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Drive-By Education: The Role of Vocational Courses in the Migration Projects of Foreign Nurses in Canada
Abstract
The connection between international education and immigration has drawn the attention of scholars interested in exploring how immigrants strategically use international education as a means to facilitate their migration projects, including their successful integration in their chosen countries of migration. My article contributes to this literature by focusing on the experiences of foreign nurses who enter Canada as international students enrolled in vocational nursing programs, subsequently transition to temporary work permits, and from there to permanent residence. I analyze the classed implications of this mode of entry, contrasting it with another popular form of temporary entrance: temporary foreign work programs. Vocational nursing education, as undertaken by these nurses, is the gateway through which they enter Canada, and the courses offering such education are deemed “worth” costly tuition fees only insofar as they provide a sound stepping stone to the next phase of migration. In this scenario, the connection between international education and immigration has become articulated to such a degree that vocational nursing education, having lost its original significance, is reframed as convenient “drive-by” for immigration, something to be gotten over in a quick and cursory manner, albeit offering significant benefits in terms of residence rights not available to temporary workers in other immigration categories. At the same time, the influx of foreign nurses is revitalizing vocational programs and contributing to the development of the region.
... Vocational education prioritizes practical learning to make it easier for graduates to get jobs [11]- [13]. Vocational education is right on target because the competencies offered are following the type of work in the job market [14]. ...
... Finally, although my research discussed here focuses on the particular forms of migration temporality and emotionality engendered by encounters with state bureaucracy in the context of labour migration, this work complements what I have published elsewhere on the experience of racism and racialization of nurses who move to Canada (Nourpanah 2019b). I have also extensively discussed decision-making processes with regards to the nurses' migration project (Nourpanah 2019c). Taken all together, this body of work provides a powerful, comprehensive ethnographic account of the multiple dimensions of the migration and labour experience of foreign nurses in Canada. ...
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork done between April 2015 and August 2016 in Halifax, Canada, with nurses employed on temporary work permits in the healthcare sector in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada, this research contributes to contemporary literature on certain forms of migration temporality and emotionality. I employ policy analysis of credential recognition procedures for nurses and ethnographic research methods to demonstrate how a complex array of intersecting and sometimes contradictory policy contexts in labour, migration and healthcare regulate the movement and work of foreign nurses, including their transition into permanent Canadian residents, and ultimately, citizens, and the lived experienced of this regulation as it extends through time and space.
... In some cases, they may be coming in through the international student program only because this is considered to be their best option for gaining access to employment and ultimately immigration status. 29,30 All of these internationally mobile workers engage in complex/extended E-RGM to get to Canada but may, because of their status as students and TFWs, with the latter often tied to a particular employer and thus not likely to engage in extended travel within Canada, not be picked up in Statistics ...
Globally, employment-related geographical mobility (mobility to and within work) is a pervasive aspect of work that has potential health and safety implications. As an introduction to this special issue, this article defines the mobile workforce as those who engage in complex/extended mobility to and within work encompassing >two hours daily, less frequent but more extended mobility between regions and countries, and mobility within work such as between work sites or in mobile workplaces. Focusing on the Canadian context, we discuss the challenges associated with developing a statistical profile for this diversely mobile workforce and provide an overview of articles in the special issue identifying key health and safety challenges associated with extended/complex employment-related geographical mobility. We estimate that up to 16 percent of Canada’s employed labor force (including those commuting > one hour one-way, temporary residents with work permits, and transportation workers) engage in extended/complex mobility related to work.
Hospitals and long-term care facilities in Ontario are struggling with recruitment and retention of nurses due to nursing shortage. This issue was exacerbated by the SARS-Cov2. On the other hand, a lot of Filipino nurses who came to Canada through different pathways of immigration are working in a different profession outside of nursing. They could be a great resource to help with the nursing shortage but face multiple challenges and barriers to getting their provincial nursing registration. This issue has not been extensively studied. This research provided understanding of the socio-cultural experiences of Filipino nurses with the College of Nurses of Ontario's (CNO) registration process and the support they need when they transition to the workforce. This research answered the question: "What are Filipino nurses' experiences with the CNO registration process and their needs with transition to the workforce?" Using my naturalistic philosophical perspective, the design was qualitative, and the overarching methodology was interpretivism. A scoping review was used to gain knowledge about the realities and experiences of Filipino nurses with an ethnographic conceptual framework to interpret the data collected. While only a handful of studies related to Filipino nurses in Ontario have been done about their experiences during the registration process (Salami, 2014; Salami et al., 2018), nothing has been done about what they need or how they can transition to the workforce. This review may help policymakers and employers better understand the socio-cultural needs of Filipino nurses in providing support when license is granted.
