Rishta in Abu Dhabi

How to read an Abu Dhabi profile properly

Three different Abu Dhabis, and which one she is moving to

More misunderstanding is caused by this than by anything else on a profile from this city, because the address tells a family in Pakistan almost nothing.

An apartment on the island — Khalidiya, Al Nahyan, the Corniche, Al Reem — is the picture most families have in mind, and it is the most expensive housing in the country outside central Dubai. Families live there when the employer pays the rent or when two professional incomes are coming in. Off-island — Mohammed Bin Zayed City, Khalifa City, Shakhbout City, Mussafah Shabiya — is where most Pakistani family life actually happens: whole villas, villa floors, and flats, with space, other Pakistani families on the same street, and a drive into the city for work. And Mussafah itself is industrial: workshops, yards, labour and shared accommodation, where a great many men live while their families remain in Pakistan.

So establish the arrangement rather than the area. Is the home a whole flat or villa, a floor of one, or a shared arrangement with other families or with colleagues. Is the rent paid by him or by the employer, and is it an allowance paid once a year, as it commonly is here, or paid monthly. Abu Dhabi enforces the separation between family buildings and bachelor accommodation fairly strictly, so a man currently in sharing accommodation will have to move before a wife can join him — ask what that will cost and whether he has budgeted for it rather than assuming it is handled.

And ask for a photograph of the actual building, and the name of the area in the words the neighbours use. A family that pictures a villa in Khalifa City and arrives at a room in Shabiya has been misled even if nobody told a lie.

The ninety-minute marriage, and the licence that stops at the border

Abu Dhabi and Dubai are an hour and a half apart and are two different job markets, two different regulators and, for a great many couples here, two different daily lives. This is one of the most common shapes a UAE marriage takes and almost nobody discusses it before the nikah.

The pattern is familiar: he works in Abu Dhabi, she gets an offer in Dubai, or the reverse. Some couples take the drive — three hours a day, every day, and it wears people down. Some live in between, around Ghantoot or Khalifa Industrial Zone, and both commute. Some live apart during the week and together at weekends, which is more common here than families back home realise and which nobody should walk into unknowingly. Settle it as a question before the wedding: if one of you gets a better job in the other emirate, what happens.

The part that catches professional women in particular is that a licence does not travel. Each emirate regulates its own professions. A healthcare practitioner licensed by the Abu Dhabi health authority is not thereby licensed to work in Dubai, which has its own; the northern emirates run through the federal ministry. Moving means applying again, with the verification of the Pakistani degree and experience, the examination where one is required, and the waiting. Teaching, engineering and several other regulated fields work on similar emirate-level lines. The rules and the transfer processes change, so check with the regulator for the emirate she will actually work in rather than relying on what a friend did two years ago.

So for a bride who is a doctor, nurse, pharmacist, teacher or engineer, the order of operations matters: find out which emirate she will be living in, confirm which regulator that puts her under, start the verification and licensing before the nikah rather than after, and get the names on her degree, her passport and her marriage certificate matching exactly. And ask him plainly, in front of both families, whether he supports her working. Our United Arab Emirates page sets out the sponsorship and work-permit position for the country as a whole.

Every contract here has an end date written into it

This is the fact that families from Pakistan most often get wrong about the UAE, because it does not work the way employment works at home.

Since the labour law was reformed, private-sector employment in this country runs on fixed-term contracts. They are renewed routinely and most people stay for years, so in practice it is not as alarming as it sounds — but there is no such thing as a permanent job here, the notice period is short, and the residence visa that the whole family lives on is attached to that employment. When the job ends there is a grace period to find another or to leave, and it is not long. Government and semi-government employment sits on a steadier footing, which is one reason it is prized in this city.

What replaces a pension is the end of service gratuity, calculated from basic salary and years of service and paid as a lump sum when the job ends. It is a real benefit and it is not a retirement. Note the words basic salary: a package that is heavily weighted towards allowances produces a much smaller gratuity than the headline figure suggests, and most packages here are weighted exactly that way. A voluntary savings scheme now exists as an alternative in some employments, so it is worth asking whether he is in one.

The questions, then. Is the contract with a government or semi-government body, a large private employer, or a contractor. When does the current term end and how many times has it been renewed. What is the notice period. What is the basic salary as distinct from the total. Has he been through a job ending here before, and what happened to the family. And the one that matters most: what is being built in Pakistan — a house, a plot, a business, savings — because the gratuity will not keep a family for long, and everyone in this country leaves eventually.

The allowances are the salary, so ask for the breakdown

A Gulf package is not a wage. It is a basic salary plus a set of allowances, and two men quoting the same monthly figure can be in completely different positions. A family that hears a number and converts it into rupees has learned almost nothing.

Ask for the parts. Basic salary, because the gratuity and often the loan eligibility are calculated from it. Housing allowance, and whether it is paid monthly or once a year — the annual version has to cover a rent that is itself commonly paid in one or two cheques, and a household that spends it is in trouble in month ten. Transport, and whether a car is provided. Schooling allowance, and how many children it covers and to what level, because private school fees are the largest discretionary cost most families here carry. Annual tickets home, and crucially whether they are for him only or for the whole family. And any bonus, which should be treated as weather rather than income.

Then the one a bride’s family should never skip. Health insurance is compulsory for employees here and the employer provides it, but the plans run from basic to comprehensive and the differences are enormous. Ask specifically: does the policy cover a wife and children or only the employee; what is the maternity benefit; is there a waiting period before maternity is covered, as there very often is; which hospitals are in the network; and what the deductible or co-payment looks like. A young couple planning a family can face a large bill in the first year simply because nobody read the policy. Get the insurance card and the schedule of benefits, not a verbal summary.

Al Ain, Dubai, the Gulf, and the embassy on your doorstep

Search the whole emirate first. Al Ain is an hour and a half inland on the Omani border, part of the same emirate, greener and cooler and noticeably quieter, with a long-settled Pakistani community around the university, the hospitals and the schools; an Abu Dhabi–Al Ain match is a drive, not a move. Then Dubai at an hour and a half, Sharjah and Ajman a little beyond it, and Ras Al Khaimah in the north. The whole country is one set of visa rules, so open every emirate in the search from the first day.

Then the Gulf. Doha and Manama are about an hour by air, Dammam around an hour and a half, Riyadh under two and Jeddah about three. Those households live the way this one does — a residence permit, a sponsor, allowances, school fees and a ticket home once a year — so two Gulf families understand each other immediately in a way that a Gulf family and a British one do not.

One real advantage of this city over Dubai: the Pakistani embassy is here, with the consulate up in Dubai. Passports, NICOP, birth registration for a child, attestation and the documents a marriage generates are all on your doorstep rather than a drive away, which matters more than people expect over a lifetime of paperwork.

And home is close. Abu Dhabi flies direct to Karachi in a little over two hours and to Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and several smaller cities in around three, with Dubai an hour and a half away offering almost everything else. The UAE runs one hour behind Pakistan with no clock change on either side, so the evening call lands at a civil hour in both houses. Set your own city to Abu Dhabi and the partner preference country to Pakistan, settle the housing and contract questions above first, and arrange to meet in person early — from here, that is a weekend.