@article{oai:minpaku.repo.nii.ac.jp:00004256,
 author = {佐藤, 寛 and Sato, K. Hiroshi},
 issue = {2},
 journal = {国立民族学博物館研究報告, Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology},
 month = {Dec},
 note = {This paper is intended to illustrate how the "labor migration" could
initiate and accelerate the socio-economic changes of the home country
of emigrant workers. I will discuss this impact from three dimensions:
first, outflow and absence of emigrant workers from their home country;
second, inflow of remittance, and finally, return of workers. This paper
is the result of the author's field work and bibliographic study.
With the beginning of the 1970s, especially after the "oil crises" in
1973-74, Middle Eastern oil-producing countries entered "the era of
development" with tremendous pace and scale. This phenomenon
affected North Yemen (Yemen Arab Republic) , the neighboring Arab-
Islam, non-oil producing, poor and closed country.
Yemeni Highland societies (70-80% of North Yemen consists of
mountainous areas) are featured by their isolation from each other and
also from the outside world until 1970. Isolation was supported by a
self-sufficient agricultural economy, minimal social mobility, and an independent
political mind of the tribesmen.
Since the beginning of the 1970s, the development boom of Saudi
Arabia attracted more than a million workers from Yemen. This means
about a half of the Yemeni male labor force was working in Saudi
Arabia. The remittance of Yemeni labors amounted to 13 billion U.S.$
in the peak year of 1978/79, which was equivalent to 77% of Yemen's
GDP for that year.
The outflow of a young and most energetic labor force caused a
decrease of cultivated land and an increase of labor wages domestically.
An inflow of remittance resulted in an increase of purchasing power
among the rural population. This accelerated the penetration of cash into
isolated villages. The general inflation caused the price of bride to
soar, and most young men compelled to emigrate to get married. This
made labor migration a "whole-nation movement".
Since most Yemeni emigrant workers were unskilled and single, and
their stay-period in Saudi Arabia was short (less than 5 years) , some
emigrants began returning from the latter half of the 1970s. Returned
emigrants brought with them automobiles, generators, drilling machines
for water well and other machineries along with dresses for their women,
stainless knives and forks and electrical appliances for their household
(most of them were made in Japan) .
Returning emigrants ventured into new business which had been
unknown in Yemen, such as taxi, petroleum lorry, gas-filling station,
car-repairing, metal window-frame making, and so on. They also
entered into commerce, which was traditionally considered as an inferior
work from the tribal point of view.
The self-sufficient cereal producing agriculture shifted into a cashcropping
and "Qat" production, and peasants import cheap flour and
canned foods. Social mobility increased with new asphalt roads and
emigrants' cars. A lot of commodities ranging from Qat leaves to
smuggled petrol are flooded on the roads. Commerce and transport
became Yemen's prime industry.
After two decades of these changes, the long-lived isolation of
Yemeni societies has now broken down. Agriculture as a bases of tribal
society is on the decline, and Yemen is now totally dependent upon the
outside world.
International labor migration is a global issue, and it could be interpreted
as one of the unique phenomina in the 20th century. The Yemeni
case is one of the typical examples of socio-economic impacts of international
labor migration on home country.
Development aid is another unique phenomenon in this century,
and when we examine the development of the third world countries, we
cannot ignore the impact of international labor migration. Therefore,
the experience of Yemeni labor migration offeres a lot of lessons and implications
for us, the aid donors and receivers as well.},
 pages = {369--408},
 title = {「国民的出稼ぎ現象」の社会・経済的影響 : 北イエメンの20年},
 volume = {17},
 year = {1992},
 yomi = {サトウ, ヒロシ}
}