Are Highly Skilled Immigrant Women Professionally Integrated?

Upon arriving in host countries, highly skilled immigrant women face numerous challenges entering the labor market. Not only may it be difficult to find a professional occupation, but that occupation may not suit their educational level, skills or knowledge. A recently published working paper shows the importance of family obligations and origin to women’s professional integration in Switzerland.

The Migration-Mobility Survey, carried out by the nccr – on the move in 2016 and 2018, provided data on the professional integration of highly skilled women that recently arrived in Switzerland. An analysis of the 2016 data reveals that, compared to immigrant men, women face more difficulties in participating in the Swiss labor market because of the traditional distribution of family obligations, discrimination, gendered types of skills and a lack of networks when arriving in the country for family reasons. Furthermore, this situation may be exacerbated by prejudices related to ethnicity or migration background.

Being Overeducated or Excluded from the Labor Market

The population under study includes 1,121 highly skilled immigrant women (i.e., holding a tertiary education level) who arrived recently (10 years or less) and who worked before migrating to Switzerland. According to the data, 16.7% of them work in professional positions that require less than their actual level of education (i.e., they are overeducated), whereas 29.1% are excluded from the labor market (i.e., housewives or unemployed). Therefore, only a little more than half of the sample is adequately integrated in the Swiss labor market.

Family Commitments

The main reason why labor market integration is more difficult for women than for men is the responsibility for childcare. Women are more likely to restrict their career progression because of traditional family roles that push them into part-time jobs, or towards occupations that are close to their home or that do not suit their qualifications; they may even drop out of the labor market after migration to take care of the family. From the available data it becomes clear that having children increases the risk of being excluded from the job market.

The reasons for migration play an important role as well. Highly educated women, who move for family reasons, face a higher risk of being excluded from the job market after arriving in Switzerland. Therefore, having a family worsens the pre-existing inequality between women and men in the exercise of a professional activity. The intensification of domestic responsibilities leads women to re-orient themselves from the public towards the private sphere after immigrating. In Switzerland, the limited availability of institutional childcare facilities and the high price of childcare particularly affect women’s participation in the labor market. Indeed, they face difficulties balancing work and family obligations.

The Importance of Origin

In addition to specific gender-related factors, the country of origin of a woman may impact upon her integration into the Swiss labor market. Cultural preferences or traditional values concerning the distribution of family responsibilities may partially contribute to explaining overeducation and labor market exclusion of female migrants, but exposure to discrimination – depending on the country of origin – also plays an important role. Approximately one half of the highly educated immigrant women from Western Africa and Latin America reported having experienced situations of prejudice or discrimination in Switzerland during the last 24 months before having participated in the survey.

The results show that the risk of being excluded from the labor market is 4 to 6 times higher for the group of highly skilled immigrant women from Western Africa, Latin America and Asia – most of them being from India – compared to immigrant women from countries bordering Switzerland. This increase in risk is also observed among immigrant women from other European countries and North America – but to a lesser extent.

The risk of overeducation is double as high for women from Latin America and other European countries than for immigrant women from neighboring countries. In contrast, those who come from North America have a lower risk of occupying a position for which they are overeducated, i.e., one that requires less than the actual level of education.

A Cumulative Disadvantage

These results suggest that the combination of disadvantages encountered on the labor market creates a form of cumulative discrimination on an intersectional basis, which increases the probability of turning towards low-skilled jobs to find an occupation or of dropping out of the labor market after migration. Indeed, not only as women but also as immigrants originating from countries belonging to the Global “South”, many highly skilled female immigrants face aggregated obstacles and therefore cumulative disadvantage.

While being inactive on the labor market is explained by family configuration and origin, overeducation depends, among other factors, mainly on origin, which is linked to different types of barriers (recognition of diplomas, poor transferability of skills, language, etc.) in addition to discrimination. Nonetheless, both of these issues lead to an underutilization of skills, which is undoubtedly a loss for the highly skilled immigrant women and the society, or in other words, a brain waste.

Roxane Gerber is a doctoral student at the University of Geneva, Institute of Demography and Socioeconomics, associated to the nccr- on the move in the project on “Explaining and Interpreting Migration Flows and Stocks” and focuses on the relation between migration and family trajectories.

References:

– Gerber, Roxane, & Wanner, Philippe (2019). De-qualification and de-emancipation among recently arrived highly skilled immigrant women in Switzerland. Working Paper #23, 2019. Neuchâtel: nccr – on the move