AFRICAN WOMEN AND THE METROPOLITAN TORONTO LABOUR MARKET IN THE 1990S: Migrating to a Multicultural Society in a Recession

This research report is the outcome of the collaborative efforts of many people and institutions. We thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) for project funding and commend their support of research on special topics, such as the competition on "Women and Work", for which we wrote our original proposal. For organizational support, we are indebted to and thank Human Resources Development Canada, The African Training and Education Centre, and the National Ghanaian-Canadian Association. At the University of Toronto, we are particularly indebted to New College and its staff for providing administrative support and research space. New College also generously hosted and financially supported the Workshop on African Women and Employment held February 4, 1995. We thank the Provost's Office and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science for support of the workshop. Like that of New College, their support demonstrates the University's willingness to make its resources accessible to the African community in Toronto in very concrete ways. Our heartfelt thanks go to the dynamic women from African communities across Metro who contributed to this research in many ways and with whom it was, indeed, a privilege to work. We are grateful to Dr. Patience Elabor-Idemudia for her contribution to the project during the initial research phase. We appreciate Monique Newton's genuine commitment to the project and her contribution to it as Research Assistant. Our field assistants, Yawa Darkeh, Sarah Kibaalya, and Angela Nwabuogo, deserve special praise. Moreover, we gratefully acknowledge the help of personnel from numerous government and non-government agencies serving immigrants and refugees from whom we learned a great deal. We also wish to thank Drs. Seggane Musisi and Tony Turrittin. Seggane took over childcare responsibilities when research demands were pressing; Tony put in many hours preparing the data for analysis. We are grateful to and wish to thank Bob Ddamulira for his expertise in matters relating to desk-top publishing. We extend our deepest appreciation, however, to the survey participants and women who consented to be interviewed in-depth for so ably reflecting upon and sharing their experiences with us and with whom we feel a special bond.

Introduction and Conceptual Framework

Literature Review

On the State: Economic Climate, Pay Equity, Women, Work and Migration

Methodology -- A Reflexive View

Statistical Overview of the Research Sample

In-depth Interviews

Location of African Women in the Canadian Labour Force

Mediating between Women and the State: African Women, Social Organization and the Delivery of Employment Services and Training Programmes

Conclusions and Proposals for Change

Collaborators

The african women’s questionnaire

The agency questionnaire

Workshop - Finding space for our voices

The Community-based Model of Service Delivery

The Delivery of Language Instruction

additional tables

TABLE 3.1 -- African Immigrants to Canada, Ontario and Metro Toronto as Percent of Total Immigrants and Refugees, 1956-1993

TABLE 3.2 -- Number and Percentage African Immigrants in Canada by Sex

TABLE 3.3 -- African Migration to Toronto by Decade and Sex, 1961 to 1991

TABLE 3.4 -- Entry Status and Sex of African Immigrants to Canada

TABLE 3.5 -- Entry Class of Africans compared to all Immigrants to Canada

TABLE 3.6 -- Number and Percent African Refugees Compared to Total Refugees to Canada

TABLE 3.7 -- Refugees to Canada by Country in Africa

TABLE 5.1 -- Age

TABLE 5.2 -- Marital Status

TABLE 5.3 -- Sponsored by

TABLE 5.4 -- SUMMARY -- Procession of a Work Permit and Information about Work in Canada

TABLE 5.5 -- Evaluation of Knowledge of English

TABLE 5.6 -- Reasons Resigned from Job

TABLE 5.7 -- Reasons Lost Job

TABLE 5.8 -- Canadian Training by Level of Foreign Education

TABLE 5.9 -- Canadian Training by Age

TABLE 5.10 -- Canadian Training by Employment Sector

TABLE 5.11 -- Canadian Employment Status by Entry Status

TABLE 5.12 -- Comparison of Expected and Actual Occupational Status

TABLE 5.13 -- Percentage Respondents, African Women and All Women in Toronto and in Canada Working in 5 Occupational Categories

TABLE 5.14 -- Household Composition

TABLE 5.15 -- Estimated Annual Household Income Reported by Working Women

TABLE 5.16 -- Highest Level and Canadian Equivalent of Non-Canadian Professional African Women's Education

TABLE 5.17 -- Canadian Equivalent of African Professional Women's Non-Canadian Educational Levels

TABLE 5.18 -- Work Expectations of Foreign-Trained Professional African Women Compared to Actual Employment Status (Sample A)

TABLE 5.19 -- Clerical Workers' Non-Canadian and Canadian Equivalent Educational Levels

TABLE 5.20 -- Service/Sales Workers' Non-Canadian and Canadian Equivalent Educational Levels Compared

TABLE 5.21 -- Factory Workers' Non-Canadian and Equivalent Canadian Educational Levels

TABLE 5.22 -- Non-Canadian and Canadian Equivalent Educational Levels of Self-Employed Women

