Employment incongruity and gender among Middle Eastern and North African skilled migrants in Australia

ABSTRACT

We investigate ‘employment incongruity’ among skilled migrants from Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries – that is, whether the jobs they achieve in Australia match the jobs they expect to be doing after they arrive or not – along with the factors that shape outcomes and the gendered dimensions of these outcomes. We analyse data collected from qualitative interviews with 15 females and eight male skilled MENA migrants, a median of seven years after arrival and apply an intersectionality lens and consider influences at the macro, meso and micro level that affect the power of female MENA migrants and shape their employment outcomes. We identify that what appears to shape employment incongruity are: organisational practices regarding recognition of overseas qualifications and demands for ‘local experience’; norms supporting discriminatory behaviour; the difficulties skilled MENA migrants have with accessing networks; and intra-family cultural norms. These findings are significant for current and future skilled MENA migrants, with the employment outcomes of most of the participants in this study revealing a mismatch between government immigration policies and organisational practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Middle Eastern and North African (MENA)
• skilled migrants
• employment incongruity
• intersectionality
• non-English speaking background (NESB)
• Australia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Negar Faaliyat

Negar Faaliyat is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Employment Relations and Human Resources at Griffith University. Her PhD research assesses how successful Middle Eastern and North African skilled migrants are in transferring their skills and finding jobs in the Australian labour market.

Susan Ressia

Susan Ressia is a Lecturer within the Department of Employment Relations and Human Resources at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Her research focuses on the job search experiences of independent non-English speaking background skilled migrants in Australia. Susan’s research interests also include the areas of work-life balance, managing diversity, intersectionality, equality and social justice issues. Susan is co-author of Employment Relations: An Integrated Approach (2nd Edn) and Work in the 21st Century: How do I Log on?. She has also published in Gender, Work and Organization and the Asia-Pacific Journal of Human Resources.

David Peetz

David Peetz is professor of employment relations at Griffith University and a co-researcher at the Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la mondialisation et le travail (the Inter-university Centre for Research on Globalisation and Work) in Canada. He was recently a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Advanced Research Collaborative in the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, was once a manager in the Senior Executive Service of the Australian Government’s Department of Industrial Relations and has undertaken work for unions, employers, the International Labor Organisation, the OECD, and governments of both political persuasions in and outside of Australia, including a recent statutory on the Queensland workers compensation scheme. His books include Women, Labor Segmentation and Regulation: Varieties of Gender Gaps, Brave New Workplace, Unions in a Contrary World, and The Realities and Futures of Work. He is a member of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.