Canadian Labour Market Research Articles

Bundled otherwise: Skills, social mobility, and raciolinguistic ideologies in the Canadian labour market

Abstract Showcasing how understandings of social mobility encoded raciolinguistic ideologies of the ideal upwardly mobile speaker, I investigate blue- and white-collar orientation to language, race, and social mobility in the Canadian labor market. I analyze these two subject positionalities and the way bundles of skills are ‘bundled otherwise’ when ideologies of race and language are invoked as relevant to a class experience. While the acquisition of standard languages remains understood as a gateway to upward mobility, the increased commodification of language made the acquisition of standard registers of French and English a skill amongst others, on par with any other. If this shift challenges an implicit ‘linguistic’ bias embedded in emic and scientific understandings of class, raciolinguistic ideologies continue to organize worker's orientations to language and work, be it to imagine themselves as cosmopolitan workers or to defend the positions of ethnic, national, and racialized groups in the economy. (Social class, raciolinguistics, work, language ideologies, francophone Canada, bilingualism)*

Examining the boundary conditions of tokenism: within-occupation gender wage gaps and female representation in the Canadian labor market

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to examine the boundary conditions of Kanter's (1977) tokenism theory as applied to the gender wage gap. The authors aimed to discover if there was a point where the relationship between the percentage of women in a job category and the gender wage gap changed, and, if so, where the threshold was located and what was the nature of the shift in relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used the Andrews’ (1993) threshold effects technique. Using 22 separate years of publicly available Canadian wage data, they examined the relationship between the percentage of females in 40 unique occupational categories and the female-to-male earnings ratio (for a total of 880 observations).FindingsThe results showed the existence of a threshold point, and that early gains in percent female within an occupation, up to approximately 14% female in the occupation, associate with strong gains in the female-to-male wage ratio. However, beyond that point, further gains in percent female associate with smaller improvements in the female-to-male wage ratio.Practical implicationsThe findings are useful in understanding the dynamics of occupational group gender composition, potential theoretical reasons for the nuances in relationship, as well as opportunities that may facilitate more equitable outcomes.Originality/value The results show that, though improvements were made above and below the threshold point, enhancements in the wage gap are actually larger when there are less women in the job category (e.g. tokens).

Basic income and the labour market: Labour supply, precarious work and technological change

AbstractIn this paper, I examine the relationship between a basic income as a policy tool and the functioning of the labour market. I focus on three key areas where a basic income has been hypothesized to relate to labour markets: (i) through altering work decisions, (ii) as a response to predicted changes in work arising from technological change and (iii) as backstop that would allow workers to demand better working conditions and higher wages. I provide answers on the role or impact of a basic income in each area in the context of the current Canadian labour market. But a key focus in the paper is on the ways we could alter our labour market models to provide a better basis for debating the impacts of policies like a basic income in the context of a goal of moving toward a more just society.

The great Canadian recovery: The impact of COVID‐19 on Canada's labour market

AbstractThe Canadian labour market experienced a period of unprecedented turmoil following the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic. We analyze the main changes using standard labour force statistics and new data on job postings. Envisaging a phase of temporary severing of employment relationships followed by a phase of more standard labour market search and matching, we use stock and flow data to understand key developments. We find dramatic changes in employment, unemployment and labour market attachment in the first few months of the pandemic and a broad though gradual recovery through to the end of 2021.

The Work Trajectories of Married Canadian Immigrant Women, 2006–2019

The behaviour of married immigrant women regarding fertility and labour markets is an essential piece to understand the economic and cultural integration of immigrant households. However, the contribution of married immigrant women to the Canadian labour market was—until recently—considered of secondary importance and their labour market choices studied within an economic framework of temporary attachment to the labour force. Recent research, however, finds that a significant fraction of married immigrant women make labour supply decisions (and face barriers) similar to those of native-born married women. We show that this is the case in Canada as well, by estimating the progress of immigrant women over the 2000s. We use traditional measures of labour market outcomes, such as participation, employment and wages, but also novel estimates of labour market dynamics, such as transitions across labour market states to show the work trajectories of married Canadian immigrant women. Results show that immigrant women are less likely to transition into employment—more likely to transition out of employment to either unemployment or inactivity—and more likely to respond to income shocks than the Canadian born. There is evidence of a gradual convergence with years spent in Canada to the outcomes of the Canadian born, which is much slower for immigrant women than immigrant men.