Although international students play a central role in addressing labour shortages and strengthening the economies of receiving countries, research examining the workforce integration of international graduates has been relatively sparse. Recently, however, this topic has garnered increasing empirical attention spanning across disciplines and levels of analysis. We conducted a systematic review of 74 academic articles examining the workforce integration of international graduates to take stock of the literature in this domain, summarize emergent themes and key findings, and highlight potential pathways for future research. Based on our review, we identify various antecedents of workforce integration at various levels of analysis (micro-, meso-, macro-), ranging from specific characteristics of the international graduate (e.g., host country cultural knowledge, language fluency, motivation, family status) to organizational attributes and practices (e.g., recruitment and selection, post-secondary institution support) to broader societal factors (e.g., immigration and labour policy/legislation, economic conditions), and delineate several promising avenues for future research.
In capitalist societies, workers feel, or feel obliged to feel grateful for having a job. In a world marked by global inequality, migrants from the global South to the North are expected to feel gratitude for their opportunity to move to and live in a first world country. In the case of temporary foreign workers, both these sorts of gratitude come together. The political economy regime governing the conditions of work and cross‐border movement for temporary foreign workers employed in health care in Canada engenders feelings of gratefulness from workers towards their employers. Contextualized within a cross‐disciplinary study of gratitude as a social construct, this article uses the case of this particular sort of work and migration gratitude to develop knowledge on the nuanced and complex ways in which structures of feeling lead from and loop back into capitalist political economies.
The migration pathways in which nurses engage are increasingly heterogeneous. In this article, I contrast three types of nurse migration pathway from three country pairs – Vietnam to Germany ‘triple win’ bi‐lateral migration (direct migration); India to Canada two‐step study‐work (multistage) pathway; and ‘bus stop’ multinational migration from the Philippines to Singapore and onwards to other sites. Each pathway is not exclusive to the country pair selected; rather, this occupational and pathway specific analysis permits a comparison of the structures and processes involved – the different kinds of hierarchies that underpin mobility; the migration and border‐control infrastructure that channels mobility; and the differential incorporation of multi‐nationally mobile lives and their gendered/racialized implications. The migration trajectories analysed in this article reveal how multinational and multistage migrations are produced (through state and non‐state intermediaries and policy structures), and how they are productive of new subjectivities and imaginaries (shaped by what is possible and desirable).
Although more and more temporary migrant workers are becoming permanent residents in
Canada, their experience with immigration opportunities remains under-studied. This study
aims to fill that gap by examining the lived experience of migrant workers — in skilled and
low-skilled occupations — who transition to permanent residence. Authors Delphine Nakache
and Leanne Dixon-Perera rely on interviews and focus group discussions with 99 participants
(including current and former migrant workers who have become permanent residents,
nongovernmental organizations, employers and public servants) to address the following
research questions: What factors lead migrant workers to seek permanent residence? What
challenges do they face in their transition to permanent residence, and how do they overcome
them? What are the implications of two-step migration for settlement?
A considerable number of the migrant workers interviewed indicated that their decision to
seek permanent residence was not made before they arrived in Canada. Their decisions were
influenced by recruiters abroad, friends, family, settlement agencies and employers. Federal and
provincial governments’ policies have especially important implications for those decisions.
For example, the federal policy that allows migrant workers to stay in Canada for no more than
four years at a time (the “four-in, four-out” rule) has encouraged workers to pursue permanent
residence but has created risks — including seeking work underground — that may outweigh
the potential benefits. Once the decision to immigrate is made, however, migrant workers are
usually not willing to give up, despite the difficulties they face.
During their transition to permanent residence, migrant workers encounter several types of
obstacles. Especially difficult are language proficiency requirements and the often-stringent rules
of employer-driven streams that are an important part of most Provincial Nominee Programs.
Applying for permanent residence entails challenges such as navigating existing immigration
programs and intransigent decisions by some immigration officers. In addition, prolonged family
separation during the transition to permanent residence has negative impacts, especially for
workers in low-skilled occupations who had to leave their families at home to come to Canada.
Temporary workers do not have access to federally funded settlement services. Some provincial
governments and other players are filling this gap, but research participants agreed that migrant
worker legal services and language training need to be urgently addressed.
To facilitate linkages between temporary labour migrants’ experience and pathways to
permanent residence, the authors recommend removing the “four-in, four-out” rule, extending
the right to family accompaniment to migrant workers in low-skilled positions, reassessing
language requirements for migrant workers who transition to permanent residence, and
providing language training for migrant workers upon arrival. They also put forward two policy
ideas for further study and discussion: reconsidering the reliance on employer sponsorship and
introducing a federal pathway to permanent residence for workers in low-skilled occupations.
