[bobthepanda]

I would imagine at least part of it is the fact that Russia is a resource exporting economy and thus suffers from "Dutch disease" where the consistent sale of commodities like oil pushes up the currency and makes other types of exports less compatible. If natural resources are super-profitable then they potentially become a crutch for the economy; and if other sectors are less competitive and profitable then there is not much reason to invest there.

Coupled with the fact that these types of sectors don't actually employ very many people as a percentage of the population, it makes sense that it would have bad effects on the rest of the population.

[abdullahkhalids]

All the Middle Eastern oil rich countries seem to be actively avoiding this problem. All are heavily investing in all sorts of different initiatives to diversify their incomes beyond fossil fuels (whether they succeed or not is irrelevant). So, it is not given that a country will suffer from this problem. There has to be a better explanation.

[bobthepanda]

The Gulf countries at the very least employ millions of migrant workers who are generally not entitled to the same level of health and education services and, I would imagine, not counted in these statistics.

Plus if you look at the chart for patents per million tertiary students, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, are also all in the bottom third so it's not like they're that far ahead.

[sam_lowry_]

Russia also employed millions of migrant workers from Central Asia until 2022. Then, risks for them increased, economies in their home countries improved an important outflow if migrants started and continues until now.

[bobthepanda]

The scale is quite different though; only 10% of people in UAE are citizens, Qatar is at 11%.