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on life and learning experiences of indigenous and non-Indigenous university and college students in Ontario, Canada: a qualitative study

BackgroundThe years people spend attending university or college are often filled with transition and life change. Younger students often move into their adult identity by working through challenges and encountering new social experiences. These transitions and stresses have been impacted significantly by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to dramatic change in the post-secondary experience, particularly in the pandemic’s early months when colleges and universities were closed to in person teaching. The goal of this study was to identify how COVID-19 has specifically impacted the postsecondary student population in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.MethodsThe Cost of COVID is a mixed methods study exploring the social and emotional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on families, youth, and urban Indigenous People. The present analysis was completed using a subset of qualitative data including Spryng.io micronarrative stories from students in college and university, as well as in-depth interviews from service providers providing services to students. A double-coded phenomenological approach was used to collect and analyze data to explore and identify themes expressed by postsecondary students and service providers who worked with postsecondary students.ResultsTwenty-six micronarratives and seven in-depth interviews were identified that were specifically relevant to the post-secondary student experience. From this data, five prominent themes arose. Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of technology was important to the post secondary experience. The pandemic has substantial educational impact on students, in what they chose to learn, how it was taught, and experiences to which they were exposed. Health and wellbeing, physical, psychological and emotional, were impacted. Significant impacts were felt on family, community, and connectedness aspects. Finally, the pandemic had important financial impacts on students which affected their learning and their experience of the pandemic. Impacts did differ for Indigenous students, with many of the traditional cultural supports and benefits of spaces of higher education no longer being available.ConclusionOur study highlights important impacts of the pandemic on students of higher education that may have significant individual and societal implications going forward. Both postsecondary institutions and society at large need to attend to these impacts, in order to preserve the wellbeing of graduates, the Canadian labor market, and to ensure that the pandemic does not further exacerbate existing inequalities in post-secondary education in Canada.

Pre-Arrival Experience with Social Media, Settlement Service Usage and Post-Arrival Labour Market Outcomes

This paper identifies the short- and long-term labor market impact of negative experiences in using social media to gather information about the Canadian labor market at the pre-arrival stage. Negative social media experiences, mainly due to misinformation and a lack of digital skills, have a short-term negative effect on employment and earnings, but these effects dissipate in the long-term. Pre-arrival settlement services can help to minimize the negative effects of these social media experiences on newcomers’ post-arrival labor market outcomes, but settlement services can pressure newcomers into precarious work.

BANGLADESHI IMMIGRANTS’ EXPERIENCE AND PERCEPTIONS ABOUT THEIR OCCUPATIONS IN CANADA

This study examines Bangladeshi immigrants’ experience and perceptions about their occupations in Canada using both primary and secondary data. Primary data were collected using face-to-face in-depth interview and thematic concepts were used to analyze the data. In general, the study finds that majority skilled immigrants are more likely to be employed in non-professional jobs with lower occupational prestige. However, those who obtain their education both in Bangladesh and Canada have higher probability of getting professional jobs in the Canadian labour market as compared to those who obtain their education only in Bangladesh. In addition, Bangladeshi immigrants’ social network plays a pivotal role in getting jobs in the Canadian labour market. Policy implications for Bangladesh are discussed as well.

