Immigration, Citizenship and Racialization at Work: Unpacking Employment Precarity in Southwestern Ontario

This paper examines the relationship between precarious employment, legalstatus, and racialization. We conceptualize legal status to include theintersections of immigration and citizenship. Usingthe PEPSO survey data weoperationalize three categories of legal status: Canadian born, foreign-borncitizens, and foreign-born non-citizens. First we examine whether the characterof precarious work varies depending on legal status, and find that it does:Citizenship by birth or naturalization reduces employment precarity across mostdimensions and indicators. Next, we ask how legal status intersects withracialization to shape precarious employment. We find that employmentprecarity is disproportionately high for racializednon-citizens. Becoming acitizen mitigates employment precarity. Time in Canada also reduces precarity,but not for non-citizens. Foreign birth and citizenship acquisition intersect withracialization unevenly: Canadian born racialized groups exhibit higheremployment precarity than racialized foreign-born citizens. Our analysisunderscores the importance of including legal status in intersectional analyses ofsocial inequality.

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