return to the horizontal, international mobility that characterized their pre-oil era.

As other Gulf states move towards diversifying their economies and populations through naturalization and the introduction of long-term residencies, citizens in those countries may have similar apprehensions. This paper presents the UAE as a test case that can inform similar research in other Gulf contexts.

This paper is an outcome of a presentation made at the 2023 Gulf Research Meeting’s workshop on Recent Labour and Migration Reforms and Policies in the Gulf: Impact on Economies and Societies. I would like to express my gratitude to the workshop conveners and members, whose engagement and constructive feedback were instrumental in refining my ideas. I am also deeply appreciative of the reviewers for their invaluable feedback, which significantly strengthened my argument and helped address critical gaps in this work.