It’s Not As Easy as They Say: International Students’ Perspectives About Gaining Canadian Work Experience

This study provides insights into international students’ perspectives of preparing for entry into employment in the Canadian workforce. From a human capital perspective, international students are valuable resources for the Canadian labour market and other countries where populations are in decline. However, most research on international students has focused on their initial transition experience, and available research on their employment experiences is often limited to the post-graduation transition. International students need to build their capacity for employment concurrently while they are studying, gaining local work experience. In this article we present an analysis of critical incidents collected from international students which highlights five key barriers in their experience of the Canadian work context, including policies and procedures, competition and economic conditions, challenges for navigating local cultural norms, language abilities, and their personal life circumstances. The discussion draws connections between international student recruitment and their longer-term goals for residency in Canada, with recommendations for bridging policies and services.

Healthier Nail Salons: From Feminized to Collective Responsibilities of Care

The nail salon is a site in which multiple hazards intersect. This includes exposure to toxicants, poor ergonomics, verbal abuses, and labor exploitation—harms that disproportionately impact newcomer and immigrant women workers. One response to toxic exposures in the nail salon is the Healthy Nail Salon model—a voluntary and incentive-based initiative to encourage salon owners to implement safer practices and products. While initiated with good intentions, the Healthy Nail Salon model reflects the tenets of neoliberal responsibilization. Responsibilities for protection are transferred to consumers, particularly women per feminized responsibilities for care-work and social reproduction. In contrast, this article puts forth the perspectives of 37 nail technicians primarily from Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean communities in Toronto, Ontario. Participants were asked: “How do we create healthier workplaces?” In response, participants shared both individual-level and collective-level solutions—the latter of which have the potential to positively transform the sector. Collective-oriented protections in this context reflect three interconnected “sites of resistance”: Addressing systemic inequities in the Canadian labor market, promoting worker solidarities, and emphasizing the state's responsibilities in occupational health protection—all of which reflect a broadened politics of care. These broad-based and worker-defined interventions pose a challenge to neoliberal-oriented attacks on worker protection.

Road to nowhere or to somewhere? Migrant pathways in platform work in Canada

Canada boasts some of the most highly educated migrants in the world, but it is well recognised that these migrants face many labour market barriers to gainful employment despite their experience and qualification. Administrative data indicate that the proportion of gig workers is considerably higher among migrants, yet little is known about the various perceived and desired pathways of migrants who choose to pursue platform work. In this inductive, qualitative study, we interviewed 35 platform workers in Canada regarding why and how they turned to such forms of work and how it fits their overall plans for integrating into the Canadian labour market. Adopting a grounded theory approach, we found six pathways into platform work ranging from those who feel in control of the situation as a means to an end, to those who feel trapped in it, unable to find alternatives. We question how these pathways relate to macro factors (e.g. immigration status, professional status), meso factors (e.g. education and skills, networks) or micro factors (e.g. stage in life cycle, aspirations). In our analysis, we consider the critical insights offered by scholars on racial and platform capitalism in understanding the factors impacting migrants’ pathways into platform work in Canada. Our findings suggest that these structural inequalities are further perpetuated within platform work, even though in theory Canada's immigration system is merit-based with emphasis on high human capital. Migrants’ engagement in platform work is a piece of a larger puzzle of segmented labour markets.

Testing the Shielding Effect of Intergenerational Contact against Ageism in the Workplace: A Canadian Study.

Negative outcomes of ageism in the context of the Canadian labor market are well documented. Older workers remain the target of age-based stereotypes and attitudes on the part of employers. This study aims at assessing (1) the extent to which quality and quantity intergroup contacts between younger and older workers as well as knowledge-sharing practices reduce ageist attitudes, in turn (2) how a decrease in ageist attitudes increase the level of workers’ engagement and intentions to remain in the organization. Data were collected from 603 Canadian workers (aged 18 to 68 years old) from private and public organizations using an online survey measuring concepts under study. Results of a path analysis suggest that intergroup contacts and knowledge-sharing practices are associated with positive attitudes about older workers. More so, positive attitudes about older workers generate higher levels of work engagement, which in turn are associated with stronger intentions to remain with the organization. However, positive attitudes about older workers had no effect on intentions to remain in the workplace. Results are discussed in light of the intergroup contact theory.

