Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education - Online Proceedings 2003 Gender, Race and the Social Construction of Skill in Canadian Engineering: The Deskilling of Immigrant Women Engineers Bonnie Slade Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology Ontario Institute for Studies in Education / University of Toronto Abstract: As more racialized professionals have immigrated to Canada, the contradiction between recruiting immigrant professionals for specific labour market needs and recognizing them as such has become more evident. For racialized immigrant women with expertise in male dominated professions the barriers are profound. Using available data, this study has estimated that 12,077 women engineers have immigrated to Canada since 1978 yet there has been no research focusing on issues of immigrant women's access to engineering or the economic integration of immigrant women engineers. Within the literature, issues of gender and race have been conceptualized independently. There has been little focus on the ways in which gender and race interact as relational processes in shaping access to professional engineering. Throughout the history of immigration to Canada, professional women have been an important group in the immigrant population. Studies have shown that immigrant women have higher levels of education than their Canadian-born counterparts (Maytree, 2001). In a report by Skills for Change, it is argued that immigrant women's education and experience is often in professions considered to be non-traditional for women in Canada, such as engineering (Skills for Change, 1999). From 1978 to 2000, 85,780 engineers immigrated to Canada, approximately 60 per cent of whom settled in Ontario. The exact number of immigrant women engineers is not known, however, Couton (2002) has shown that women comprised 14 per cent of the total number of immigrant engineers in 2000. By extrapolating Couton's findings to immigration data from 1978 to 2000, it can be estimated that over 12,000 women engineers have immigrated to Canada during this time period. Immigration History and Legacy Despite the fact that immigrant engineers are assigned points during the immigration process for their occupation, studies have shown that they face many barriers in gaining professional recognition from occupational regulatory bodies, employers and universities (Mata, 1999; Skills for Change, 1998). There has been growing concern and attention paid to the problems caused by the lack of international credential recognition and the experiences of immigrant professionals since the mid 1980s. As immigration policy has evolved to prioritize skilled workers, the problems associated with access to professions has intensified, particularly in Toronto where the majority of immigrants settle.
Until 1967, Canadian immigration policy included race-based criteria for admission. The final race-based restrictions were removed with the introduction of the point system, a standardizing tool for the selection of economic immigrants. The result of this immigration selection process has been the creation of a large pool of highly educated newcomers, most of whom are racialized. In comparison to the Canadian-born population, recent immigrants tend to have higher levels of education. According to the 1996 Census, new immigrants who arrived between 1991 and 1996 were 1.6 times more likely to have a university education, 2.2 times more likely to have a master s degree and 4.3 times more likely to have a doctorate (Zhao et al, 2000). In 2001, 36 per cent of immigrant men compared to 18 per cent of Canadian born men had a university degree and 31 per cent of recent immigrant women had a university degree compared with 20 per cent for Canadian born women (Maytree, 2001). Studies have shown that immigrant women of colour experience a dramatic disconnection between their experience, education and skill level and the occupations in which they find employment (Li, 2001; Reitz, 2001); this is especially pronounced when the women are from non-english speaking countries (Basavarajappa and Verma, 1990; Boyd, 1990). In an analysis of the economic activities, performance and impact of immigrants in Toronto from 1981 to 1996 drawing on census data and studies, Lo et al (2000), found that the industrial division of labour in Toronto is structured by gender as well as interacting with race and citizenship. Recent studies have examined the links between immigration status, unemployment, poverty and racial origin in Canada (Ornstein, 2000; Galabuzi, 2001; Kunz et al., 2000; Jackson, 2002). The studies demonstrate the existence of a racialized and gendered labour market where people of colour, particularly women, are over-represented in low paid, low end occupations and low income sectors and underrepresented in high paying occupations and high income sectors. As Jackson (2002, p. 2) has noted, Recent immigrants - particularly visible minority immigrants - have experienced high rates of unemployment and high levels of under-employment in lowwage jobs which often do not match their skills and formal credentials. There is a more pronounced gap between the education levels and occupations for immigrant professionals of colour. In research based on an analysis of the 1996 Census, Kunz et al found that "less than half of foreign-born visible minorities who have a university education work in jobs with a high skill level" (2000, p.23). The return on education for immigrant professionals of colour is poor as they are over-represented in the bottom 20 per cent of the income scale and are four times more likely than their Canadian-born counterparts to be unemployed (Kunz et al, 2000). For racialized immigrant women with expertise in male dominated professions in Canada, the barriers are profound. Literature Analysis One body of literature identifies barriers faced by immigrant professionals in their attempt to establish their careers in Canada. For immigrants with education and experience in a regulated profession in Ontario such as engineering, barriers identified include costly assessments, unnecessary and time-consuming requalifying courses, racism as well as Canadian work experience requirements that are difficult to fulfill without first having a professional licence (Cumming et al, 1989; Li, 2001).
