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Abstract

Due to limited natural resources, the inhabitants of the Arabian Gulf historically oriented their primary activities toward the sea, with fishing and the pearl industry serving as the cornerstone of employment and the creation of economic surplus in the region. The significance of this sector intensified particularly after the mid-nineteenth century, driven by the global prosperity of the pearl trade and the Gulf’s integration with European nations undergoing rapid industrialization, which in turn introduced higher quality and more affordably priced goods to the region. By the first quarter of the twentieth century, the workforce in this industry accounted for no less than 20–25% of the total regional labor force; notably, the historian J.G. Lorimer recorded that approximately 90,000 individuals out of a total population of 300,000 were engaged in pearling during the mid-1900s. This workforce comprised locals as well as migrants from Iran, India, Pakistan, and East Africa—many of whom were brought as enslaved laborers by owners despite British efforts to combat piracy and the slave trade in the Gulf and Indian Ocean. The functional hierarchy of the pearl industry revealed a precise division into nine distinct categories based on specialized tasks, dominated by two pivotal actors: the "Financier" (Merchant), who provided loans at interest rates reaching 25% for the four-to-five-month season and typically secured the vast majority of profits, and the divers and their assistants, who represented a stark paradox as the most critical yet most marginalized participants, possessing only their physical endurance while suffering the greatest financial, social, and health-related hardships. Operating under a "quota" system rather than fixed wages, these workers rarely earned enough to settle their compounding debts and previous advances; consequently, they remained trapped in a cycle of perpetual debt, which, by prevailing customary law, obligated them to remain in service for subsequent seasons. The industry ultimately declined in the early 1930s following the influx of "cheap" cultured pearls from Japan and other global markets, a shift that fortunately coincided with the early oil discoveries, facilitating the transition of much of the workforce into the modern petroleum industry.

DOI

10.33095/jeas.v15i56.1222

Subject Area

Economics

First Page

119

Last Page

139

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