Economic Integration of Recent Chinese Immigrants in Canada’s Second-Tier Cities: The Triple Glass Effect and Immigrants’ Downward Social Mobility

Abstract

Un examen de l’intégration économique des immigrés chinois à Calgary et à Edmonton révèle dans cette étude que ceux qui sont arrivés récemment se heurtent à des obstacles sur plusieurs fronts, en particulier en ce qui concerne la langue et l’emploi. De plus, suite à leur immigration au Canada, ils ont vécu une déqualification et une dévaluation de leur éducation et de leur expérience professionnelle passées. En conséquence, beaucoup d’entre eux ont subi le chômage et le sous-emploi, des mécomptes sur le plan financier et une mobilité sociale vers le bas qui ont nui à leur processus d’intégration. On peut attribuer l’expérience négative des immigrés à l’effet d’une triple barrière invisible , à savoir une entrée , une porte et un plafond de verre . Alors que la première refuse aux immigrés l’accession à des communautés professionnelles tenues comme des chasses gardées, la deuxième bloque l’accès à une situation dans des firmes à hauts revenus. Mais c’est le troisième qui empêche les immigrés d’atteindre des postes de cadres, du fait de leurs différences ethniques et culturelles. Cette étude est un appel pour l’adoption d’un cadre de travail inclusif qui montre la voie vers une justice recognitive faisant la part entre liberté de mobilité et appartenance pleine et entière au Canada.

Immigrants as active citizens: exploring the volunteering experience of Chinese immigrants in Vancouver

“…They experience downward social mobility when they are unable to find professional jobs equivalent to those they worked in their home countries. Guo (2013) uses the triple glass effect to illustrate the multiple layers of barriers facing immigrants in Canada, including a glass gate, glass door and glass ceiling. The first layer, the glass gate, denies immigrants' entrance to guarded professional communities, because their knowledge and experiences are deemed different, deficient, and hence need to be devalued.…”

‘Race’ and HIV vulnerability in a transnational context: the case of Chinese immigrants to Canada

“…Against the background of a 'rising China' , with rapid advances in information and communication technology, and with their own settlement difficulties in the 'new' country, this generation of Chinese immigrants have maintained unprecedentedly close connections with their homeland through, for example, daily electronic communication, travel (including 'return migration'), business, the 'transnational' or geographically separated family and development of a transnational identity (e.g. Guo 2013Guo , 2016Lin and Tao 2012) sustained through cross-border connections and simultaneous engagement with both Canada and China (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004;Tsuda 2012).…”

The making of the ‘precarious’: examining Indian immigrant IT workers in Canada and their transnational networks with body shops in India

“…Despite being highly educated with experience in the IT sector, my respondents faced what can be described after Guo (2013) as the 'triple glass effect' (glass gate, glass door and glass ceiling) while trying to translate their skills into appropriate opportunities in Canada. In what became an exhausting and alienating experience, for months and years, they kept applying for jobs and getting rejected.…”

“…Many others were unemployed even after undergoing retraining in Canada. To sum, the Indian workers encountered the 'glass gate' that denied them an entry into professional communities along with the 'glass door' that blocked their job opportunities by devaluing their credentials (Guo 2013). Such demands for Canadian experience or credentials also become coded euphemisms for hiding the more overt references to race or gender.…”