There are a few studies that specifically focus on the economic integration of immigrant engineers into the Canadian labour market. The questions addressed in the literature involve a comparative analysis between immigrant male engineers and Canadian educated male engineers with respect to occupational attainment and income. The literature also addresses the impact of country or origin on employment success. Boyd (2001) and Boyd & Thomas (2001; 2002) studied the economic integration of immigrant male engineers. The findings indicate that in general immigrant male engineers are less likely than Canadian born male engineers to be in jobs that correspond to their training (Boyd, 2001). This finding is further refined by comparing three groups of men with engineering training - Canadian born, immigrants who arrived in Canada before the age of 19, and immigrants who arrived in Canada at age 28 or older using data from the 1996 Census. The study assumed that the men in the first two categories were Canadian educated and the third group had received their education in another country. Their analysis revealed that those educated in Canada had a greater likelihood of being in the labour force working as engineers or managers. Men with engineering training who arrived in Canada after age 28 were almost twice as likely to have master's degrees and more than three times more likely than Canadian born men or immigrant men who had immigrated to Canada before the age of 18 to have a Ph.D. Despite the higher educational levels, immigrants with international educational credentials were less likely to be employed and when they were in the labour force, they were underrepresented as managers or engineers (Boyd and Thomas, 2001, p. 126). An additional study by Boyd and Thomas (2002) examined the importance of the country of origin of immigrant male engineers. The findings confirm that Canadian educated men are dominant in engineering jobs and managerial occupations in engineering. The research found a correlation between country of origin and successful integration into the labour market for immigrant male engineers. Their work shows that place of origin is a critical factor for professional integration of immigrant male engineers into the labour force. The results raise questions about the systemic discrimination embedded in the licensing process of provincial regulatory bodies. Boyd has noted that, "certification requirements are often described as a form of systemic discrimination in that criteria are created that are universally applied to the Canadian-born and foreign-born alike, but that have disproportionate effects in restricting access to a trade or profession among the foreign-born" (Boyd, 2001, p. 88). It can be extrapolated from this research, and the work of Reitz (2001) and Li (2001), that immigrant women engineers face similar patterns of marginalization based on country of origin as well as additional barriers based on gender discrimination. Building Bridges: Identifying Opportunities and Overcoming Barriers to Employment and Licensure for Foreign-trained Engineers in Ontario (Skills for Change, 1995) is a survey of 302 immigrant engineers, 34 of whom had gone through the licensing process at Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) and 268 who had not. Although the sample included both men and women, there is no gender analysis of the barriers for immigrant engineers. Gender is mentioned only once in the document in the discussion of the sample demographics: "almost 80 per cent of the survey respondents were male" (p. 6). This research identified seven barriers to immigrant engineers: access to information, Canadian work experience, the cost and availability of training,
English language proficiency, bias and discrimination, licensing costs, educational equivalency processes and licensing appeals process. There are many studies highlighting the situation of immigrant women in the Canadian labour market yet none specifically focus on women engineers. Mojab's (2000) research study on 86 immigrant women participating in language and computer training classes in Toronto revealed a complex pattern of skilling and deskilling caused partly by state policies that retrain highly skilled immigrants for the current needs of the market. Sixty three per cent of the women in this study with post-secondary education were unemployed. Despite the skills and education of the immigrant women, they experienced underemployment and unemployment. Almost 15 per cent of the women had university degrees in science and technology professions, including engineering. The women's intellectual capacity had been undermined in Canada and they were seen primarily as a potential source of manual labour (p. 31). Mojab argues that " the role of skill was mediated by the unequal distribution of power along the lines of gender, class, race, language, ethnicity, national origin and the state of the economy" (p. 33). Research on immigrant professional women tends to focus on areas that uphold and reproduce the gendered division of labour within Canada. There are studies that examine barriers for immigrant women nurses, social workers, teachers and other health care professionals but none specifically addressing the