Between 2016 and 2021, Canada admitted over 1.3 million immigrants of whom approximately 51% were women. Nearly 60% of newcomer women arrived in Canada through economic immigration pathways programs that select applicants based on skills, work experience, and education to fill labour market gaps. Although most immigrants arrive with the desire, qualifications, and skills needed to work in different sectors of the Canadian economy, many fail to find secure, appropriate, or meaningful jobs. In 2021, racialized immigrant women aged 25 to 54 had the lowest labour force participation and employment rates, and the highest unemployment rates of any group in Canada.
Labour market barriers reflected in the Statistics Canada Census, surveyed every five years, shows the outcome of how gendered and racialized norms systematically constrain immigrant women’s income and occupational mobility. The labour market channels even highly educated newcomer women through immigration programs for low-wage, feminized care roles. While approval for admission requires high human capital investments like education and work experience, the kinds of jobs afforded to high skill immigrants do not require high skill. The labour market systemically neglects to recognize foreign credentials, considers country of origin to assess language skills, even if language of instruction for education was in English, and foreign licensing, even if standards can be found to be equivalent to Canadian licenses. It is challenging for women to continue upwards from these low-wage, low-skill roles, lending to long-term economic disadvantages despite the credentials and experience from their country of origin.
In addition, the disparities found in immigration pathways are rooted in biases within Canada’s “points-based” immigration system. While the system is framed as meritocratic, its reliance on education, language, and work experience privileges those with access to such resources, overlooking global inequalities. The system penalizes women for the structural disadvantages embedded in both their countries of origin and Canada.
The ongoing mismatch and underuse of available skill and labour brought by newcomer women have imposed real costs on the Canadian economy. At a moment when the federal government is focused on strengthening economic resilience and protecting national sovereignty, it has largely ignored public policy to address this issue. Over the past decade, Statistics Canada data demonstrates that immigrant women encountered significant and systemic barriers to economic mobility, but they are absent from plans for building Canada’s economic resilience and sovereignty. Three insights from the census data stand out showing that gaps are growing.
First, immigrant women in Canada face persistent income disparities and lower economic gains, relative to their educational qualifications, than their male counterparts. The median income of immigrant men exceeded that of immigrant women by more than $8000 in both 2016 and 2021. While immigrant women are often highly educated, as required for admission through the economic immigration pathway, employment and incomes do not reflect this level of education. In 2021, the median incomes of both immigrant men and women increased from 2016 as more arrivals were admitted with a bachelor’s degree. However, men holding bachelor’s degrees saw incomes grow by approximately $400 more than holding the same education.
Second, immigrant women are often relegated to feminized sectors of the labour market, such as caregiving, which limits their occupational and income mobility. Many immigration pathways funnel women into these roles, which can occur regardless of education and skill. Nearly 35% of female principal applicants arrived in Canada through caregiver programs, like the Home Child Care Worker Program that closed in 2024, compared to under 2% of immigrant men. Moreover, across all immigrant and non-immigrant groups, immigrant women are least represented in senior leadership roles; the gap between immigrant women in senior leadership roles and Canadian-born men has grown, having increased by 8% between 2016 and 2021.
Third, data shows that structural barriers continue to shape the economic trajectories of immigrant women long after arrival. During the economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19 related volatilities, first-generation immigrant women faced the highest unemployment rate compared to all groups, and many left the labour market entirely. In 2021, only 59% of first-generation immigrant women were actively working or looking for work. Though some may be students, it is likely that limited access to affordable childcare also constrains labour market participation among immigrant women, alongside other factors such as recency of arrival and persistent home country norms.
Immigrant women as a group have seen rapid growth in developing human capital since the 1970s and the first wave of the present-day points system program. Whether acquired abroad to qualify for immigration, or developed in Canada, immigrant women are attaining higher levels of education, skills, and work experience, which has the capacity to stimulate broader economic growth. The failure to match these skills to skilled jobs, which the labour market also struggles fill, wastes Canada’s productivity potential while the unemployment rate rises more for recent immigrants than people born in Canada. At a time when Canada faces an ageing population, pressing labour shortages in key economic sectors, and new restrictions to immigration made in reaction to perception and scapegoating, rather than sound public policy, we cannot afford to overlook recent newcomer women.
The policy tools to address this issue exist, but they need to be applied with gender equity at their core. Credential recognition remains one of the most significant bottlenecks facing immigrant women. While Canada has begun piloting faster assessments for internationally trained specialists, similar efforts are needed in sectors where workers are needed like nursing and early childhood education. Streamlining licensing pathways, reducing application costs, recognizing language skills, and expanding access to workplace-based language training are policies that can be easily implemented with great benefit in plugging Canada’s economic gaps.
Affordable childcare is essential for greater labour market participation. Many newcomer families face inequities in childcare, with limited spots in culturally responsive childcare centres, and unfamiliarity with the Canadian system itself as newcomers. Values from country of origin and the absence of extended family networks greatly influence decisions to engage in paid work for immigrant women. However, examples from Sweden demonstrate that cultural barriers to workforce entry can be effectively mitigated through institutional childcare supports that lessen women’s care burden.
Furthermore, Canada’s points-based system favours career paths that are ‘immediately employable,’ like STEM careers, and does not account for gendered inequities in access to education in countries of origin. This effectively gender codes economic trajectories. Introducing gender-sensitive scoring into the assessment of the economic immigration stream that accounts for career interruptions, undervalued care experience, and global inequalities in access to training would make admissions more equitable. The Government of Canada’s Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) is a framework that evaluates how policies impact people differently based on their gender and other intersecting factors, such as race and age. Expanding GBA+ assessments to evaluate the long-term economic outcomes of immigration pathways, rather than focusing only on admission fairness, would also ensure that pathways to permanent residency do not inadvertently steer women into feminized sectors, allowing skills and experience to match job needs for both workers and employers.
Ensuring equitable economic integration for immigrant women is more than a matter for social justice. It is also important for unlocking Canada’s economic potential and enhancing the long-term effectiveness of its immigration and labour market policies that have not evolved since their introduction in the 1970s. Immigrant women are among the most educated and resilient groups in the country. Their underutilization is a policy choice and must be changed to realize the full economic rights of Canadians.
This piece was written for the Centre for Global Social Policy’s Opinion Piece project, with funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canada Research Chairs.
