Immigrants and Precarious Employment,

Public Outreach Project

Overview of DataMeeting with Partners

Sept. 26, 2008

Outline/Agenda

• Concept maps

• Measuring precarious work

• IPW over time

• Unpacking IPW over time

• Relationship between selected variables and IPW (for current job)

Concept Map: Differential Social Inclusion

Social Inclusion

Immigration Status

Language/Accent

Human CapitalSocioeconomic Status

Pre-migration& Canada

Racialization and racism

Time in Canada

Government Policy

Social Networks

Neighbourhood

TransnationalCommitments

Family Household

GenderCivic

Engagementvolunteering

Income

Employment:Precarious?

Social Citizenship

use of services

Ethnic-racial identity

Concept Map: Immigrants Precarious Work

Current Work

Networks

Pre-migration (T1) Early Settlement (T2) Current (T4)

Early Work

Pre-MigrationWork

Resources &Obligations

Strategies

1 Stable Job (T3)

Education; CivicEngagement;Volunteering

Class, education, social capital,

languagePersonalNetworks

InstitutionallyMediated Networks

Household composition,TN obligations

Precarious Work

• Multi-dimensional

• Primary indicators - work based, terms of employment

• Secondary indicators, health

Dimensions of Precarious Employment• Primary Indicators from literature

– Terms of employment (contract/subcontracting, not permanent, PT, tied to one employer, temp. agency)

– Self employment (“consultant,” small family business)– Stability, predictability (know schedule?) – Location of work (stable, shifting)– Form of payment (cash, check)– Basis for pay (salary, hourly, piece work)– Unionization– Benefits/coverage

• Secondary indicators• Dangerous, health impacts?• Opportunities for advancement?

Our Index of Precarious Work (IPW)

• 4 points in time:– Pre-migration– First year - early settlement– First stable job

• Possible that FSJ = Job1

– Current job (job 1, job 2, job 3)

First Stable Job and Current Job

IPW - 7 Variables

• Contract type (all except long term renewable & union)

• Work arrangement (not self-employed [small N] or ft/pt for employer)

• How found job (temp agency)• Place of work (R’s home/employer's home)• Basis for pay (for job/contract or piece work)• Form of payment (cash)• Schedule (changes by day/wk/mth)

Early Work ExperienceIPW - 7 Variables

• Paid in cash (all or some of the time)

• Temporary, short term contract (yes)

• Temp agency (yes)

• Day labour (yes)

• Piece work (yes)

• Full time worker fixed hours (NO)

• Plan schedule week in advance (sometimes or never)

Pre MigrationIPW - 5 Variables

• Union (no)

• Self-employed (yes)

• Opportunities for advancement (no)

• Could not support myself/family (agree/strongly agree)

• Could not find a job in my field (agree/strongly agree)

IPW Distributions

Distributions of IPW

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Pre Early FSJ Curr 1

Time

Count

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Current Job 1 IPW DistributionCurrent Job 1

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Male Female 1 English 2 Spanish Total

By Gender and Origin

Count

0

1

2

3

4

5

IPW Means

Pre-migration IPW

IPW over time, total sample

IPW over time, by region

IPW over time: gender and region subgroups

Unpacking the IPW over time

• Do the components of the IPW vary over time?

Composition of IPW over time - stacked

Composition of IPW over time - overall

Immigrants & Precarious Work

• Precarious in early work experience

• Improves in FSJ, mixed outcomes for current job

• Origin differences sharper than by gender

• High precariousness for Caribbean men in early work

• Question: how important are terms of employment for precarious lives?

Age and IPW - current job

Occupation

IPW - occupation & gender

Occupations over time

What happens to pre-migration professionals over time?

IncomeHH Income by IPW (Current Job1)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

0 1 2 3 4 5

IPW

Count

1 Less than $10,000

2 $10,000 to less than$20,000

3 $20,000 to less than$30,000

4 $30,000 to less than$40,000

5 $40,000 to less than$50,000

6 $50,000 to less than$60,000

7 $60,000 to less than$80,000

8 $80,000 to less than$100,000

9 $100,000 to less than$125,000

10 $125,000 to less than$150,000

11 $150,000 to less than$200,000

12 More than $200,000

Income - IPW means

Caribbean LA Total < 10,000 (N=23) 1.87 1.26 1.46 10- 19,999 (N=62) 1.57 1.25 1.38 20- 29,999 (N=59) 1.24 1.20 1.22 30- 39,999 (N=55) 1.29 1.00 1.12 40- 49,999 (N=34) 0.90 1.00 0.97 50- 59,999 (N=13) 1.45 0.50 1.30 60- 79,999 (N=16) 1.58 1.75 1.62 80-100,999 (N= 2) 1.50 - 1.50 10-125,999 (N= 1) 1.0 - 1.00 > 125,000 (N= 2) 4.0 4.0 4.0 Total (N=267) 1.37 1.18 1.28

PW: strategies = resources and obligations + networks

• Resources and Obligations: – Education, entrance status, language– Household composition, TN family, remittances

• Personal & Institutional Networks:– Personal networks on arrival, over time– Institutional contact, advice, social service agencies

• Strategies: mobilization of resources & networks– Education, credential recognition, volunteering and

similar efforts in Canada

Strategies -

• In what follows we present exploratory analysis regarding strategies. Note that work following the outline in slide 32 is underway.

Strategy: education, training

Strategies: education by origin

Vwork - IPW by # hours

Strategy: Vwork

Caribbean LA Total Told Vwork would help with immigration application

1.30 1.70 1.47

Neighborhood /community assoc

1.05 1.71 1.22

Sports assoc 1.20 1.66 1.29 Union (* low N) 1.16 2.20 1.39 Congregation 1.53 1.48 1.51

Next steps…

• Continue analysis

• Compare to census data (Ornstein report, Gender and Work Database)

• Explore links with TIEDE project

Next steps - today

• Community working group– Breakout groups to define audiences, media,

content, process

• Policy working group– Define priority issues, policies, campaigns

and timeline

The rest of the presentation is under construction…