Unravelling the Interconnections of Immigration, Precarious Labour and Racism Across the Life Course

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to the growing body of work on precarious labor, immigration, and social gerontology by examining the racialization of precarious employment across the life course. In particular, the authors examine the impact of precarious employment and discrimination among racialized older immigrants in Canada. Racialized older immigrants are more likely to be disadvantaged by the effects of lifelong intersections of economic and social discrimination rooted in racialization, gender, ageism, and socio-economic status. Drawing from a narrative-photovoice project that focused on the life stories of older immigrants living in Quebec and British Columbia, this paper presents the in-depth stories and photographs of four participants to highlight how intersections of race, gender, age, immigration status, and ability shape and structure experiences of aging, labor market participation and caregiving relationships.

Acknowledgments

We are eternally grateful to the 19 participants who shared their experiences, life stories, and lessons during our study. We would like to like to thank Dr. Laura Kadowaki and Kaltrina Kusari for their support in writing this article. Finally, we also acknowledge the generous feedback from our anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Statement of ethical approval

Ethical approval was received for the Montréal and Vancouver sites through the McGill University (#109–0914) and Simon Fraser University (#2015s0337) research ethics board.

Notes

1 The term ‘immigrantʻ has different connotations within policy and academic arenas. At an administrative level the Government of Canada uses the term ‘immigrantʻ to refer to a person who is, or has been, a landed immigrant/permanent resident. Within the academic literature, the term ‘immigrantʻ is a social construction that can include different typologies related to permanence/non-permanence, gendered and racialized migration flows, as well as forced/unforced border crossings (Li, 2002). We use the term (im)migrant to call specific attention to the social construction of immigration as a category of migration, and to acknowledge how the term is nuanced, fluid and shifting.

2 This (im)migration option is longer possible under the current rules in place within Canadaʻs Caregiver Program.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research; Centre de Recherche et d'Expertise en Gérontologie Sociale; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [430-2014-00506,611-2018-0254].