Page 87 - Aamir Rehman - Dubai & Co Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States-McGraw-Hill (2007)

Here to Stay: GCC Market Attractiveness and Risks 71

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America. Retailers are therefore intensely targeting GCC-region
parents and the market for children’s goods is booming.
Because of the large numbers of foreign laborers—who gener-
ally are unable to bring families to the Gulf—the region’s overall
gender balance is skewed toward males. This is likely to change
over time as the workforce becomes more “nationalized” and expa-
triate workers become less common. Another key trend is the
increase in the proportion of the population that is over 65 years
old. The boom in this segment is understandable, as the quality of
health care and standard of living have improved tremendously in
the Gulf since the oil boom of the 1970s.
One important sign of healthy demographics is the percentage
of the population who are in their productive or working years. As
illustrated in Figure 3.4, most GCC countries are expected to have
more than two-thirds of their populations in the age range 15–64 for
the foreseeable future.

Figure 3.4 GCC countries have growing workforces (Source: UN,
medium variant)

This is a good sign, as it suggests that for every person who is
either too young or too old to be employed, there will be at least two
people in the active workforce driving the economy forward. Even
if oil income and government surpluses become more modest, the