This paper presents a theoretical analysis of the neoliberal production of anxiety in academic faculty members in universities in Northern Europe. The paper focuses on neoliberalization as it is instantiated through audit and ranking systems designed to produce academia as a space of economic efficiency and intensifying competition. We suggest that powerful forms of competition and ranking of academic performance have been developed in Northern Europe. These systems are differentiated and differentiating, and they serve to both index and facilitate the neoliberalization of the academy. Moreover, these audit and ranking systems produce an ongoing sense of anxiety among academic workers. We argue that neoliberalism in the academy is part of a wider system of anxiety production arising as part of the so-called "soft governance" of everything, including life itself, in contemporary late liberalism. © 2016 Canadian Association of Geographers / L'Association canadienne des géographes.
This qualitative study explored East and South Asian international students' (N = 12) experiences with racial microaggressions at one Canadian university. Data were collected through unstructured, individual interviews. Using a modified version of the consensual qualitative research method (Hill, Thompson, & Williams, 1997), we identified six racial microaggressions themes: (a) excluded and avoided, (b) ridiculed for accent, (c) rendered invisible, (d) disregarded international values and needs, (e) ascription of intelligence, and (f) environmental microaggressions (structural barriers on campus). In addition, we used the same approach to identify themes pertaining to the ways in which students coped with racial microaggressions: (a) engaging with own racial and cultural groups, (b) withdrawing from academic spheres, and (c) seeking comfort in the surrounding multicultural milieu. Microaggressions and coping themes differed based on country of origin and language proficiency. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
This book critically examines the history and current issues on the migration of Indian students to Australia.
The author reviews developments on the immigration issue in the Greater Moncton Area of southeastern New Brunswick. Over the last few years, political, economic and community stakeholders have become more sensitive to the issue and have launched new initiatives to make immigration a lever for economic development. However, a number of major hurdles remain in a city that is not accustomed to ethnic diversity and difference.
This paper connects the growing interest in immigrant settlement outside of gateway cities, and the noted shift in international student policies from 'red card to red carpet', by exploring what role the higher education sector plays in the attraction and retention of immigrants to second tier cities (STCs). Using the case of Kitchener-Waterloo in Ontario, the qualitative research offers four findings. Firstly, higher education institutions act as the very locus of change in STCs in terms of introducing greater ethnic and cultural diversity; secondly, they act as important attractors and retainers of talent in their own right and in terms of the linkages and connections they create in the local economy; thirdly, international students and immigrants perceive the university as providing a socio-spatial buffer against wider discriminatory behaviours; and lastly, the 'red card to red carpet' policy shift that is underway will only intensify the role higher educational institutions play in international migration.
English
There are two methods for estimating the earnings disadvantage of groups: the residual differencemethod and the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition. Each method infers disadvantage fromdifferences in earnings of visible minority immigrants and other Canadians, after controlsfor human capital and job characteristics. We: i) summarize the logic of these methods; ii)critically examine the character of the experience measures used in most of the research; iii)apply the residual difference method to the Workplace and Employee Survey to show how amore thorough approach to the measurement of work experience modifies estimates of earningsdisadvantage.
French
Deux méthodes sont utilisées pour estimer le désavantage salarial de groupes : la ‘méthode dedifference résiduelle’ et la ‘décomposition Oaxaca-Blinder’. Selon la logique de ces méthodes,après avoir contrôlé pour les différences du capital humain, le désavantage des immigrants deminorités visibles relatifs aux autres Canadiens est la différence nette du salaire. Dans cettearticle nous : i) décrivons la logique de ces méthodes ; ii) examinons la qualité des indicateursd’expérience utilisés ; iii) analysons les données de l’Enquête sur le milieu du travail et lesemployés. Notre conclusion est que le fait d’inclure d’indicateurs améliorés de l’expérience apour effet de modifier l’estimation du désavantage.
In this rich interdisciplinary study, Sujani Reddy examines the consequential lives of Indian nurses whose careers have unfolded in the contexts of empire, migration, familial relations, race, and gender. As Reddy shows, the nursing profession developed in India against a complex backdrop of British and U.S. imperialism. After World War II, facing limited vocational options at home, a growing number of female nurses migrated from India to the United States during the Cold War. Complicating the long-held view of Indian women as passive participants in the movement of skilled labor in this period, Reddy demonstrates how these “women in the lead” pursued new opportunities afforded by their mobility. At the same time, Indian nurses also confronted stigmas based on the nature of their “women’s work," the religious and caste differences within the migrant community, and the racial and gender hierarchies of the United States. Drawing on extensive archival research and compelling life-history interviews, Reddy redraws the map of gender and labor history, suggesting how powerful global forces have played out in the personal and working lives of professional Indian women. © 2015 The University of North Carolina Press. All rights reserved.
