Side Hustles via Social Media (Oman, Kuwait and the Gulf)

Side hustles via social media 🇴🇲
Location: Oman, Kuwait and the Gulf
Definition: Small-scale, home-based commercial activities conducted through digital platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp, where individuals market products or services directly to customers without formal business registration, operating in a grey zone between institutional legality and social legitimacy.
Keywords: Digital informality – Platform economy – Gulf entrepreneurship
Clusters: Welfare and livelihood strategies – Digital economy and platform governance – Gulf state informality
Author: Umama Al-Hadabi
Affiliation: School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

By Umama Al-Hadabi, Alumna of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

The term side hustle originates from American English slang, where "hustle" denotes energetic, resourceful work outside one's primary employment. In Oman's urban economy, side hustles refer to micro-enterprises run through social media, including Instagram and WhatsApp, typically from home, without formal registration. Sellers advertise products such as food, fashion and beauty services, collect orders through direct messages and receive payment via mobile bank transfers. These ventures are not fully legal in the sense that they bypass licensing and taxation requirements, yet they enjoy broad social acceptance.

Webb et al. define the informal economy as illegal yet legitimate activity and locate it in the gap between formal legal rules and social norms (Webb et al. 2009). This distinction between legality, set by institutions, and legitimacy, set by social consensus, captures the position of Omani side hustles precisely. Ledeneva describes informality as socially embedded ways of achieving results that rely on unwritten rules and practical knowledge, existing not outside formal systems but at their blurred boundaries (Ledeneva 2018). Digital side hustles in Oman exemplify this: they operate publicly on commercial platforms while remaining invisible to regulatory frameworks.

The practice sits within a broader regional pattern. The International Labour Organization estimates that 68.6% of employment and 90.8% of entrepreneurs in the Arab region operate informally, concentrated in low-capital service industries with limited access to financial services (ILO 2018). Oman's Vision 2040 economic plan promotes entrepreneurship as a diversification strategy, and entrepreneurial aspirations are high: 75.8% of Omanis report strong opportunity perceptions and 44.3% intend to start a business (Al Shukaili et al. 2023). Yet the same report records a fear-of-failure rate of 34.6%, moderate institutional support and early-stage activity clustered in consumer-oriented, low-capital sectors (Al Shukaili et al. 2023). Social media-based side hustles offer a low-risk pathway: entrepreneurs test products, gauge demand and build customer bases without committing to licensing fees or long-term regulatory obligations. The digital format makes market entry reversible, turning informality into a form of risk management.

Social media platforms function as informal commercial infrastructure. Research in Kuwait found that Instagram serves as the primary tool for launching and promoting informal home-based businesses in food, fashion and beauty, sectors requiring little fixed capital and well-suited to visual promotion (Malik and Mantas 2021). Participants described the platform as a "free shop," allowing them to display products and interact with customers without the costs of physical storefronts or commercial registration (Malik and Mantas 2021). Trust in platform-based commerce develops bottom up: through follower counts, repost networks and customer reviews rather than formal certifications (Pavlou and Gefen 2004; Tadelis 2016). These digital metrics create informal regulatory capital that substitutes for state-issued credentials. Platforms do not merely host trade; they regulate it. Algorithms determine content visibility based on engagement rankings (Gillespie 2014; van Dijck et al. 2018). Success depends not only on product quality but on navigating opaque governance decisions made by private companies about visibility structures, permitted behaviours and allowed products. The platform thus acts as a private regulatory body operating alongside the state.

Gender dynamics are central to the growth of side hustles on social media in Oman. Female unemployment exceeds 11%, while male unemployment remains below 2% (World Bank 2024). Unpaid domestic and care work falls disproportionately on women, limiting their availability for formal employment with fixed schedules (ILO 2018). Gendered socio-cultural barriers and weak institutional support further constrain women's entrepreneurial development (Ghouse et al. 2017). Home-based digital entrepreneurship offers temporal flexibility and social legitimacy: women manage businesses within the household without requiring external childcare or mobility. Formal registration, by contrast, demands administrative tasks, licences and bureaucratic engagement that require both time and institutional access. Digital side hustles thus represent both economic necessity and adaptive strategy within existing constraints. The flexibility that makes them accessible, including home-based work and social legitimacy, also limits access to formal financing, legal protection and long-term scalability (Williams and Schneider 2016; La Porta and Shleifer 2014).

The persistence of side hustles on social media despite their public visibility raises an institutional question about the relationship between citizens, platforms and the state. The Omani government retains formal authority to regulate digital businesses through licensing, taxation and registration requirements. The rapid expansion of micro-level transactions conducted via private messaging and mobile transfers makes comprehensive enforcement impractical and costly. This creates selective enforcement: regulation exists formally but applies inconsistently, reinforcing the grey zones where formal rules coexist with socially tolerated economic activity (Ledeneva 2018). Authority rests on multiple systems: the state defines legality; platforms define visibility; social networks define legitimacy. When citizens decide whether to formalise, they navigate these overlapping systems of governance. The proliferation of digital side hustles reflects a transformation in economic governance, with implications for government revenue through lost taxation, consumer protection and competitive fairness between registered and unregistered businesses (Ulyssea 2020; Williams and Bezeredi 2018).

The practice emerged in the 2010s with the spread of smartphone-based social media in the Gulf and intensified after 2020, as pandemic-era restrictions pushed more commercial activity online. It continues to grow as Oman's digital infrastructure expands. Comparable practices exist across the Gulf: Kuwait's unregulated home-based Instagram businesses (Malik and Mantas 2021) share structural similarities, and informal platform commerce operates throughout the Arab region. The Omani variant is shaped by the specific intersection of Vision 2040 diversification policy, gendered labour market gaps and a regulatory environment that has not adapted to micro-scale digital trade. Understanding these side hustles as digitally mediated informality, simultaneously expanding economic participation and reproducing institutional vulnerability, is necessary to evaluate the future of entrepreneurship and governance in Oman's evolving digital economy.