TABLE 5.23 -- Non-Canadian and Equivalent Canadian Educational Levels of Unemployed African Women

TABLE 5.24 -- Reasons Currently Unemployed

TABLE 5.25 -- Reasons Can't Get a Job

TABLE 5.26 -- Strategies to Get Work

TABLE 8.1 -- Employment Services and Training Programmes Agency Personnel Consider Most Important with Respect to Meeting African Women's Needs, in Order of Importance (March 1995)

TABLE 8.2 -- Community-Based Agencies Listed by Size of Budget and Number of Staff

TABLE 8.3 -- African Staff in Community-Based Training Agencies

TABLE 8.4 -- Agency Priorities for African Women Clients' Training Needs

TABLE 8.5 -- Estimated Percent of African Women Who do not Know English

TABLE 8.6 -- Occupational Sector in Country of Origin

TABLE 8.7 -- Most Cost-Effective Programmes Available to African Women Clients

FIGURE 5.1 -- Region of Origin

FIGURE 5.2 -- Comparison of Non-Canadian and Equivalent Canadian Educational Levels

FIGURE 5.3 -- Entry Status

FIGURE 5.4 -- Reason Migrated to Canada

FIGURE 5.5 -- Number Years in Canada

FIGURE 5.6 -- Level at which Non-Canadian Education Evaluated

FIGURE 5.7 -- Occupational Status of First Job in Canada

FIGURE 5.8 -- How Got Canadian Experience

FIGURE 5.9 -- Type Discrimination Experienced at Work

FIGURE 5.10 -- Respondents' Participation and Unemployment Rates Compared with that of All African Women, All African Men and All Women, 1991 Toronto CMA

FIGURE 5.11 -- Opinions on African Women's Employment Situation in Canada

FIGURE 5.12 -- Average Full-time All-Year Income Reported for African Women and Men and All Women and Men, 1991 Toronto CMA and Canada

Appendix I -- Collaborators

Appendix II -- The African Women's Questionnaire

Appendix III --The Agency Questionnaire

Appendix IV-- Workshop -- Finding Space for Our Voices

Appendix V -- The Community-based Model of Service Delivery in Toronto with an Historical Overview

Appendix VI -- The Delivery of Language Instruction

Appendix VII -- Additional Tables

TABLE 1 -- Country of Origin

TABLE 2 -- Type Work in Country of Origin

TABLE 3 -- Legal Status in Canada

TABLE 4 -- Self-Assessment of Accent when Speaking English

TABLE 5 -- Steps to Finding Employment in Canada

TABLE 6 -- Time Held First Job

TABLE 7 -- Participation in and Other Information on English Language Classes

TABLE 8 -- Attended Language Classes by Level of Foreign Education

TABLE 9 -- Length Time Attended Classes

TABLE 10 -- Source Information about Language Classes

TABLE 11 -- Type Canadian Training by Level of Foreign Education

TABLE 12-- Employment Situation of Working Respondents Compared to All African Working Women in the 1991 Toronto CMA

TABLE 13 -- Working Conditions and Workplace Environment

TABLE 14 -- Opinions about Gender and Employment

TABLE 15 -- Reasons African Women Face Special Employment Problems

TABLE 16 -- Self-employed Women's Estimate of Total Annual Income from All Sources

TABLE 17 -- Self-employed Women's Estimate of Monthly Earnings after Expenses

"Unemployment and underemployment are the root of all the other problems we have" (African woman participant in the February 4, 1995 Workshop).

Analysis of African women’s participation in the Canadian labour force is a critical issue for those involved in policy-making, the delivery of employment and training services, and for African women themselves. Such analysis is also important for the women’s movement and for those interested in feminist theory. While it is difficult to put theory into practice, we believe that theoretical understanding must be linked to praxis. Thus, we argue that a detailed examination of the reproduction of inequalities based on race, class, and gender can not only make a contribution to the development of theory, but to real changes in the employment experiences of African women in Metropolitan Toronto.

This study's aim is to document the employment and training experiences and needs of African women who have migrated to Canada as immigrants and refugees. The study was undertaken in recognition of the fact that the numbers of African immigrant and refugee women living in Metropolitan Toronto have increased in the last decade. Africans have been one of fastest growing immigrant and refugee groups entering Canada since the early 1980s; two-fifths or more of the Africans who migrate to Canada have settled in Metropolitan Toronto (Kasozi 1992:5; see Table 3.1).

