Handbook of Families in the Arab Gulf States

This open access book collates and advances the body of knowledge about the factors, directions, and magnitudes of change in Arabian Gulf families from interdisciplinary perspectives. Family life across the globe is being impacted by unprecedented diversity in household living arrangements and by sweeping economic, cultural, and social change, and this is not an exception in the Gulf region. The book demarcates how Gulf families are experiencing many formidable challenges and undergoing profound changes due to speedy economic transformation, educational reforms, extensive use of social media, rapid urbanization, migration, women empowerment, and the intersections of popular culture from both the East and the West. Notwithstanding such challenges and changes, Gulf families often seem to retain and continue many of the traditional roles and functions of families in a sustained manner. It contributes to current debates that revolve around questions of what has changed, and what has stayed the same, in family structures in the region. Sweeping and comparative, the book provides avenues for offering practical solutions for policy interventions in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. It is a key academic text for sociologists interested in transformations in the family in relation to politics, economics, consumption patterns, education, gender, law, social media, religion, culture, social reforms, and the state.

Md Mizanur Rahman is Research Associate Professor and graduate Faculty in the Gulf Studies Program and Center, College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the National University of Singapore (NUS), for which he was supported by the prestigious NUS research scholar award and the Social Science Research Council (US) fellowship. Prior to joining Qatar University in 2018, Dr Rahman served various institutions including Asia Research Institute (NUS, Singapore), Department of Sociology (NUS, Singapore), Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS, Singapore), and University Brunei Darussalam (UBD, Brunei Darussalam). In his research and teaching, he focuses on Area Studies, migration, and development in the context of the Arab Gulf States. His research sites are interregional, encompassing the Arab Gulf States, Southeast Asia and South Asia. His publications include twelve books, fifteen book chapters, and thirty-five journal articles. His books have been published by reputed academic publishers like Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge, and Springer Nature, among others. Four of his articles are ranked as the top ten cited and/or downloaded articles in ISI journals in various years. Rahman is an editor of two Springer Nature book series - Gulf Studies and South-South Migration Series - and sits on several editorial boards of international journals. He was a member of Migration Research Leaders Syndicate for the 2018 Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, formed and spearheaded by the IOM - the UN Migration Agency based in Geneva. In 2024, he received the Research Excellence Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences from the College of Arts and Sciences at Qatar University. Kaltham Al-Ghanim is a Professor of Sociology and the director of the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI) of Qatar University, Doha, Qatar. Prof Kaltham held the position of the Head of the Department of Sociology from 2005-2006. Prof Kaltham conducted several research related to social issues, culture and human development. She is an author of three specialized academic books and published several articles in internationally renowned peer-reviewed journals. Her interests cover a wide range of issues including woman studies, social problems, values and attitudes, family relations, marriage, gender roles, sustainable development, indigenous culture, and heritage. She led several interdisciplinary research projects funded by various national and international institutions. Prof. Kaltham has working relationships with many national, regional and international institutions as an expert in socio-cultural studies and human development. She contributed to the preparation of many national strategies and plans. She led the Ministry of Culture Strategy Development Plan Team 2011-2013, the Women Strategy Team 2002, the Youth Strategy Team 2002, the Supreme Council of Family Affairs Strategic Plan 199