Discrimination at Work: Comparing the Experiences of Foreign-trained and Locally-trained Engineers in Canada

Authors

Usha George, Ryerson University
Ferzana Chaze, York UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-2014

Keywords

Canada, immigrants, foreign-training, discrimination, engineers

Abstract

This paper reports on the findings of a study of the experiences of discrimination faced by internationally- trained engineers in Canada. Three hundred foreign-trained and two hundred locally trained engineers were surveyed in order to identify the relationship of race, language proficiency, and location of training in finding work in the engineering field. In addition to measuring whether the applicants found work in the engineering field, this paper also sought to understand the perception of discrimination of internationally-trained engineers. Our findings demonstrate the relationship of race/ethnicity and its related marker—foreign training—with both ability to secure work in the engineering field and perceptions of discrimination. In the case of new immigrants, location of training was found to be a significant predictor of ability to find work in the engineering field, where locally-trained engineers were far more likely to acquire a job in the engineering field than foreign-trained engineers. Race/ethnicity was also found to be significantly associated with getting an engineering job among the locally-trained engineers.

Comments

Reprinted with permission of the publisher http://soci.ucalgary.ca/ces/ 16

September 2016: At the time of publication, Sheridan College author Ferzana Chase was associated with York University.

Faculty

Faculty of Applied Health & Community Studies

School

School of Community Studies

Journal

Canadian Ethnic Studies

Version

Publisher's version

Peer Reviewed/Refereed Publication

yes

Terms of Use

Terms of Use for Works posted in SOURCE.

Copyright

© 2014 Canadian Ethnic Studies Association

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Original Publication Citation

George, U., & Chaze, F. (2014). Discrimination at work: Comparing the experiences of foreign-trained and locally-trained engineers in Canada. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 46(1), 1-21.

SOURCE Citation

George, Usha and Chaze, Ferzana, "Discrimination at Work: Comparing the Experiences of Foreign-trained and Locally-trained Engineers in Canada" (2014). Faculty Publications and Scholarship. 11.
https://source.sheridancollege.ca/fahcs_comm_publ/11