This text is part of the special Feminine Leadership notebook
Non-recognition of foreign diplomas, discrimination based on sex, professional deskilling… The journey of immigrant women is strewn with pitfalls in Quebec. And all these obstacles constitute a significant obstacle to their socio-economic integration, notes the organization Action travail des femmes (ATF), which is actively looking for solutions to counter these chain reactions.
Only 5% of immigrant women understand neither English nor French in Canada. In Quebec, they are proportionally more qualified than non-immigrants. And, yet, they earn much less than the rest of the Quebec population — on average $31,160 for women who arrived in the country between 2015 and 2019, compared to $58,000 for men born in Canada. Here are some examples of data collected during the latest Statistics Canada census.
The organization Action travail des femmes is carrying out a major research project entitled To counter the systemic effects of the non-recognition of foreign diplomas on immigrant women for more than two years. And the findings are striking. “There is a problem of intersecting discrimination for immigrant women,” explains ATF general director Katia Atif. This comes from inequalities in employment between men and women in the host society and, at the same time, from the phenomena of deskilling and non-recognition of diplomas. »
The study launched in October 2021 focused a lot on economic recovery measures linked to labor scarcity, launched in particular during the pandemic. These measures modeled on the needs linked to the labor shortage (such as the accelerated training program to recruit beneficiary attendants, a predominantly female sector) tend to deskill immigrant workers, notes Mme Atif.
“Immigrants, in the context of government programs and measures, were somewhat exploited or used for labor needs, regardless of their skills and qualifications. So, we take a heterogeneous mass of immigrants with different training, different backgrounds and also an entire work history to integrate them into very specific boxes. »
And in addition to the phenomenon of deskilling, this type of shortened training leads to increased precariousness, denounces ATF, since we create a workforce less qualified than the average, who will probably be the first to find themselves unemployed in the event of slowdown of the economy.
Obviously, this phenomenon creates economic precariousness for immigrant women, but also causes a significant feeling of failure among these new arrivals. “What we often forget is that the choice of immigration, for women, is generally one of emancipation, in a country where gender equality is more important,” recalls Katia Atif. Often, they have made enormous sacrifices in their country of origin to pursue higher education… And the feeling of failure is therefore even greater in their migratory journey, when this investment leads nowhere. These are testimonies that we hear constantly. »
What shall we do now ?
The vast ATF study includes an imposing set of recommendations to try to counter all these imposing obstacles. Among these, the organization recommends that universities establish an action plan in terms of adult education and continuing training that would be standardized, because currently, “they have complete freedom of action and without control in relation to the recognition of diplomas”, deplores Mme Atif.
ATF also urges the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration to integrate gender-specific measures to support new arrivals in the recognition of their acquired skills, since women have a higher barrier of discrimination than men. , Unfortunately.
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