Emerging Dependencies: GCC States and Sub‐Saharan African Healthcare Labor Migration Through World Systems Theory

ABSTRACT The global migration of healthcare workers has traditionally been understood through a North–South paradigm. However, recent years have witnessed the emergence of wealthy Middle Eastern nations as significant players in medical‐worker recruitment from Sub‐Saharan Africa. This paper employs World Systems Theory to analyze how this evolution creates new core–periphery relationships in global healthcare labor markets. Drawing on evidence of large‐scale recruitment drives, bilateral agreements, and migration patterns, we examine how the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states economic power and healthcare‐system development are reshaping migration dynamics. Our analysis reveals distinct features of these relationships: formalized government‐to‐government agreements, competitive compensation packages, and cultural alignments influencing migration decisions. The rise of GCC states creates compound workforce‐extraction pressures on African countries, which now face simultaneous outflow to both Gulf states and Global‐North destinations. This study extends Wallerstein's framework by formalizing GCC states as “hybrid cores”, resource‐rich yet industrially dependent actors that straddle core and semi‐peripheral positions in the world economy. As this pattern appears sustainable through the 2030s, we propose policy frameworks emphasizing skills transfer, regional workforce planning, and monitoring systems to safeguard source‐country health systems.