The Impact of Emigration on National Development in the Arab Region: The Case of the Yemen Arab Republic

Labor migration among Arab countries is the most important phenomenon in the political economy of that region at present and will remain so for some time. The focus of this article is the impact of emigration on national development in labor sending countries experiencing wide-scale emigration, the main contention being that, due to the characteristics of contemporary labor movements among Arab countries, there obtains a contradiction between short term benefits and long term adverse effects. The article briefly defines development, then presents empirical evidence from the Yemen Arab Republic of the negative impact of labor emigration.