Does Citizenship Status Matter in Canadian Agriculture? Workplace Health and Safety for Migrant and Immigrant Laborers

This article explores how precarious legal status circumscribes differential inclusion in the agricultural labor market and affects workers' lives through a comparative study of workplace health and safety among temporary migrant guest workers and immigrants in Canada. Original, multimethod research with South Asian immigrant and Mexican migrant farmworkers examines employment practices, working conditions, and health‐care access. We find that both groups engage in precarious work, with consequences for their health and safety, including immigrant workers with citizenship. Nevertheless, migrant guest workers are subject to more coercive forms of labor discipline and a narrower range of social protection than immigrants. We argue that while formal citizenship can mitigate some dimensions of precariousness for farmworkers racialized as non‐white, achieving a more just, safer food system will require broader policies to improve employer compliance and address legislative shortcomings that only weakly protect agricultural labor.     

Why is the gender revolution uneven and stalled? Gender essentialism and men's movement into ‘women's work'

Men's limited movement into female occupations has been identified as a key barrier to future declines in occupational sex segregation and achieving greater gender equality. So why are men so reticent to enter jobs normatively regarded as female? Drawing from qualitative interviews with multiple stakeholders in four female‐dominated occupations in Australia, this article documents the processes that influence men's employment in gender‐atypical jobs. Gender essentialism is central to many processes that generate and/or stall changes in men's representation in female‐dominated occupations. While gender essentialism's role in producing and reproducing occupation sex segregation is well known, its role in reducing occupational sex segregation is a critical process which has previously received limited attention. The article details gender essentialism's integrative function.     

Redoing Gender: How Women in the Funeral Industry Use Essentialism for Equality

Although some research considers women's participation in traditionally male‐dominated jobs as an ‘undoing’ of the gender system, other scholars argue that women's participation in non‐traditional roles can actually maintain hegemonic masculinity. Because women have recently entered the funeral industry in unprecedented numbers, the profession offers a unique context to study how women negotiate a sense of belonging in male‐dominated fields. I draw on 22 interviews with women in the funeral industry to reveal how gender is done and undone in an occupational context. In what Hughey ( 2010 . Social Problems, 57, 653–679) refers to as a ‘paradox of participation’, I argue that women in the funeral industry redefine the image of the ideal funeral director by using gender essentialist logic, which originally acted as a barrier to their entry to the field, to justify their participation. By showing how gender essentialism and egalitarianism can constitute reinforcing logics instead of an opposing binary, this research contributes to the literature concerning women in non‐traditional roles.     

Economic Well‐Being in Salvadoran Transnational Families: How Gender Affects Remittance Practices

This article examines how migrant parents' gender affects transnational families' economic well‐being. Drawing on 130 in‐depth interviews with Salvadoran immigrants in the United States and adolescent and young adult children of migrants in El Salvador, I demonstrate that the gender of migrant parents centrally affects how well their families are faring. Gender structurally differentiates immigrant parents' experiences through labor market opportunities in the United States. Simultaneously, gendered social expectations inform immigrants' approaches to parental responsibilities and remitting behaviors. Remittances—the monies parents send—directly shape children's economic well‐being in El Salvador. I find that even though immigrant mothers are structurally more disadvantaged than immigrant fathers, mother‐away families are often thriving economically because of mothers' extreme sacrifices.     

“Where the Danger Lies”: Race,Gender, and Chinese and Japanese Exclusion in the United States, 1870–19241

Race too often is used as the explanatory variable for understanding immigration exclusion, marginalizing the significance of race making, ethnic differentiation, and gender construction in particular. This article explores these processes by examining exclusionary policies implemented against Chinese and Japanese immigrants from the mid‐1870s to 1924, the year the National Origins Act was passed. Politicians, intellectuals, and moral reformers used a gendered logic—the construction of idealized gender norms, roles, and sexual propriety and the attachment of these meanings to male and female bodies—to distinguish Japanese immigrants from the Chinese immigrants they followed, allowing for ethnic differentiation and dissimilar policies. The convergence toward exclusion rested on a racialized logic—the construction and attachment of inferior status and meanings to immigrant groups through discourse, formal and informal categorization, or social closure—which claimed that the Japanese were unassimilable and racially undesirable like the Chinese. Exclusionists focused on the immigrant women, decrying their sexual and gender impropriety as evidence of the groups’ threats to the sanctity of white families, which imperiled the nation. Gender and race both mattered in these logics and their meanings were constructed as their salience interconnected.     

