Examining welfare benefits for Ugandan migrant workers in the Middle East

Abstract

The study intended to examine the welfare benefits received by Ugandan Migrant in the GCC. The specific objectives of the study included background characteristics of Ugandan migrants in the GCC countries, to examine whether Ugandan migrants in the GCC receive welfare benefits and to examine the types of social benefits received by Ugandan migrants in the GCC countries. The study use secondary data collected using a semi structured questionnaire using a cross sectional study design.

According to the findings, most migratory persons to the GCC countries are within their 20’s in terms of age, mostly never married and moderately educated with most of them having at least a secondary education. The minority of the migrant received welfare benefits and the most received benefits were healthcare and sickness benefits. From the findings of the study, the following recommendations are drawn. The prospective migrants should be encouraged to attain higher levels of education, as this is likely to influence the types of jobs they are to get abroad. Highly educated persons, for example with a tertiary degree generally get better paying jobs compared to their peers with low education levels. Migrant workers’ recruiting agencies should also be encouraged to train the people they recruit to provide them with specific skills in response to the employment requirements in the GCC countries to enhance their productivity and thus payment too. Countries of origin need to negotiate with host countries on the ways of comprehensively improving access to welfare benefits by their workers in these countries. Countries of origin could also possibly extend welfare benefits beyond the local residents to also intensively cover their migrant workers in other countries