Abstracts/Résumés

PRECARIOUS WORK EXPERIENCES OF RACIALIZED IMMIGRANT WOMEN IN TORONTO: A COMMUNITY-BASED STUDY

Dr. Stephanie Premji
Assistant Professor,
School of Labour Studies and Department of Health, Aging and Society,
McMaster University,
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada		 Dr. Yogendra Shakya
Assistant Professor,
Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services,
University of Toronto,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada		 Megan Spasevski
Research Coordinator,
Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services,
Ryerson University,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada		 Jessica Merolli
PhD Candidate,
Department of Political Science,
McMaster University,
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada		 Sehr Athar
Research Coordinator,
Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada		 Immigrant Women and Precarious Employment Core Research Group
Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Despite their high levels of education, racialized immigrant women in Canada are over-represented in low-paid, low-skill jobs characterized by high risk and precarity. Our project documents the experiences with precarious employment of racialized immigrant women in Toronto. We conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with racialized immigrant women. Participants were recruited through posted flyers, partner agencies, peer researcher networks and snowball sampling. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using NVivo software. The project followed a community-based participatory action research model. Participants faced powerful structural barriers to decent employment and additionally faced barriers associated with household gender relations. Their labour market experiences negatively impacted their physical and mental health as well as that of their families. These problems further constrained women's ability to secure decent employment. Our study makes important contributions in filling the gap on the gendered barriers racialized immigrant women face in the labour market and the gendered impacts of deskilling and precarity on women and their families. We propose labour market reforms and changes in immigration and social policies to enable racialized immigrant women to overcome barriers to decent work.

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