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Learning Objectives
- To identify current trends in Canadian employment.
- To identify the ways in which racialization correlates with employment inequality.
- To understand how age discrimination affects younger and older Canadians.
- To understand how household and unpaid work is set apart by gender.
- To understand why foreign workers are often overqualified for their jobs.
- To identify the barriers to employment faced by Canadians with disabilities.
- To understand the Employment Equity Act.
Summary
Introduction to Survival Capital
Survival capital refers to the resources and opportunities people in a modern urban society need to survive and, perhaps, thrive. Employment income, daycare and early childhood education, formal education, housing, transportation, nutritious food, healthcare, legal representation, safety, and some measure of respect are all forms of survival capital.
Theoretical Perspectives on Access to Employment Income
The “common sense perspective” on inequality is the view that people earn what they deserve to earn. Those who work harder get more pay and more job opportunities. However, many sociologists point to the characteristics of society, not the characteristics of individuals, to explain employment income inequality.
Functionalists argue that employment inequality is necessary because high rewards motivate people to work harder. Conflict theorists contend that many people have trouble gaining highly paid employment because the “ruling class” works against them to consolidate its control over valued resources. Feminist theorists note that men enjoy more and better employment opportunities than women, in large part because of women’s heavier responsibility to perform unpaid domestic labour. Finally, symbolic interactionists might study the relationships between workers and bosses, workplace cultures, or situations in which workers make sense of unclear organizational rules.
Different Kinds of Capital
To get the survival capital we are calling access to employment, you need to have and spend other kinds of capital. Human capital includes educational credentials, job experience and skills, and physical fitness for work. Social capital refers to a person’s social contacts, who can help them land or keep a job. Finally, cultural capital involves a person’s ability to present him or herself as someone who will fit into the work group and get along with others. For example, wearing the “proper” clothing can affect a person’s ability to get and keep a job.
Changing Trends in Employment
The 2007–8 global financial crisis resulted in a spike in the unemployment rate, and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was even worse. Recessions produce unemployment because employers cannot afford to pay as many employees.
The quality of available jobs has also declined. Many well-paying manufacturing jobs have been lost when companies moved their production to another location, usually to gain access to cheaper labour. Accompanying this has been a shift to temporary work and other forms of precarious employment. This has resulted in a decrease in benefits such as pensions and healthcare plans. The number of Canadians working unionized jobs has also decreased. Many Canadians working minimum wage jobs cannot meet their basic needs even with full-time employment. This population is called the working poor.
At the same time, the quality of work has declined. Flexible work arrangements have become less common, while work demands have increased. The data also show that reported levels of stress and depression have increased, and levels of life satisfaction have decreased.
Immigrants in Canada
The employment gap between immigrant and Canadian-born workers is shrinking, but immigrants are more likely to work in low-paying jobs that they are overqualified for. This is referred to as de-professionalization and often occurs because Canada does not recognize credentials earned overseas. Many immigrants must complete more education or receive professional certification in Canada, a process called relicensing. However, this is an expensive and lengthy undertaking. Furthermore, many immigrants who complete their education in Canada still face large gaps in their earnings compared to Canadian-born workers.
Immigrants are also more likely to work part time or work short-term contracts. They are less likely to work unionized jobs and more likely to experience workplace injuries. Research often identifies a lack of language skills as a barrier to immigrants securing employment. In addition, immigrants usually have fewer social contacts in Canada. Temporary foreign workers and non-status workers are two categories of immigrant workers that are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and inadequate compensation.
Racialized People in Canada
Racialized stratification is the process by which the membership of an individual or a group to a race becomes the basis for unequal treatment in a society. The unemployment rate is higher for racialized job seekers, whether they are immigrants or Canadian-born people. This is despite the fact that racialized people are, on average, more educated than non-racialized people in Canada. Among immigrants, those from the Philippines have the highest employment rate. Immigrants from Latin American countries fare a little worse, and those from African countries have the lowest employment rate.
Racialized Canadians are also more likely to be employed in insecure, temporary, or low-paying jobs than non-racialized Canadians. Racialized Canadians earn only 81 cents for every dollar paid to non-racialized Canadians, and racialized women face the added disadvantage of gender. Racialized immigrants fare more poorly than white immigrants, Canadian-born white people, and Canadian-born racialized people when it comes to average income.
Young People in Canada
The 2008 recession was especially hard on young workers. Today, postsecondary education requirements are more demanding, education and housing are more expensive, the debt load is larger, and the job market is more competitive than ever. A lack of education increasingly reduces the likelihood of youth employment. In addition, more seniors are leaving retirement and working jobs traditionally held by youth. Age discrimination may also act as a barrier to employment for young people.
Women in Canada
Today, more women are working in paid jobs than in previous decades, and they are increasingly working in positions previously held by men. As well, women in the labour force are less likely than men to be unemployed. However, women are more likely than men to hold precarious jobs. They also contribute disproportionally to the field of “emotional work,” which refers to service jobs that require managing and hiding emotions every day.
