AI:

Qatar has one of the most male-skewed populations in the world — roughly 3 men for every woman (around 75% male). The explanation is almost entirely labor migration, not natural demographics:

The core driver: migrant guest workers
Qatar's citizen population is small (~300,000, roughly 10-12% of the total). The vast majority of residents are foreign nationals.The country's construction, oil/gas, and services economy runs on imported labor, drawn heavily from South Asia (India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan) and the Philippines.These workers are overwhelmingly young men who migrate alone, without spouses or families, because they come for temporary contract work and send remittances home.

Why the workers are male
The largest sector historically has been construction — accelerated massively by infrastructure and stadium building for the 2022 FIFA World Cup — which recruits almost entirely men.Domestic and care work brings in women, but in far smaller numbers, so it doesn't offset the construction/labor imbalance.

Policy and structural reasons families don't come
The kafala (sponsorship) system ties workers to employers on temporary visas; low-wage workers generally cannot bring dependents.Income thresholds for family sponsorship exclude most laborers, and employer-provided housing is typically male labor camps.

Result
Among Qatari citizens, the sex ratio is roughly balanced (natural).The extreme national skew is a statistical artifact of a huge, transient, male foreign workforce layered on top of a small local population.

The same pattern — to varying degrees — explains skewed ratios across the Gulf states (UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia), with Qatar and the UAE the most extreme.