situation of women engineers. The choice of these female dominated professions reflects the privileging of the gender division of labour in Canada over the actual lived education and experience of immigrant women. The issues facing immigrant women engineers are not specifically addressed in the literature. For women who immigrate with skills or in professions that are male dominated in Canada, there has been no specific research addressing their situation. Boyd (2001) and Boyd & Thomas (2001; 2002) limited their quantitative research studies to immigrant male engineers due to the low labour market participation of immigrant women engineers. Immigrant women, especially immigrant women of colour, regardless of their skills and experience are made to fit into "acceptable" Canadian stereotypical roles in the labour market. Studies have shows that immigrant women are the most vulnerable group of workers concentrated in low wage, insecure, low status jobs in the garment, service and manufacturing industries. The history of women in science and technology in Canada has been one of exclusion and invisibility (Frize, 2001). Women represented 0.2 per cent of Canadian professional licensed engineers in 1970 (Goodings & Sidlofsky, 1972) and 3.6 per cent of engineering students in 1975 in Canadian universities (CCPE and CEHRB, 2002). A movement to increase the number of women in engineering in Canada emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1977, women engineers began developing strategies to remove barriers to women s equality of opportunity in engineering. Since that time, initiatives have focused on making educational programs free from negative stereotypes of women, encouraging girls and women to pursue careers in engineering, as well as developing mentoring programs and women's networks. These efforts have yielded impressive results; women comprised 20.3 per cent of Canadian engineering students in 2000 (CCPE, 2002). The sole focus of this advocacy, however, is on girls in the Canadian education system and women engineers who have been educated in Canada. This approach has resulted in the exclusion of immigrant women engineers from the literature: the
key to success is seen as increasing the number of women enrolled in university engineering programs (Frize, 2001) and therefore women who immigrate with engineering degrees have been ignored in the literature and the advocacy. Conclusion An analysis of the situation of immigrant engineers reveals that the racism that was formerly explicitly stated in policy still exists in practice. For immigrant engineers of colour, especially women, it is particularly difficult to establish themselves as professionals in Canada. As the number of immigrant professionals continues to increase and the point system becomes ever more selective, issues associated with access to professions will continue to be prominent in public discourse. Immigrant women engineers, especially, expose the unspoken racialization of engineering as the domain of elite white men. The literature reviewed shows that issues of gender and race have been conceptualized independently. There has been little focus on the ways in which gender and race interact as relational processes in shaping access to professional engineering. Immigrant women engineers are marginalized from the literature. In addition, there are no studies that analyze the impact of racism on Canadian engineering university programs or workplaces. The woman engineer is assumed to be white and Canadian educated; the immigrant engineer is assumed to be a racialized male. The studies that do discuss engineering tend to ignore gender as a meaningful analytical category. These studies also fail to fully recognize the power of systemic racism that is woven into the fabric of Canada and creates many barriers to practicing in professions. While racism may be listed as a barrier, it needs to be seen as the foundation on which all other barriers are predicated. The legacy of Canadian immigration and nation building policies have serious implications for immigrant professionals today. Immigration policy is effective at selecting highly skilled workers for the Canadian labour market. However, there are no mechanisms to track skilled workers after they become landed immigrants and, as a result, the effectiveness of federal immigration policy as well as the individual success of the immigrant is unknown. In theory, the state benefits by saving money on educating professionals. In practice, the lack of jurisdictional cohesion undermines the integration process. For immigrants in regulated professions, the federal government opens the door and the provincial government closes it. References Basavarajappa, K. & Verma, B. P. (1990). Occupational Composition of Immigrant Women. In S.S. Halli et al. (eds.). Ethnic Demography, Canadian Immigrant, Racial and CulturalVariations. Ottawa: Carleton University Press, p. 297-314. Boyd, M. (2001). Asian Engineers in Canada. In W. A. Cornelius and T. J. Espenshade (eds.). The International Migration of the Highly Skilled: Demand, Supply and Development Consequences. La Jolla: Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California.
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