The wage gap between men and women is a continued topic of debate. Women still work mainly in female-dominated fields such as healthcare, education, sales, and service jobs, some of which pay less than jobs traditionally held by men. Women also earn less than men for the same work, particularly in male-oriented primary industries. They are more likely to experience imposter syndrome, which may prevent them from asking for raises or applying for promotions. Finally, it is women who mainly perform the work of social reproduction. The burden of domestic responsibilities can force women to leave the workforce or take lower-paying jobs.
Seniors in Canada
Canada’s population is aging, and the proportion of working seniors has increased. Senior employees have much to offer workplaces. However, older workers who have lost a job may have trouble finding a new one that needs the same skills. In some cases, they may not be considered for jobs due to their age. They may face skill obsolescence, meaning that their skills are no longer applicable in rapidly changing technological environments. Older workers may also experience a declining ability to perform job tasks that need physical strength, mobility, vision, hearing, speed, and reaction time, although they often offset these challenges with other qualities. Typically, Canadians elect to stop formal, paid work around the age of 65. However, some have emotional, physical, or financial reasons to remain employed.
Indigenous Peoples in Canada
Indigenous Peoples have higher unemployment rates than non-Indigenous people. Potential reasons for this inequality include family structure, the long-term impacts of residential schools, access to education, and finally structural discrimination.
Indigenous women often become mothers at a younger age than non-Indigenous women, and a significantly higher proportion of Indigenous women are single parents. Single parents, young ones especially, face significant challenges securing employment.
Sociologists have also explored the long-term impacts of residential schools on the employment of Indigenous youth today. Some residential school survivors report struggling to understand their parental roles in helping their children find pathways to employment.
Indigenous youth are also less likely than non-Indigenous youth to finish high school or go on to complete a postsecondary degree or diploma. From a human capital theory perspective, a relative lack of education, qualifications, or job experience is the reason that Indigenous populations are underemployed and earn less. Social capital in the form of networks and social relations may also play a role.
Other researchers have pointed to larger structural social problems, including discrimination and negative characterizations of Indigenous workers. These structural factors often lead to part-time and part-year work, layoffs, poor pay, and unsatisfying work.
LGBTQ+ People in Canada
LGBTQ+ people report facing gender- or sexuality-based discrimination in their jobs or job hunts, and sexual orientation may even impact wages. Trans people in particular experience several issues with employment. They can experience transphobic attitudes and actions during the hiring process and once employed. Elements of work such as the enforced use of gender-binary washrooms can be problematic. Finally, some trans people undergo medical procedures to align their bodies with their gender, which can be expensive and often require considerable preparation, travel, and recovery time. Trans people are especially susceptible to unemployment during this time.
People with Disabilities in Canada
On average, the employment rate of Canadians who report a disability trails behind that of their non-disabled counterparts. Data indicate that the greater the reported severity of the disability, the greater the likelihood of unemployment. The wage gap also increases with the severity of the disability: people with severe disabilities earn half the income of those with no reported disabilities. Canadians with a disability are also far more likely to live in poverty.
Workers with disabilities often have less education and fewer qualifications than the general population, which may be a barrier to employment. Another barrier may be that workplaces do not meet the diverse needs of Canadians working with a disability (through physical changes, adaptive technology, flexible work hours, etc.). Finally, there is the issue of stigma, particularly towards people with severe mental illnesses.
Effects of Unequal Access
Unequal access to survival capital is disadvantageous for all of society, not just the poor. Countries that score poorly on income equality measures also score poorly on health and social measures, including infant mortality, levels of stress, the proportion of the population in prison, levels of obesity, numbers of teenaged pregnancies, and more. This may occur because unequal societies foster heightened stress and anxiety. People cling to their status, push others down, and compete for opportunities to move up to positions with more power, status, and wealth.
The ability of individuals to move within a social hierarchy is called social mobility. In a self-perpetuating cycle, inequality decreases social mobility and increases income inequality. In turn, income inequality compounds and worsens the effects of other inequalities, especially for vulnerable populations. Similarly, inequality reduces children’s educational performance, which can affect their job prospects.
Strategies of Resistance
The Employment Equity Act was first passed in 1986 and takes an equity-based approach to equality. It asserts that treating people equally may mean treating them differently. Laws at both the provincial and federal levels make various kinds of discrimination in the workplace illegal. The Employment Equity Act differs from these laws in that it requires employers to actively recruit employees from certain historically disadvantaged populations. However, it only applies to federally regulated employers. Moreover, not everyone supports the Employment Equity Act. The first objection is grounded in the belief that hiring aimed at improving access to employment for vulnerable populations limits opportunities for other deserving candidates (i.e., “reverse racism”). The second objection suggests the list of historically disadvantaged populations included in the Act should be expanded to include LGBTQ+ people and older workers.
Some of the groups we have discussed in this chapter are better able than others to develop and carry out collective strategies of resistance. For example, immigrants often self-segregate in ethnically homogeneous communities with institutional completeness. Immigrants who settle in Canada often access some form of settlement services. These are organizations staffed by both paid workers and volunteers who help immigrants in various ways (such as by providing English-language instruction, practice job interviews, job search workshops, etc.).
Individual-level solutions also have a role to play in reducing barriers to employment. One such initiative is the “Dress for Success” organization, founded by Nancy Lublin in 1996, which provides low-income women with suits and accessories to wear to their job interviews.