‘Survival Employment’: Gender and Deskilling among African Immigrants in Canada

Recent research points to a growing gap between immigrant and native-born outcomes in the Canadian labour market at the same time as selection processes emphasize recruiting highly educated newcomers. Drawing on interviews with well-educated men and women who migrated from countries in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper explores the gendered processes that produce weak economic integration in Canada. Three-quarters of research participants experienced downward occupational mobility, with the majority employed in low-skilled, low-wage, insecure forms of ‘‘survival employment’’. In a gendered labour market, where common demands for ‘‘Canadian experience’’, ‘‘Canadian credentials’’ and ‘‘Canadian accents’’ were uneven across different sectors of the labour market, women faced particular difficulties finding ‘‘survival employment’’; in the long run, however, women’s greater investment in additional post-secondary education within Canada placed them in a somewhat better position than men. The policy implications of this study are fourfold: first, we raise questions about the efficacy of Canadian immigration policies that prioritize the recruitment of well-educated immigrants without addressing the multiple barriers that result in deskilling ; second, we question government policies and settlement practices that undermine more equitable economic integration of immigrants; third, we address the importance of tackling the ‘‘everyday racism’’ that immigrants experience in the Canadian labour market; and finally, we suggest the need to re-think narrowly defined notions of economic integration in light of the gendered nature of contemporary labour markets, and immigrants’ own definitions of what constitutes meaningful integration.