Challenges Faced by Immigrant Women in Canada - Research Proposal Example

Challenges Hindering Immigrant Women from Finding Employment in Ontario/Canada of This paper is a research proposal about the challenges that women migrants face in their quest to find jobs in Canada with the focus on Ontario. It proposes the objectives of studying the general limitations of such women, the specific employment laws that support these inhibitors and the actual problems these women face on the ground in their bid to develop their skills to remain competitive on the Canadian job market. The final objective of the research seeks to enquire into the difficulties these women face in combining their domestic and social lives with the need to find jobs. The proposed research is a descriptive research and it aims at finding the major trends in the lives of these migrant women and identify the status quo from a myriad of research systems and methodologies. Background “Canada has been a popular destination for immigrants due to the progressive social and legal systems that it has upheld for decades...” (Draper et al, 1998 p56). For over 200 years, Canada has been reputed as the portion of British soil in North America that has upheld very positive legal systems that uphold integration, equality and the respect of human rights. Due to this, many African-Americans who were fleeing from slavery in the United States of America moved to Canada in the mid-1800s, long before the American Civil War began (Draper et al, 1998 p54). Over the past century, the legal structures and international migratory trends have changed significantly. Although immigration to Canada started actively after the 1700s, a major boom of immigrants from different parts of Europe, the British Commonwealth and Asia started between 1940 and 1975 (Cameron, 2004 p65). After 1975, the immigration rules in Canada were tightened and it affected aimed at promoting selective immigration of people who could show evidence of contributing positively to the Canadian economy and also integrate gradually into the Canadian society (Grubel, 2009 p45). Currently, a lot of women have come into the country as migrants. These migrants come with various challenges and difficulties that make it quite difficult for them to find employment positions in relation to their Canadian-born counterparts. So it pays to learn about how things happen for these women in their bid to integrate into the Canadian society by taking up employment opportunity. There are some legitimate questions that can be asked in order to get an idea of how these women fare in their job hunts and how they try to find new employment opportunities and take them up. Some of the questions might be what are the problems, challenges and inhibitors that women of immigrant backgrounds face in Ontario and in the rest of Canada? In trying to understand and get a picture of the situation, there are some key factors that need to be queried for results. For instance, what are the main social and cultural barriers that stand in the way of this class of people on Canadian soil when they go out to find work? What are the legal restrictions that makes it difficult for such persons to find ideal and fitting jobs? Are there some problems in upgrading ones skills to take up a certain desires job in Canada for these women? And more importantly, what are the challenges migrant women face when they seek to combine their domestic lives with the quest for employment? Does it get in their way in any form? These questions form the basis for the research that will be conducted. Literature Review This new set of trends required immigrants to show some biases towards immigrants with strong educational or vocational training and could speak one or both of the official languages of Canada (Edwards, 1998 p56). This implies that people had to be able to have a conversational level command of either French or English. Draper et al (1998 p3) identify that amongst the large pool of immigrants into Canada is the class of women migrants. Family reunification has been the guiding principle for the admission of women into Canada since the 1950s (Agnew, 2009 p20). However, the Immigration Act of 1971 allowed women to enter Canada under one of three categories: family, independent or refugees (Agnew, 2009 p20). However, to this day, most women come as spouses of male immigrants and this means that the family visa category is the largest category for which women migrate into Canada (Agnew, 2009 p20). This therefore suggests that most women who come into Canada have various family responsibilities which are likely to stand in the way of their daily lives. As spouses, it can be logically inferred that most of them might have tendencies that might cause them to work as house wives, mothers or take up various forms of domestic-related jobs. This means that their applications for regular jobs that other their Canadian counterparts have might be quite difficult due to this inherent limitation that is placed upon women. Aside this inherent issue, there are some other perceptions that relate to immigrant women who come into Canada. “Although the governments of the day expected paid domestic work to be but a transitional jobs for most immigrant White women, their expectations for Black women was different. Candian-born or immigrant Black women were expected to enter domestic service as a life-time occupation” (Pierson & Cohen, 1995 p18). This also indicates that there are some stereotypes that are associated with some migrant women in Canada, especially people of non-White ethnic or racial origins. This forms the basis for various forms of racism and social exclusion in the award of employment to migrant women in Canada. The co-operative model of economic development is “a model that promotes the values of equity and civic engagement in meeting the economic, social and cultural needs of immigrants” (OECD, 2006 p121). This implies that there are various courses and