Globalisation, supply–demand dynamics, uneven development, enhanced connectivity including the better flow of information, communication and the reduced cost of travel have encouraged the global integration of nursing labour markets. Developed regions of the world have attracted internationally educated nurses (IENs) because of growing healthcare needs. India, along with the Philippines, has become a key supplier of nurses in the global economy. Traditionally the supply of nurses was heavily regionalised in south India, especially Kerala, but of late Punjab, in north India, has played an increasing role in nurse training and migration as the profession has become more respected and more international. This paper uses survey and interview data to detail the recent interest in nursing as a channel for independent female international migration from Punjab, and to examine how migratory ambitions have developed over the last decade in parallel with the changing status of nursing as an internationally respected profession. We identify growing interest in international migration for nursing students and their increased intention to pursue employment opportunities in Australia and New Zealand. This research highlights how nursing and care migration are increasingly structured by international circuits of training and employment, and how such circuits alter migrant and occupational geographies on the ground in sending regions.
This chapter introduces readers to the general contours of Indian nurse immigration as well as the long histories connecting Indian nursing labor and U.S. imperial interests on the subcontinent and within the confines of its own national boundaries. By doing so, it complicates transnational or nation-state bound frameworks for analyzing this immigration pattern. At the same time, it highlights the tension between productive and reproductive labor as these play out amongst women workers performing a historically gendered form of "woman's work." The chapter also specifically complicates the ways in which readers can think of Cold War Indian labor immigration to the United States as indicative of either a "postcolonial" or "post-civil rights" historical turn. Finally, this piece introduces readers to Reddy's interdisciplinary methods and source materials.
This book brings together up-to-date statistics, case studies and policy reports on the major trends and developments in cross-border post-secondary education in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. Topics covered include policy initiatives to promote cross-border post-secondary education; rationales for delivering or receiving cross-border education services; size and growth of cross-border post-secondary education in terms of student mobility, programme mobility, and institutional mobility (international branch campuses); assessment of the possible impact of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (WTO); and challenges facing cross-border post-secondary education such as quality assurance and recognition of qualifications, cost and financing, equity of access, trade agreements, capacity building in receiving countries, mobility personnel, and cultural diversity.
In this article I explore the issue of nursing status in Kerala, India and how over time a colonial discourse of caste‐based pollution has given way to a discourse of sexual pollution under expanding migratory opportunities. Based on survey and qualitative research findings, I caution that the improving occupational status of nursing in India is not directly mapped onto social status, and this is particularly evident in the matrimonial market. In the light of these findings I argue that global nursing care chain (GNCC) analysis must assess more than just workplace contexts in order to conceptualize how global care chains (GCCs) interlock, and how they are differentiated from each other.
Most examinations of non-citizens in Canada focus on immigrants, people who are citizens-in-waiting, or specific categories of temporary, vulnerable workers. In contrast, Producing and Negotiating Non-Citizenship considers a range of people whose pathway to citizenship is uncertain or non-existent. This includes migrant workers, students, refugee claimants, and people with expired permits, all of whom have limited formal rights to employment, housing, education, and health services. The contributors to this volume present theoretically informed empirical studies of the regulatory, institutional, discursive, and practical terms under which precarious-status non-citizens - those without permanent residence - enter and remain in Canada. They consider the historical and contemporary production of non-citizen precarious status and migrant illegality in Canada, as well as everyday experiences of precarious status among various social groups including youth, denied refugee claimants, and agricultural workers. This timely volume contributes to conceptualizing multiple forms of precarious status non-citizenship as connected through policy and the practices of migrants and the institutional actors they encounter.
Drawing upon transnational multi-sited research analysing sending and receiving aspects of migration flows and the shifting priorities of neoliberal citizenship regimes, this article highlights the class complexity of Philippine gendered migration pathways to Canada. Migrant agency and class complexity are linked to neoliberal immigration and labour export policies that privilege the acquisition of capital serving the interests of sending and receiving countries. Sometimes this benefits elite migrants but it also exacerbates gendered class cleavages between migrants and within Philippine society. The histories of Philippine internal and overseas migration have contributed to a culture of migration whereby Filipinos exhibit flexibility to draw advantage from subtle shifts in Canadian immigration policy. The paper concludes that Filipinos may well represent the ideal immigrant but there are personal, social, and political consequences for migrants and the nation.