Our study is the first to focus exclusively on African women’s employment needs and patterns. It reflects the view that employment is a key factor in social integration and that African women face severe labour market discrimination due to their race and gender (Moussa 1992, 1993). While Africans have come to Canada in large numbers only recently, their presence has elicited scholarly attention, particularly on issues and problems relating to Africans' integration into Canadian society (Naidoo 1985; Lamotte 1986; Kasozi 1986, 1988, 1992; Musisi 1992; Opoku-Dapaah 1993). In addition, a number of studies have dealt specifically with refugee issues (Metzger 1987; Neuwirth 1989; Tabeje 1989; Opoku-Dapaah 1994, 1995). With the exception of the work of Helene Moussa (1992; 1993) and Agnes Callamard (1993) on refugee women, a comprehensive literature documenting the experiences of African women has not as yet been produced. However, studies examining the labour market integration of women from other immigrant and refugee communities have generated much useful information (Ramacharan 1976; Turrittin 1976; Arnopoulos 1979; Denis 1981; Silvera 1983; Samuel and Woloski 1985; Iacovetta 1986, 1992; Agnew 1986; Trovato 1986; Labelle et al 1986; Hynes 1987; Ng 1988; Richmond 1989a,b, 1993; Adamson et al 1990; Mendoza 1990; Giles 1993; Scott 1994 [see also Summerfield 1993]).

Women’s participation in the paid labour force has increased steadily since the 1960s, yet the employment status of immigrant women, and African women in particular, has clearly not equalled that of men nor that of white Canadian-born women. Many feminist scholars have adopted a progressive stance in evaluating social institutions and structures that hinder women’s progress in the economy. These include women's labour force participation levels, location, occupational segregation, and wages. Past feminist research has also concentrated on unveiling the processes behind inequalities in the work place. While a number of monographs which look at women’s experiences have been produced, to date, past research has ignored continental African women’s realities and expectations.

Progressive policies to alleviate sexual and racial discrimination have recently been enacted. However, such policies have generally not had a significant impact on African women's employment situation. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, our research contributes to the current effort to re-evaluate the efficacy of these policies (Cuneo 1991).

This study, therefore, appears at a critical juncture in Canada’s efforts to promote policies which will facilitate women's more equitable status in the labour market and economy. Race and gender discrimination become vital political issues in an economy undergoing a recession. While changes in women’s employment will depend on the supply and demand forces in the larger economy, the current reality is that demand is constrained by a recessionary economy and supply shaped and influenced by racial, anti-immigration rhetoric. Our study permits a clearer view of the subtle ways in which perceived gender inequalities and racial discrimination, the household, and the state affect labour market participation and perpetuate inequalities at different levels of women’s day-to-day existences.

The study reaffirms a need for a theory of gender inequality and racial discrimination that recognizes the interconnections between real and abstract structural barriers and unequal relations in the home and between the races in the labour force. The study also makes a strong case for the need to co-ordinate state policies to facilitate equality in the labour market. In our conclusion, we emphasize that African women's equitable participation in the labour market will depend on: 1) the relative strength of the objectives of all levels of government (federal, provincial, and local); 2) co-ordinated policies and strategies designed to achieve them; and 3) the manner in which conflicts between the different levels are articulated and resolved. While critical analysis of state policies and strategies is beyond our terms of reference, our study argues, nevertheless, that, much as the elimination of discriminatory and disenabling employment and immigration policies is needed, it is not sufficient. Gains in other areas of social life, such as social relations beyond the legislative arm of the state, are also essential. These can only be initiated and implemented by African families themselves.

The conceptual framework adopted by this study recognizes the centrality of social and political structures, which remain characterized by patriarchy, to African women's employment location in a society in which resources are distributed unequally between different groups. Such a social structure is a configuration of institutions that have maintained gender, class, and race domination.

Our theoretical perspective rejects the view that race, class, and gender can be prioritized. As far as the choices and options of African women, none of these factors takes precedence over the others. Many African women in Metropolitan Toronto are burdened by all three at the same time; thus, understanding and appreciating these women's employment experiences in the Canadian context necessitates understanding all three. Our study's perspective therefore gives equal analytical weight to class, race, and gender systems of domination.

Analysis of the overall impact of a broad range of state policies and re-evaluation of a variety of other social institutions (such as intra- and inter- household relations, education, religion, etc.) are equally important to our theoretical perspective. Such an approach facilitates understanding how gender, racial, and class domination are maintained by political, economic, and ideological practices shaped by social institutions such as the office, household, factory, government, union, school, religion, the media, and the manner in which these institutions interact. This approach provides a sufficient framework by which to understand the distribution of power and access to resources, as it differs by gender and race. It also helps us understand how the range of people's choices differs by gender and race and where social and political change must occur in order to achieve gender and racial equality.

Our study documents the structural practices by which race and male domination are reproduced over time and shows how people’s actions are constrained and structured by institutionalized social practices. It does not accept the conceptualization of African women as passive victims but rather demonstrates that individuals make conscious decisions in their daily interactions with society which can facilitate equality, be planned for, and put into practice. It is only in this aspect that our study can be utilized for effective proposals for change. As will be clear from the text and our conclusions, strategies to transform African women’s employment situation must be broadly based, encompassing social, political, and economic change.