programs that are meant to help in the economic, social and cultural needs of migrants. In the case of women, these courses might be aimed at helping them to build on their previous skills and occupations and integrate into the Canadian society to be able to create a form of support for them and the improvement of their families. However, these efforts do not come with their deficiencies and challenges, excessive generalization and different expectations that are modelled upon the integration of European migrants and thus creating various problems for female migrants who seek to find jobs (Mook et al, 2010 p313). Amongst the other challenges to integration amongst Canadas class of women migrants are two main inhibitors (McLellan, 2009 p147). First of all, most migrant women live under poor household and economic conditions when compared to their neighbours. Secondly, there are competing value systems like religious and social identity which might be very different and foreign to these migrant women. This makes it difficult for such women to prepare themselves for suitable employment. Thus for instance, a Muslim woman migrant who wears a hijab might have problems getting a job in a place where most of the workers are of European origins. Secondly, a migrant who lives in a poor suburb or has serious financial challenges might not be seen as an ideal candidate for a job offer. This will contribute to the difficulties that migrant women face in finding jobs in Canada. Aims & Objectives The aim of this research is to identify the actual limitations and challenges that migrant women face in finding jobs in Canada. The research attempts to find the actual challenges that women in Canada, particularly Ontario go through which inhibit their efforts to find regular jobs that their Canadian-born colleagues often get. The Objectives of the Research is as follows: 1. Examine the settlement, cultural and language challenges that migrant women go through which hinder their efforts to acquire jobs. 2. Assessment of the legal restrictions that makes it difficult for women of foreign backgrounds go through which prevents them from finding jobs in Canada. 3. An analysis of the challenges that migrant women go through in their attempt to further their studies to take up jobs in Canada and 4. Difficulties of migrant women in combining their domestic lives and tough neighbourhood conditions with normal jobs. Motivation for the Research The main motivation for this research is to solve a real social problem with scientific tools and methodology. It aims at studying and trying to acquire knowledge in favour of migrant women, a group that is normally neglected in other studies in Canada. Additionally, this research is in partial fulfilment of my degree. It is my hope that as I complete this research, I acquire more skills and techniques in research so that I continue to apply what I have learnt in solving real-life problems. Research Methodology This research is mainly a descriptive research. Descriptive research is defined by Kothari (2005 p2) as a fact-finding effort that aims at a description of the state of affairs as it exists as present. In other words, the research will seek to identify the main limiting factors that exist for migrant women in Canada at the time of conducting this research. It will be a qualitative research that will employ various tools and techniques to gather information on the state of migrant women in Canada who are trying to find jobs. It will use a fundamental approach with the view of generalizing and/or theorizing about the general terms and situations that exists on the ground. Although there will be some conceptual studies through the study of secondary sources, most of the research will be empirical research that will involve the collection of information from various primary sources. This quest for information about the actual elements of job-related situations in relation to migrant women will mainly be achieved through interviews and surveys that will give an insight into the matter. At the end of the research, the findings and conclusions that reflect the dominant views, ideas and conceptions about the situation will be theorized through a set of generalizations on each of the four objectives. Due to the nature of the research objectives, the research will be conducted in four main phases that will reflect the four objectives that have been outlined in the research. This division is necessary because it enables the research to present the realities on the ground. Research Data Collection & Sampling Data will be collected from secondary sources like journals and books. This will be followed by the collection of data from the authorities in this field of study. The authorities will be interviewed and studied based on their proximity to this matter in order to get an idea of what is actually going on in the reality. After the literature review and authoritative concepts and ideas are identified, the data will be used as the framework for the design of surveys to collect data on what actually happens in the ground. This will be the basis for the collection of secondary data which will be used for the theorization. Phase 1 This phase will examine various journals and books on the various requirements and hurdles that are inherent in the immigration process. It will involve the collection of information from various sources on the evolution of the immigration systems and structures that migrants are required to go through. This phase will collate information about various requirements for language, culture and social upgrade that are relevant to women migrants in Canada. The data will be documented and broad frameworks will be defined through inference. Phase 2 When the general requirements for integration are identified, employment law will be put under the microscope for further and deeper studies. This will entail the study of government journals and legal publications that discuss the relevant