Source‐Country Gender Roles and the Division of Labor Within Immigrant Families

The authors examined the relationship between source‐country gender roles and the gender division of paid and unpaid labor within immigrant families in the host society. Results from Canadian Census of Population (N = 497,973) data show that the 2 indicators of source‐country gender roles examined—female/male labor activity ratio and female/male secondary education ratio—are both positively associated with immigrant wives' share in their family labor supply and negatively associated with their share in housework. The association between source‐country gender roles and women's share in couples' labor activities weakens over time. Moreover, the relationship between source‐country female/male labor activity and immigrant couples' gender division of labor is reduced when immigrant women have nonimmigrant husbands, indicating that husband's immigration status matters.     

Dreams meeting reality? A gendered perspective on the relationship between occupational preferences in early adolescence and actual occupation in adulthood

On the basis of longitudinal data from Sweden (n = 15,211), the article offers a gendered perspective on the relationship between occupational preferences during early adolescence and actual occupations in adulthood. Theoretically the study is based on socialisation theory and devaluation theory. The analyses show that preferences for one’s future occupation were stronger among those who came to make gender-typical choices, than among those who chose a gender-atypical occupation. However, a gender difference was also found in that girls who came to choose a male dominated occupation showed a stronger preference for their future occupation in adolescence, than boys who came to choose a female dominated occupation. Results also showed that at a general level, the occupations in adulthood were even more gender segregated than the preferences in adolescence. This was particularly true for girls, who in adolescence expressed a stronger preference to work in a male dominated occupations, than they would later actually do.     

Dating and Mate Selection Among Young Adults from Immigrant Families

In this article the authors examine dating and mate selection preferences and experiences from the perspective of young men and women from immigrant families. Through in-depth personal interviews with 35 second generation youth from diverse cultures, the authors explored: (1) parental influences and expectations of their children's mate choices; (2) the roles of gender, birth order, and length of residency in the United States in expectations for mate selection; and (3) immigrant youth's preferences for marriage partners. The findings showed that immigrant parents hold mostly endogamous views. Youth's dating experiences are influenced by their gender, their birth order, and their family's acculturation. Second generation immigrants generally seek bicultural partners like themselves. Narratives from the participants provide insight into the attitudes that guide mate selection of these young adults from immigrant families.     

Challenging transitions? Assessing the occupational mobility patterns of US immigrants by gender

This article uses the New Immigrant Survey to assess the occupational mobility of US immigrants. Estimates from OLS and Heckman selection models show the occupational mobility of immigrants follows a U-shaped pattern: immigrants arriving in the United States see their occupational status decline before it gradually improves. However, even 9 years after coming to the United States, the occupational status of immigrants remains lower than prior to their arrival in the country. Our findings also suggest that immigrant women with higher occupational status tend to move more often to the United States than immigrant men. Conversely, immigrant women are more likely than men to experience career interruptions after migration. Finally, occupational employment growth rates (defined as the growth rate in the number of jobs for an occupation) have a positive impact on both men and women immigrants' ability to recover their occupational status, though the impact appears to be greater for immigrant women.     

Between Two Worlds: Source‐Country Gender Roles and Gender Differences in Educational Attainment among Immigrant Children

Recent scholarship has focused on the relationship between source‐country characteristics such as female labor force participation, fertility, level of economic development, gender role attitudes, and immigrants’ labor market assimilation. These studies refer to national‐level factors when accounting for the vast differences in home‐country groups in labor market outcomes. This study asks to what extent these source‐country characteristics affect immigrant children's educational outcomes. Using data from the 2006 Canadian Census and World Values Survey, this article examines the extent to which the gender gap in educational attainment among immigrant children is associated with source‐country factors. Female child immigrants who come from countries with high female labor force participation and high levels of GDP have an advantage over their male counterparts in university education. Source‐country gender role ideology played a role in university completion rates for immigrant parents, but not for child immigrants.     

Unpacking Within‐Household Gender Differences in Partners' Subjective Benefits From Household Income

The authors examine how contributions to household resources, indicated by employment status, influence satisfaction with household income (SWHI) for members of male/female couples. They take changes in SWHI, which may differ within couples, to indicate changes in perceived benefits from their common household income, benefits that can go beyond individual consumption. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey for 2,396 couples from 1996 to 2007, three gender effects are identified. First, men predominate in making the type of contribution that most positively influences SWHI, namely, full‐time employment. Second, the effect of contributions depends on the gender of the contributor, with men's employment being more influential than women's. Third, within couples, making the more influential contribution, as men tend to do, leads to relatively greater SWHI. The authors conclude that gender asymmetry in contributions made to household resources is one way in which gender inequalities invade and inhabit households.     

