The JGM BitBlog: Disillusioned and disappointed? Matching qualifications and employment for migrant women.
Phyllis Tharenou, Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
Skilled migrant (SM) women provide an essential source of employees for the healthcare and education workforces of advanced economies¾doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, teachers¾especially in times of shortage. Governments encourage SM women to migrate to meet country needs. However, many are denied qualification-matched employment (QME) on arrival, instead gaining less-skilled employment or unemployment. This systematic literature review sought to extend knowledge of the factors potentially influencing SM women's attainment of QME post-migration.
Considerable evidence indicates that a low portion of SM women gained QME directly on or soon after migration (35%), less than comparable SM men (41%). Supporting explanation by intersectional theory, SM women had the lowest QME, with incremental increases in QME for skilled native women and SM men, and highest for skilled native men; a double disadvantage for SM women. Their gender was still the most negative influence in their low QME, though faulty selection processes also played a major role. SM women's qualifications and work experience received less recognition than men's. Although newcomers, women were unfairly expected to have host-country work experience and unjustly forced to duplicate or gain new qualifications to redress nonrecognition of their qualifications.
Work-family conflict appeared to be an additional factor in their low QME post-migration. Having family responsibilities resulted in SM women lowering their career aspirations and relinquishing paid employment or taking lower-level or part-time work to prioritize family caring. Supporting gender role theory, having a family normally restricted a migrating woman in the pursuit and achievement of her career aspirations. By contrast, migration most often supported a married man's/partner's socialized role of family provider, whereby work obligations have the highest priority. With married women supporting their partner's career and provider role, they forgo QME.
By adopting the strategic approach of steppingstone jobs or advanced academic study-presumably alongside their partner-some SM women gained QME indirectly. For example, SM women accessed lower-level interim employment to develop their capabilities, which led to their subsequent appointment to jobs matching their qualifications. Supporting career capital theory, this 'indirect' mediated strategy is critical to the development and building of host-country-relevant career capital, enabling SM women to achieve QME. By contrast, SM men have less need to rebuild their capital than SM women. The SM empirical literature reveals that SM women can gain positions post-migration comparable to their pre-migration qualifications by undertaking the alternative, contingent paths of steppingstone jobs and academic study, especially in conjunction with agreed familial strategies.
Research needs to further examine developmental paths, beyond steppingstone jobs and academic study, with the potential to provide alternative mechanisms by which SM women can achieve QME, along with the theoretical mechanisms underlying such paths (e.g., instrumentality). Research is also needed on familial migration strategies to support SM women's achievement of QME and the contexts in which they operate most successfully.
To read this article, please see the Journal of Global Mobility publication:
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Professor Jan Selmer, Ph.D.
Founding Editor-in-Chief
Journal of Global Mobility (JGM)
Department of Management, Aarhus University
E-mail:
selmer@mgmt.au.dkTwitter: @JanSelmer_JGM
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