employment law and systems that are relevant to migrant women in Canada. Afterwards, the research will proceed to conduct interviews with two authorities in the field of employment and migration law. One authority will be chosen who knows much about Canadian immigration law and another authority will be chosen from the class of labour lawyers in Canada. A rough draft of the interview is outlined in Appendix 1. Phase 3 Data for this research question will be mainly primary in nature. It will focus on collecting information about the challenges migrant women go through in trying to improve their job prospects through studies. It will seek to collect data from women migrants who have tried to study or integrate into the Canadian work environment. The research will include the asking of questions from women migrants in Canada. The questions to be posed to respondents will be presented as closed ended questions to migrant women. Appendix 2 (Part B) shows a sample of the questions to be asked. A total of 50 respondents will be targeted. 10 of the applicants will be of African origins, 10 will be chosen from the Asian community, 10 will be taken from people with Arabic/Middle Eastern backgrounds, 10 will be taken from migrants of European origins whilst the final 10 will include migrant women taken at random. Phase 4 This phase will also be in the form of studies about how these migrant women combine their social lives with employment. It will examine the different forms of challenges of the domestic lives of migrant women and try to find if it affects them in their search for jobs. It will also be a survey that will ask questions about the lives of various women migrants in Canada. The questions for this phase can be found in Part C of Appendix 2. Data Analysis The data analysis will be done in correspondence to the various phases that the research would go through. Phase 1 The broad categories of immigration hurdles will be identified and summarized at this phase. They will be classified according to social, cultural, settlement and linguistic differences. Where applicable, these findings will be incorporated into the subsequent phases of the research and the various questionnaires and interviews would be upgraded if relevant issues are identified. The deliverable for this phase will be a summation document that will give an insight into the conclusions of the various findings in the literature review in this matter. Phase 2 The various components of employment law that will be identified in the various interviews will be transcribed. Where the two interviewees made similar points on a given matter, the responses will be consolidated and this will become a major point on the challenges that migrant women face in relation to Canadian employment law. Where there are varying views from both respondents, the different views will be stated and literature sources will be examined to confirm which standpoint is more applicable and where variances arise from. The deliverable will be an authoritative text of the role of employment law in limiting migrant women in their efforts to find jobs in Canada. Phase 3 The responses for the various questions in relation to efforts to improve job prospects through training and development on the part of migrant women will be collated statistically. These statistics will be presented in a graphic form to show comparative analysis and other trends that occur in the classes of migrant women who will respond to the questionnaires. Phase 4 The data analysis for this stage will also be interpreted in terms of diagrammatic presentations. These presentations will give a view of how the responses went and also give a view of the trends and directs that the responses took. Generalizations & Theorization After the research findings are collated and analyzed, the final end of the research will be identify very strong trends and correlations and emphasize on them. In this quest, the findings from Phase 1, which will be the confirmed information about trends in the difficulties facing migrant women will be collated and presented in terms of settlement, cultural, social and language issues. They will be noted as a general theory. Findings from Phase 2, will give an insight into the legal challenges and explain what the actual employment law does to contribute to the hardships of these women. This will form the basis for a conclusion that will identify which instruments in the law really pose various challenges and difficulties to the migrant woman in her bid to find a job here. The statistical trends from Phase 3 will form the basis for the conclusion on the actual challenges these women go through in terms of developing their skills to find jobs. Where the statistics show a clear majority, the trend will be the conclusion. However, where there is an unclear majority, the various trends in the responses by the respondents will be stated as possible answers to the issue in question. The difficulties faced in combining domestic life and neighbourhood conditions with finding a job will also be generalized in a statistical fashion. All the conclusions will be based on the majority and the trend will be established on that basis. Limitations of the Research This research is limited by several facts: 1. Women, about whom the entire study is centred might not want to participate because of reasons like fear of being deported to their country of origin or some other barriers like language barriers. 