La contribution économique des immigrants est mesurée par l'am-pleur de leurs salaires. Plus on diminue l'écart des salaires, plus les immigrants sont sensés se doter du capital humain. En utilisant les données du recensement de 1996, cet article compare des groupes d'immigrants avec des Canadiens de naissance de même sexe et de même origine raciale à quatre niveaux de la région métropolitaine de recensement, définie par la taille de la population. Les résultats indiquent que les immigrants de même sexe et de même origine raciale gagnent soit le même salaire sinon plus que leurs homologues canadiens. Cependant, en prenant en considération les variations dans le capital humain, l'expérience, les différences dans l'échelle urbaine, la taille de la population immigrante et le taux de chômage, tout groupe d'immigrants gagne moins que son homologue canadien. L'ampleur des salaires nets entre les immigrants et les Canadiens de naissance varie selon le sexe, l'origine raciale et moins ainsi selon le niveau de la région metropolitaine de recensement. Plusieurs fac-teurs, dont les possibilités d'emploi inégales, touchent le salaire des immigrants. II n'est pas du tout évident de supposer que la teneur du capital humain des immigrants est inférieure alors qu'elle est déduite de la disparité de salaires.
An interdisciplinary synthesis of Canadian research on immigrant employment success points toward key research priorities.
Four determinants of immigrant employment success are widely recognized as significant: immigration policy and settlement
patterns, “entry” and assimilation over time, lower value of immigrant human capital, and origins of immigrants and the possibility
of discrimination. Other determinants include labour market niches, social and cultural capital, and institutional contexts.
Addressing key research priorities—and distinguishing individual and contextual causes—will require new analytic strategies
and sources of data. A companion paper, Part II: Understanding the Decline, applies the framework presented here to research on declining employment success for immigrants.
Une synthése interdisciplinaire de la recherché au Canada sur la réussiteà l´emploi des immigrants révéle des priorités essentielles
de recherche. On reconnaît généralement quatre facteurs déterminants dans la réussite à l’emploi des immigrants: les politiques
en matiére d´immigration et le type de peuplement; l´autorisation de séjour et l´assimilation avec le temps; la valeur plus
basse que l´on attribue au capital humain des immigrants; et l´origine des immigrants et la possibilité de la discrimination.
Parmi les autres facteurs déterminants, notons les créneaux de marché du travail, le capital social et culturel, et le contexte
institutionnel. Afin d’aborder les priorités essentielles de recherché, et de distinguer les causes institutionnelles des
causes contextuelles, il faudra de nouvelles strategies analytiques et d’autres sources de données. Un article complémentaire,
la deuxiéme partie de Understanding the Decline, appliqué le cadre conceptuel présenté ici à la recherche sur le décline de la réussite à l´emploi des immigrants.
This major work combines theoretical innovation with systematic empirical substance to explore the contours and dynamics of a major global social phenomenon - the globalization of reproductive labour. Grounded in careful historical analysis, the book offers important insights into key actors in contemporary globalization processes: migrant care workers. Expanding the traditional focus on domestic workers, the book presents a significant analysis of the international migration of professional nurses and religious care workers and the part they play in forging the 'new' global reproductive economy. Covering a range of countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, this innovative inter-disciplinary analysis of a major global phenomenon of our time is an essential reference for scholars of migration, globalization and gender.
Although the international migration of nurses has played a formative role in increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of the health care labor force, nursing historians have paid very little attention to the theme of international migration and the experiences of foreign-trained nurses, A focus on international migration complements two new approaches in nursing history: the agenda to internationalize its frameworks, and the call to move away from "great women, great events" and toward the experiences of "ordinary" nurses. This article undertakes a close reading of the life and work of Filipino American nurse Ines Cayaban to reconceptualize nursing biography in an international framework that is attentive to issues of migration, race, gender, and colonialism. It was a Hannah keynote lecture delivered by the author on June 5, 2008, as part of the CAHN/ACHN (Canadian Association for the History of Nursing/Association Canadienne pour l'Histoire du Nursing) International Nursing History Conference.
Dreaming big, coming up short the challenging realities of international students and graduates in Atlantic Canada. The Atlantic Metropolis Centre’s Working Papers Series
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Insights on Canadian society: International students who become permanent residents in Canada. Government of Canada
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International students’ views of transition to employment and immigration. The Canadian Journal of Career Development/Revue canadienne de développement de carrière
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I came, but I'm lost: Learning stories of three Chinese international students in Canada/je suis venu, mais je suis perdu: Histoires d'apprentissage de trois étudiants internationaux chinois au Canada
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Producing anxiety in the neoliberal university. The Canadian Geographer/le géographe canadien
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