Land is provided free by the government - except to foreigners who are not entitled to become landowners. In comparison, only 150,000 housing units were self-financed, and government funding for state employees and social housing account for fewer than 250,000 units. The net result is that almost two-thirds of Saudis own their own properties. Saudi Arabia's oil reserves may have eased the problems of urbanisation, but they have not made it easier to deal with the problem of immigration. The oil boom changed the situation by creating a large demand for manual labour, which was filled initially by Pakistanis, and then by Indians and non-Muslim South Koreans.
Asian workers are now in the majority, and they have been particularly badly treated and exploited.
They are at the bottom of a pyramid of racial hierarchy, at the top of which sit the Saudis, and under them the Europeans. However, this has not prevented periodic rebellions - as was the case with Turkish and Pakistani workers in 1976, and the Koreans in 1977, following the example of Indian and Pakistani workers in Bahrain in 1974, in Dubai in 1977 and Oman in 1978. The presence of half a million foreign soldiers during the Gulf war in 1991 did nothing to lessen the country's tendency to xenophobia. This isolationism makes its presence felt in the country's immigration policies. Foreigners are kept at arm's length.