Employment Income Gap in the Canadian Labour Market: Intersection of Gender, Religion and Visible Minority Status

Despite developments of equal legislation and institutional interventions, Muslims remain disadvantaged in employment outcomes in developed countries’ labour markets. Most studies report high unemployment and low participation rates of Muslims, particularly Muslim women in Western countries, due to their ethnic and religious backgrounds. However, their disadvantage in employment income is still underexplored. Based on intersectionality theory and using the 2011 Canadian National Household Survey (NHS), this study examines how gender, religious affiliation, and visible minority status are associated with employment income. Specifically, this paper tests the gender income gap among employees with different religious and visible minority background in the Canadian labour market. The findings reveal significant income inequalities across gender, religious affiliation, and visible minority status, even after controlling for a variety of individual characteristics and human capital. Overall, women, non-whites, and Muslims earn significantly less than men, whites, and Non-Muslim employees, respectively. Interaction analyses show that the employment gender income gap is lower among Muslim and non-white employees than non-Muslim and white groups.

The labor market in Canada, 2000–2021

The labor market in Canada, 2000–2021

A study on the discrepancies between immigrants working in the regular and the ethnic enclave sectors in the Canadian Labor market

ABSTRACT This paper studies performance differences between immigrants working in the regular Canadian labour market and those in the ethnic enclave sector of the economy. First, by studying the effects of education and race on the weekly wage earnings, I find that the returns to education are greater and being a visible minority carries less of a wage penalty for immigrants working in the regular sector compared with those in the enclave sector. Moreover, taking the AMEs (Average Marginal Effects) studies, I document different effects of education and race on both earnings and job segment for these two types of immigrants and propose an explanation. After this, I compute task supply and wage gaps between different types of immigrants in three census years to show differences in assimilation by immigration cohort. Finally, I use regression models to study immigrants’ task supply and weekly wages so that we can have a fuller view of the differences in performance between immigrants working in the regular and enclave sectors. I also use these models to analyse differences between immigrants and natives in Canada.

Work Experiences and Challenges to Employment Sustainability for People With Mental Illness in Supported Employment Programs

Supported employment (SE) is an evidence-based program that has shown much promise in helping people with severe mental illnesses (SMIs) to gain and sustain competitive employment. However, there are significant variations in employment outcomes across SE programs in Canada that can be partly explained by SE service users’ experiences in their work environment. The work environment can exert a considerable influence on the interest in and ability to sustain the employment of a person with an SMI. This study explores the work experiences of individuals with SMIs who are involved in an SE program and who understand the challenges of and barriers to sustaining such employment. Semistructured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 individuals with SMIs, and the data were analyzed using a constructivist grounded theory approach. Challenges to the employment sustainability of an individual with SMI were found to arise primarily from three intersecting contexts: the SE program, the work environment, and the larger Canadian labor market. The findings suggest that SE programs will better promote employment sustainability if they adhere closely to individual placement and support model of SE. SE service providers (employment specialists) must be equipped with a wide range of knowledge and skills to meet the needs of individuals with SMIs if sustainable employment is to be achieved. It is recommended that there must be investment in training for employment specialists to assist SE service users to achieve sustainable employment outcomes.

Over-qualification in the Workforce: Do Indigenous Women and Men Benefit Equally from High Levels of Education?

Using data from the 2016 Census, this study examined the level of education–job mismatch (over-qualification, in particular) in the Canadian labour market among Indigenous women workers aged 25 to 64 who received post-secondary education. Their rate of over-qualification was compared with that of Indigenous men as well as non-Indigenous workers. In doing so, this study aimed to shed some light on the effect of post-secondary education on labour market outcomes by investigating whether Indigenous men and women benefit equally from their post-secondary education. Compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts and Indigenous men, Indigenous women workers with university-level education (bachelor’s degree or higher) were less likely to be over-qualified. Conversely, Indigenous women workers with post-secondary education lower than university level were more likely than non-Indigenous women and Indigenous men to be over-qualified. This pattern persisted after sociodemographic factors were controlled for. The results suggest that, among those with a post-secondary education, higher levels of education were especially advantageous to Indigenous women.

