Reasons for Migration of Contract Labor to Oman: A SEM Approach

Oman has made tremendous progress in the last four decades on the back of rising oil prices and this has led to substantial economic activity in oil, construction, industries and services sectors creating an unprecedented demand for labor ranging from professionals, technical experts, educators, highly skilled people in all vocations to low and semi-skilled people including cleaners, gardeners, packers, domestic workers etc. The objective of the current paper is to examine the causal factors which determine the underlying reason for the migration of such contract workers into Oman, and analyze why some factors seem to play a key role in the workers’ decision to migrate while some do not. Primary data was sourced through interview schedule by using a structured questionnaire and the information regarding the respondents migration were collected from 105 respondents (N=105). A Structured Equation model (SEM) was used for both identification and examination of factors that are primarily responsible for migration of low skill workers into Oman. The results showed that 11 out of the 15 factors studied were important in influencing the decision of the workers to migrate while the remaining four were not significant. The research attempts to identify the factors that are critical in explaining the motives that prompt the contract workers to migrate to a new place under uncertain and challenging conditions and throw up important pointers for researchers and policymakers in both the source and destination countries.