沙特阿拉伯是世界石油生产大国。50年代以后,石油开采逐渐使传统的社会经济结构发生演变:游牧经济走向衰落,部落社会趋于瓦解,起而代之的是石油等新兴工业部门和现代城市生活方式。沙特社会经济结构的演变具有普遍性和特殊性,值得探讨,特别是其演变的模式和演变的特征,对第三世界国家社会经济的转变都具有一定的理论和实践方面的意义。 Saudi Arabia is a big oil producer in the world. After the 1950s, oil exploitation gradually transformed the traditional social and economic structure: the nomadic economy declined, the tribal society tended to collapse, and replaced by the emerging industrial sectors such as oil and modern urban lifestyles. The evolution of the social and economic structure in Saudi Arabia is universal and particular. It is worth discussing, especially its mode of evolution and characteristics of evolution, and has certain theoretical and practical significance to the social and economic transformation of the third world countries.