Reflexivity and the Construction of Competing Discourses of Masculinity in a Female‐Dominated Profession

This paper contributes to the debates on reflexivity and change by extending our understanding of (non‐)reflexivity mechanisms in the discursive constructions of gender. Specifically, I explore how and why women persistently construct contradictory discursive accounts of men and masculinity in a female‐dominated profession of counselling psychology in Russia. Drawing on the concept of ‘interpretative repertoires’ I argue that female counsellors construct different kinds of masculinities based on three ‘repertoires’: psycho‐biological, structural and relational. I demonstrate how these constructions of masculinity are imbued with different meanings and are used to explain only certain contexts, which precludes women's ability to reflect on their contradictory nature. I conclude by discussing how an exploration of discursive (non‐)reflexivity extends our understanding of the conditions for gender transformations.     

Immigrant and native ethnic enterprises in Mexican American neighborhoods: differing perceptions of Mexican immigrant workers

This study uses original data from a large sample of businesses located in Mexican ethnic neighborhoods (barrios) in Texas and California to analyze how perceptions of the economic roles of Mexican immigrant workers differ among 3 employer groups: native ethnic, immigrant ethnic, and non-ethnic. It was found that the immigrant ethnic employer group depends more on Mexican immigrants as workers and as consumers than does the native ethnic group, which tends in many ways to be more like the non-ethnic group. Differences between results for localities on the border with Mexico and those for non-border localities are also discussed.     

The Causes and Consequences of Immigrant Labour in the Construction Sector in Malaysia

Malaysian construction is highly dependant on immigrant labour; immigrants account for nearly 70 per cent of its workforce. Although they have aided the sector's rapid expansion, it has not been without costs. This paper examines the impact of immigrant labour on construction. The main finding is that immigrants, being largely unskilled, did not contribute to skill formation. Instead, they accumulated skills on‐the‐job, which were lost when they returned home. There was no evidence that immigrants displaced domestic workers since they were concentrated in jobs rejected by Malaysians. Furthermore, unlike in earlier periods, legal immigrants were no longer a cheap option, given the regulations governing their employment. They were not used to cut costs per se, but were used because domestic workers were not available in sufficient numbers. Despite the large immigrant presence, the general wage level increased, though admittedly not as rapidly as it might have in their absence. The reliance on immigrant workers has increased the need for supervision and quality control, thereby reducing the savings in cost; nonetheless, immigrants have helped keep costs in check. Surprisingly, rising wages and the continued shortage of labour have not led to a widespread adoption of labour‐saving methods. This is partly because productivity increases have managed to outpace wage increases, though this advantage is petering out. Also, immigrant presence has kept wages, as a proportion of total costs, manageable. The over reliance of the sector on immigrant labour is not desirable, especially since the majority is drawn from one source ‐ Indonesia. Any disruption of supply from this source can undermine the Malaysian economy. To avoid this, Malaysia must vary its source of immigrant labour and intensify efforts to attract domestic workers by improving conditions in construction.     

Imaginaries of postponed arrival: on seeing ‘society’ and its ‘immigrants’

This paper discusses a logic of seeing in official assessments of the ‘integration of immigrants’ in West European societies and interprets these as arrival narratives. In postcolonial and diasporic literature, the arrival narrative is not concerned with the actual date of arrival but with the question ‘how much has someone really arrived?’ (Quayson, A. 2013. Postcolonialism and the diasporic imaginary. Lecture series: New directions in literary postcolonial studies. Utrecht University, 7 Oct.). The official, state-initiated monitoring of immigrant integration is based upon measurements of the degree to which the population classified as ‘immigrant’ is ‘integrated’ in a ‘host society’. In literary terms, this can be interpreted as a narrative in which a personage – classified in highly specific, contingent ways, as ‘immigrant’ – is portrayed as being in a mode of arriving but without having arrived and without ever really arriving. The way in which this narrative of postponed arrival is shaped involves a specific way of seeing in the routinized work of quantitatively assessing immigrant integration. With the narratological concept of focalization we analyse a logic of seeing present in the reports and images of immigrant integration monitoring practices in the Netherlands. Moreover, we discuss the workings of a societal gaze, instituted on the basis of particular societal norms reproduced at the ‘place of arrival’, that is, the place imagined as ‘society’. This societal gaze operates as a performative practice distributing a way of seeing, thereby enacting the reproduction of existing power asymmetries between ‘members of society’ and ‘immigrants’. As such, we conclude, the hope for ‘arrival’ constitutes a form of ‘cruel optimism’ (Berlant, L., 2011. Cruel optimism. Durham: Duke University Press).     

