Demographics, key figures
Saudi Arabia is the4th largest country in the Arab world with an estimated population of 34.2 million. With a complete change in lifestyle that began in the 1950s, the country has opened its doors wide to immigration to ensure its economic development. There are an estimated 13 million immigrants living in Saudi Arabia, or 38% of the population. While in the 1960s the vast majority of Saudis were nomads or semi-nomads, today 95% of the population is sedentary and 80% live in cities. The Saudi population is young with more than 70% aged between 15 and 64 years and a median age of 32.4 years. Life expectancy is 75 years, with a small gap between men and women. Men have a life expectancy of 74.2 years, while women can expect to live to 77.3 years. The mortality rate is one of the lowest in the world, with 3.3 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants per year. The birth rate is relatively high at 15.5 births per 1,000 people per year, or more than 1,500 births per day. Even though the birth rate has been declining, Saudi Arabia's population is growing at an annual rate of 1.2%. As a result, the country is experiencing a population explosion that is likely to have an impact on the country's economy. The working population is close to 16 million people. The unemployment rate reached 11.3 percent in the first quarter of 2021, the lowest rate recorded since 2010. Women make up 20 percent of the workforce, a figure that continues to rise. They were only 14.8% in 2017, before Mohammed Ben Salman allowed women to start their own businesses without their guardian's approval. Saudi Arabia has a deficit of women, who make up only 42.24% of the population.
An Arab people
Saudi Arabia has little experience of ethnic diversity, as 90% of its population is Arab. The remaining 10% constitute a heterogeneous minority with very diverse origins: sub-Saharan Africa and Egypt, countries of the Levant, southern Arabian Peninsula, Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Uzbekistan and Turkey, Maghreb, Pakistan and India. These Saudis populate mainly the ancient region of Hijaz, in the vicinity of Mecca, Medina and Jeddah. It can be assumed that their ancestors were former pilgrims who stayed in Mecca or merchants on the ancient routes between Africa and the Orient who never left. For some families, their lineage goes back more than 1,500 years, before the advent of Islam. A small part of the population of Saudi origin is Bedouin. While the Bedouin are Arabs, not all Arabs are Bedouin. The Bedouin were nomadic herders with very specific cultural traditions. The word Bedou literally means "man of the desert". Sedentary Bedouin often hold positions in the Saudi judicial system or the National Guard.
High immigration
More than a third of the population is of foreign origin. The discovery of oil at the end of the 1930s profoundly changed the dynamics of the country. The need for manpower was enormous in order to begin the sedentarization of tribes scattered across the peninsula and to bring cities out of the sand. This will come from all countries where there is a large Muslim population. The close political and diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Egypt provided a population of workers who arrived in the peninsula in the 1950s. It is in this country that the Egyptian diaspora is the most important with more than one million people. In 2022, the largest immigrant population is coming from the Indian subcontinent. There will be 2.55 million Indians, 2.45 million Pakistanis and 1.3 million Bangladeshis. The war in Syria has also brought a large diaspora with 2.5 million workers. Southeast Asia is also a good source of labor with 1.6 million Filipinos and 800,000 Indonesians. Historically, many Yemenis have crossed the porous border between the two countries. The country had more than 1.8 million Yemeni immigrants in 2020. But the civil war in Yemen, in which Saudi Arabia is involved to support the presidential regime, has led to widespread harassment and deportation of illegal immigrants. Human rights groups report arbitrary detentions, unjustified termination of employment contracts, and arbitrary hiring constraints. In his "Vision 2030" development program implemented since 2017, Mohammed Ben Salman is tackling illegal labor and tightening the conditions for hiring in his country. Now, immigrant workers must pay a tax of nearly €1,200 for any accompanying family members. In addition, workers are taxed and must pay a monthly tax of €200 per month to the government and a balance to their sponsor. This financial pressure in a country where the standard of living is high, added to the Covid-19 crisis which has considerably hampered access to work, has led many Yemenis to return home. It is estimated that there are only one million Yemenis left in the peninsula today. While these measures affect all migrant workers, they are applied with greater authority to the refugee population from Yemen.
Citizenship
Measures to provide access to work for foreigners are intended to reduce the relatively high unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia and are part of a nationalistic vision of the country that is intended to restore pride of belonging to Saudis. The conditions for acquiring Saudi citizenship have always been complicated. All persons residing in the country before 1914 were granted citizenship automatically. Naturalization can only be obtained after 10 years of continuous residence in the country, with good written and spoken Arabic, after a character study and without a criminal record. It is granted arbitrarily by the Prime Minister, on the recommendation of the Minister of the Interior.
