spurred ‘many’ camp residents to seek work in the Gulf, often returning with accrued savings that enabled them to purchase property and land215. However, recent attempts to renationalise the workforce in Gulf countries and reduced demand for foreign labour, in addition to the expulsion of foreign workers — including several hundred thousand Jordanian-Palestinian ‘returnees’ (Brand, 1995, p. 56; De Bel-Air, 2012, p. 6) — from Kuwait following the first Gulf War have severely restricted the possibility of labour migration since the 1990s. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that our survey data suggests that relatively few families in Jerash currently have members working in the Gulf or receive monetary support from relatives abroad. One man reflected upon this change: ‘it’s [now] rare for people to go to the Gulf […]’. Elaborating further, he added: In our camp, it has become rare to find families who moved to the Gulf. In the past, in the 80s and the early 90s, there used to be a lot. That was before the Gulf war. You would come to the camp in summer, and find a car in front of every house, belonging to people who have family in the Gulf 216. Whereas a bachelor’s degree used to suffice, we were told that ex-Gazans now only ‘work in the Gulf as engineers or doctors. They accept people with masters or PhDs, but they [the Gulf countries] have enough people with bachelors’ degrees’ 217. Not only is the requirement to hold a master’s degree or a practicing licence (which ex-Gazans face difficulties obtaining as non-Jordanians) 218 and three years’ work experience, but recruitment agency fees of 1,000 JD for the permit application process pose an additional hurdle. As one interviewee observed: [Going to the Gulf to work] is very costly, and the result is not guaranteed. You can get into 1,000-2,000 JD of debt, and you go and don’t find a job. Then you come back in debt. Many of my friends faced this problem. However, some people manage to find jobs, but not many. There’s only a 30% success rate in this process 219. Consequently, some interviewees claimed that the aspiration to travel to the Gulf for work has been tempered. One young man, for example, noted that the aspiration ‘has reduced a lot. People who used to work in the Gulf are now opening workshops’ 220. Nevertheless, it seems that historically more Jerash camp residents were able to find this kind of work and, for many parents and youth, the ‘aspiration’ to migrate to the Gulf — and increasingly to Europe — has by and large stuck. In interviews, references were frequently made to siblings, cousins, neighbours, or a few ‘nursing graduates in the camp, who travelled to Dubai’221. Choosing the ‘wrong’ education: changing policies, lack of information, social status and the future He [my brother] studied accounting. Now he is not working in that field, because if he puts on a suit and works in accounting, he would get 150-200 JD. Now he works 215 Through interviews one gets the impressions that there were many ’returnees’ from the Gulf with money at the time; however, this has not translated into investment in housing and the general living standard inside Jerash camp. Rather, returnees from the Gulf were widely perceived to invest in property outside camp. 216 Female, age 39, Jerash camp, 19 January 2016. 217 Male, age 31, Jerash camp, 26 January 2016. 218 Male, age 42, Jerash camp, 15 February 2016. 219 Male, age 37, Jerash camp, 26 January 2016. 220 Male, age 31, Jerash town, 19 January 2016. 221 Female, age 39, Jerash camp, 19 January 2016. Fafo Report 2019:34 118