Beyond “Entry-level” Jobs: Immigrant Women and Non-regulated Professional Occupations

Abstract

This article examines issues of foreign credential recognition from the standpoint of immigrant women with post-secondary degrees and employment backgrounds in non-regulated managerial and business professional occupations. Drawing on interviews with recent immigrant women and service providers in Calgary, Alberta, the article describes the women's experience of looking for work, locating it in the context of the wider organization of settlement services and the labour market. The discussion focuses on the women's participation in bridging programs designed to connect skilled immigrants with mainstream employers and help them obtain "entry-level" jobs in their fields.Résumé Cet article examine la question de la reconnaissance des acquis et des compétences du point de vue des femmes immigrantes qui possèdent un diplôme universitaire et une expérience professionelle dans des emplois administratifs et managériaux non régulés. S'appuyant sur des entretiens effectués à Calgary auprès d'immigrantes récentes et de pourvoyeurs de services, l'article décrit l'expérience de ces femmes en matière de recherche d'emploi en la replaçant dans le contexte plus large de l'organisation des services d'éstablissement et du marché du travail. La discussion met l'accent sur la participation de ces femmes dans les programmes de transition conçus pour mettre en contact les immigrants qualifiés avec des employeurs potentiels et pour les aider à trouver un emploi de débutante dans leur domaine.

Pathways between under/unemployment and health among racialized immigrant women in Toronto

“…Importantly, it considered activities outside of paid labour not as separate from it but as directly influenced by it. A handful of studies have documented racialized immigrant women's multiple and often concurrent strategies in response to underemployment and precariousness, both in the labour market (Ng et al 2006;Cardu 2007;McCoy and Masuch 2007) and in the household (Creese, Dyck, and McLaren 2008). Our study adds to this literature by documenting how under/unemployment, experienced at the individual and household levels, resulted in the intensification of job search activities and of the household/caregiving work, which carried their own risks for health.…”

Highly Skilled Immigrant Women’s Labor Market Access

“…Although Tamil women who emigrated as "H1-B wives" were unauthorized to work in the United States upon arrival, several did unpaid skilled work through internships and volunteering aligned with their transported skills. Prema, a physician who had just completed her medical training in India before emigrating as a new wife, explains, Although traditionally conceptualized as an exploitative pathway that deskills immigrants and permanently confines them to this work, corroborating recent evidence to the contrary (see George and Chaze 2009;McCoy and Masuch 2007), we find that low-wage/unpaid work enabled some Tamil women to acquire specific technical and cultural skills to operate in the American workplace, gain substantial work experience that for some became their "credentials," and develop professional networks with Americans, critical to facilitating their transition to skilled work. Shymala, a 39-year-old CPA, began working for a grocery store chain: [After] These advantages, however, do not preclude their vulnerability to exploitation in these jobs as the case of Revathy, a management professional with a business degree from a prestigious Indian university and a few years of work experience in India:…”

“…Tamil women acquire this through education-labor market bridges-"training and employment/license preparation programs designed to bridge educational and work experience gaps" (George et al 2011:9)-that are a feature of American universities (Banerjee and Verma 2011). These programs allow immigrants to respond effectively to employers' emphasis on "relevant experience and on-the-job demonstration of skills and competence" to prove that they can be "immediately productive" (George et al 2011:4;McCoy and Masuch 2007). Lalitha, an IT professional, is a case in point: Tamil women thus availed themselves of internships, work-study and cooperative programs between universities and businesses, giving them entrée to American workplaces either during or after their education.…”

Making critical sense of discriminatory practices in the Canadian workplace

“…Research shows that highly skilled, highly educated visible minority (Abella, 1984) immigrants face difficulties when they seek to re-enter their professions in a new country (McCoy and Masuch, 2007). They often experience a drop in status (e.g.…”