‘To Do Or Not To Do (Gender)’ and Changing the Sex‐Typing of British Theatre

Concepts of doing, and undoing, gender have become increasingly prevalent within studies of sex‐typed work. However, these concepts, as currently figured and applied, contain a significant analytical lacuna: they tend not to register changes in the sex‐typing of work. In this study we engage this research gap by addressing the changing sex‐typing of British theatre — specifically, the shift from female‐dominated amateur to male‐dominated professional theatre work. We draw upon and develop concepts of doing and undoing gender to understand changes in the sex‐typing of work. In so doing, we explain how spatially and temporally differentiated ways of doing ‘male’ and ‘female’ become implicated in how people make sense of, and enact, the changing spaces and times of ‘amateur/female’ ‘professional/male’ work. Our analysis of theatre work suggests that, despite recent criticisms of their wider significance, concepts of un/doing gender are useful to understand broader changes in the sex‐typing of work. Thus, it also appears possible to (un)change such sex‐typings by undoing gender. However, our analysis suggests that such subversive acts remain ineffective, unless those involved in such gendered undoings engage with, rather than renounce, the gendered doings that help enact the changing sex‐typing of work.     

Age‐at‐Arrival’s Effects on Asian Immigrants’ Socioeconomic Outcomes in Canada and the U.S.1

Age‐at‐arrival is a key predictor of many immigrant outcomes, but discussion continues over how to best measure and study its effects. This research replicates and extends a pioneering study by Myers, Gao, and Emeka [International Migration Review (2009) 43:205–229] on age‐at‐arrival effects among Mexican immigrants in the U.S. to see if similar results hold for other immigrant groups and in other countries. We examine data from the 2000 U.S. census and 2006 American Community Survey, and 1991, 2001, and 2006 Canadian censuses to assess several measures of age‐at‐arrival effects on Asian immigrants’ socioeconomic outcomes. We confirm several of Myers et al.’s key findings, including the absence of clear breakpoints in age‐at‐arrival effects for all outcomes and the superiority of continuous measures of age‐at‐arrival. Additional analysis reveals different age‐at‐arrival effects by gender and Asian ethnicity. We suggest guidelines, supplementing those offered by Myers et al., for measuring and studying age‐at‐arrival’s effects on immigrant outcomes.     

Low-status work consequences on immigrant workers' organization: the cases of five immigrant groups in Athens

The article centres on the repercussions low-prestige work has on the collective organization and representation of immigrant workers. This micro-sociological analysis focuses on the cases of Egyptian, Albanian, Bangladeshi, Palestinian, and Philippine immigrants in Athens and how the frame of their work and their employment affects their participation in their immigrant work associations. Evidence from in-depth interviews proves that the majority of immigrants do not claim established workers' rights and do not seek membership in any unions. On the contrary, they rely on a network of friends and relatives for support and develop individual behaviours and alternative solutions to achieve survival and protection.     

Not only men but also migrants in non-traditional occupations

Domestic labour is considered a typical female job, and due to the arrival of large migration flows to Italy it has experienced a massive ethnicized connotation, peculiar of this sector. This paper focuses on how a double and subaltern condition of belonging to a ‘minority group’ affects gender perceptions of male migrant domestic workers and how they construct their masculinity.

This research is based on a comparison between 54 interviews with male and female migrant domestic workers, drawing on an intersectional approach based on gender and nationality. It shows how moving across borders, living in a host society, and working in a non-traditional job can reshape male immigrants' gender division perceptions, often in contradictory and unexpected ways. It also emerges how the ‘racial glass escalator’ allows reaffirmation of characteristics tied to the privileges of masculinity and furnishes an important and useful framework in which to analyse the experience of men in ‘female’ occupations.     

Reproducing Gendered Hierarchies in Everyday Work: Contradictions in an Employment Office

This paper is concerned with the dynamics of producing gendered hierarchies in the workplace. While the focus is on the present day, developments over the past ten years are also examined. The term ‘doing gender’ is adopted as a method of outlining these dynamics within seemingly static gendered hierarchies. Within the case study organization, a Finnish employment office, the ways of doing gender have shifted from maintaining gendered hierarchic harmony towards women? s and men's separate but invisible cultures. However, men's practices are linked in a more direct way to the textual and official goals of the organization, whereas women's working methods show some implicit opposition to the organizational logic. Throughout gendered contradictions are emphasized: between inequality and equal opportunities; informal sociability and formal rules; and the invisibility and visibility of gender.