Assessing the Psychosocial Work Environment in Relation to Mental Health: A Comprehensive Approach.

Prevailing job stress models encourage a multidimensional view of the psychosocial work environment and highlight the role that multiple co-occurring stressors play in the aetiology of mental health problems. In this study, we develop a latent typology of psychosocial work environment profiles to describe how a comprehensive array of job stressors are clustered in the Canadian labour market. We also examine the association between these latent psychosocial work environment profiles and several indicators of mental health. Data were collected from 6408 workers who completed the Canadian National Psychosocial Work Environment Survey. Psychosocial work exposures were measured using standard items from the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire. We employed latent profile analyses to identify groups of individuals with similar psychosocial work environment profiles. We used log-linear regression models to examine the association between latent psychosocial work environment profiles and burnout, stress, and cognitive strain. Four distinct groups with highly divergent psychosocial work environment profiles were identified. Adjusting for a range of demographic and socioeconomic factors, latent psychosocial work environment profiles were strongly related to mental health. Individuals who reported exposure to a comprehensive array of psychosocial job stressors (11% prevalence) reported the highest probability of burnout (PR: 7.51, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 5.56-10.15), stress (PR: 8.98, 95% CI: 6.20-13.0), and cognitive strain (PR: 7.29, 95% CI: 5.02-10.60). Findings suggest that psychosocial work stressors are tightly clustered in the Canadian labour market, and that the clustering of work stressors is strongly associated with adverse mental health outcomes. Future scholarship may benefit from adopting a more comprehensive approach to the assessment of psychosocial job quality as a determinant of health and well-being.

Understanding Syrian refugees’ experience in terms of settlement and participation in Canadian labour market: A mixed method approach

This paper explores Syrian refugees’ experience in terms of settlement and participation in Canadian labour market. It discusses the findings of research on labour market integration in Canada of racialized immigrants and refugees, as well as the state of economic insecurity among newcomers, to identify systemic patterns of discrimination and policy implications. A mixed method approach with in-depth interview and questionnaire surveys were used for an analysis. Long-term benefit, second-generation success, and reliance on government support were commonly observed. Language barrier, lack of host country’s experience, and lack of transportation were cited as common barriers to employment. This research confirms that there is no uniform process for refugees entering into a host country. Canadian government needs to create a structured program to be implemented in each province and deliver the same process for every refugee entering.

Immigrant–non‐immigrant wage differentials in Canada: A comparison between standard and non‐standard jobs

AbstractIt is well established that recent immigrants earn considerably less than their native‐born counterparts even after adjusting for differences in human capital. Another labour market trend has been the growth in non‐standard forms of employment. Since non‐standard forms of work are generally less desirable than standard jobs on a number of dimensions including earnings, this study examines the nexus between immigrant earnings and non‐standard employment to investigate if there is a systemic connection between the two trends. Consistent with earlier research evidence, we find a substantial earnings disadvantage associated with all forms of non‐standard work relative to full‐time, permanent employment. Conditioning on observable characteristics, immigrants are less likely to be employed in full‐time, permanent work. However, when we examine workers in non‐standard jobs, we find that immigrant–non‐immigrant earnings gaps are smaller than those observed among workers in standard jobs. Moreover, the unadjusted mean earnings of long‐term immigrants in part‐time jobs are actually higher than the earnings of similarly employed Canadian‐born workers. Finally, considering immigrants from Western and non‐Western countries, we find that the earnings disadvantage of non‐Western immigrants in non‐standard jobs is smaller than the earnings disadvantage of non‐Western immigrants in standard jobs. These findings suggest that non‐standard jobs provide a point of entry for many new immigrants into the Canadian labour market. But whether these jobs are a bridge to upward mobility or whether they act as traps from which immigrants are unable to escape is a question that needs to be answered with better longitudinal data that track specific cohorts of workers.