2. Selecting the sample might be problematic because it might be difficult to identify who really qualifies to be interviewed in that there might be some issues with categorization. For instance, should we consider a Canadian-born woman who refuses to integrate into the Canadian society and adheres to the religious and social customs of the old country a migrant or not. Technically, such a individual might not qualify to be called a migrant but her actions put her in a situation that is not very different from a migrant and interviewing her might yield more results than a Westernized individual with world-class qualifications who comes into Canada with exceptional skills that are in demand. References Agnew V. (2009) Radicalized Migrant Women in Canada: Essays on Health Violence & Equity University of Toronto Press. Cameron, E. (2004) Multiculturalism & Immigration in Canada: An Introductory Reader Canadian Scholars Press Draper, P. Iacovetta, F & Ventresca, R (1998) A Nation of Immigrants: Women, Workers & Communities in Canadian History University of Toronto Press Edwards, J. R. (1998) Language in Canada Cambridge University Press. Grubel, H. G. (2009) Effects of Mass Migration on Canadian Living Standards & Society Fraser Institute Kothari C. R. (2005) Research Methodology: Methods & Techniques New Age Publishing. McLellan, J. (2009) Cambodian Refugees in Ontario: Resettlement, Religion & Identity University of Toronto Press. Mook, L, Quarker, J. & Sherida R. (2010) Researching The Social Economy University of Toronto Press. OECD (2006) Local Economic & Employment Development (LEED) OECD Publishing. Pierson, R. P & Cohen, M. G. (1995) Canadian Women Issues: Bold Visions Lomier Publishing. Appendix 1 Dear Sir/Madam, In line with my studies, I am conducting a research into the limitations that migrant women face in their bid to get jobs in Canada with a focus on Ontario. I will therefore be very grateful if we could meet for a short interview that will give some insights into the legal components of this study. The interview, should not last for more than 20 minutes. The scope of the research is meant to cut across the following areas: 1. What are the main areas of Canadian Law are most relevant to migrant women in applying for jobs. 2. What are the main laws that are disadvantageous to migrant women in their quest for jobs 3. Do you think that the law is fair to migrant women in their search for jobs? 4. What are the areas of Canadian equality laws that are interpreted differently for Canadian-born job seekers and migrant job seekers? 5. How has Canadian employment laws changed over the past year in relation to migrant women who seek employment? 6. What portions of Canadian employment laws do you think will have to change in the future to provide better opportunities for migrant women in their quest for jobs? Appendix 2 Dear Madam, As part of my research for my degree, I will like to request for a few minutes of your time to ask you a few questions. The questions are in relation to my study of the challenges migrant women face in their quest to find jobs in Canada. The questions are simple and will require you to select the option that applies. Please note that this questionnaire is highly confidential. The information you disclose will NOT be released to any authorities in Canada. You are free to decline to answer any question that you might not be comfortable with. SURVEY Part A: Personal Information 1. Age [15 – 25] [25 – 35] [35 – 45] [Over 45]. 2. Social Origins [European] [Asian] [African] [Middle Eastern/Arab] [Other, please specify: ] 3. How long have you been in Canada? [Under 1 year] [1 – 2 years] [2 – 3 years] [3 – 4 years] [4 – 5 years] [Over 5 years] 4. What is your residential status in Canada? [Tourist] [Special Visa] [Illegal] [Refugee] [Domestic/Family Visa] [Permit Applicant Awaiting Decision] [Awaiting Decision on Appeal for Rejected Permit Application] [Illegal] [Other, please specify: ] 5. Educational Status: [Not Educated] [High School] [Vocational] [Technical] [High School + 2 Years College] [Undergraduate] [Postgraduate] [Other please specify: ] 6. What was your occupation in your previous country of domicile: [Please specify: ] 7. Are you currently employed in Canada? [Yes] [No] 8. What do you do in Canada? [Please specify: ] 9. Which of these languages do you speak? [English only] [French only] [English & French] [None] 10. Are you satisfied with the job you are doing here in Canada? [Yes] [No] 11. Are you facing any difficulties in finding an ideal job in Canada? Part B: Studies & Skill Upgrade 1. Have you made any attempts to upgrade your skills in Canada? [Yes] [No] 2. Are you able to afford to pay for the upgrade? [Yes] [No] 3. How did you fund the skills upgrade? [Please specify: ] 4. Did you get enough support from your family and friends when you decided to study for this skills upgrade? [Yes] [No] 5. How do you rate the most recent course you enrolled in? [Effective] [Not Effective] [Quite Effective] [Not sure] 6. Would you have been required to do this if you were in your country? [Yes] [No] 7. Did you like the course? [Yes] [No] 8. Was the course disruptive of your normal life? [Yes] [No] 9. Did you like the teaching environment? [Yes] [No] 10. Did you understand the course well? Were the teaching aids effective to you? [Yes] [No] 11. How was the behaviour of your colleagues to you like? [Very bad] [Bad] [Neutral] [Good] [Very Good] 12. Was the upgrade helpful in finding a good job? [Yes] [No] [Still Waiting] Part C: Social & Domestic Life 1. Do you have any family/social dependents living with you here in Canada? [Yes] [No] 2. Do you have any nuclear family or social contacts outside Canada? [Yes] [No] 3. Does your family/social commitment hinder you from finding a job? [Yes] [No] 4. Does your family/social commitment help you in your quest for a job here? [Yes] [No] 5. Are you linked to a wider social network that can help you to combine work with your domestic life? [Yes] [No] 6. How much do you pay towards the upkeep of your dependants? [Please specify: ] 7. Do you get any state support for the upkeep of your domestic life? [Yes] [No] 8. In what kind of neighbourhood do you stay? [Downtown] [Working class Area] [Migrant-dominated community] [City Suburb] [Other, please specify: ] 9. Is your neighbourhood dangerous? [Yes] [No] 10. Do you live close to an area where vacancies often come up for the jobs you prefer? 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