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2 Gender awareness of skilled immigration policies across the OECD: presenting the GenderImmi data set Introduction When assessing the gender awareness of actual skilled immigration policies, it is necessary to consider gendered differences in life course events and different policy measures of ‘skill’. On a process level, it is also essential to evaluate whether policy-makers incorporate gender assessment into policy design through gender mainstreaming audits and the collection of gender-disaggregated skilled immigration data. In this chapter, I apply the
In the global race for skilled immigrants, governments compete for workers. In pursuing such individuals, governments may incidentally discriminate on gender grounds. Existing gendered differences in the global labour market related to life course trajectories, pay gaps and occupational specialisation are refracted in skilled immigration selection policies. This book analyses the gendered terrain of skilled immigration policies across 12 countries and 37 skilled immigration visas. It argues that while skilled immigration policies are often gendered, this outcome is not inevitable and that governments possess scope in policy design. Further, the book explains the reasons why governments adopt more or less gender aware skilled immigration policies, drawing attention to the engagement of feminist groups and ethnocultural organisations in the policy process. In doing so, it utilises evidence from 128 elite interviews undertaken with representatives of these organisations, as well as government officials, parliamentarians, trade unions and business associations in Australia and Canada over the period 1988 through to 2013. Presenting the first book-length account of the global race for talent from a gender perspective, Gender, migration and the global race for talent will be read by graduate students, researchers, policy-makers and practitioners in the fields of immigration studies, political science, public policy, sociology, gender studies and Australian and Canadian studies.
model introduced under the IRPA. Language testing was made mandatory. As in Australia, the link between employer sponsorship and permanent skilled immigration was tightened. Regulatory changes altered the ways in which immigration policy is made in Canada, moving towards greater bureaucratic control; not dissimilar from the trends documented in Australia in previous chapters. In both countries, these changes increased the role of employers in the selection process, raised the economic rationale of the selection grids and, arguably, also reduced the capacity of
1 Skill and gender: navigating the theoretical terrain Introduction States are increasingly selecting immigrants according to their labour market qualifications and their broad human capital. Using points tests, wage distribution curves and sector-specific visas, governments and employers evaluate newcomers on the basis of their potential contribution to domestic economies. Academics and policy-makers have paid considerable attention to these selection mechanisms and the relative human capital of skilled immigration compared with other immigration flows (e
3 Gendering the policy process: venue shopping and diversity-seeking Introduction The previous chapter identified significant variation both across countries and also within states in the attention paid to gender concerns in skilled immigration selection policies. In particular, I found that Canada ranked higher than Australia for the gender awareness of its skilled immigration policy, although Canada’s ranking has been dropping in recent years. Australia, while always ranking lower than Canada, has also fallen in its gender ranking over time (see Table 2
8 Activist mobilising, state sponsorship and venue shopping capabilities Introduction Governments in Australia and Canada have over the last quarter century pushed towards a more economically selective immigration programme. Initially, Australian policy-makers were better able to realise this goal, although there has been a convergence in policy achievements and processes around both temporary and permanent skilled immigration policies in the two countries since the mid-2000s. In both countries, governments now exercise high levels of bureaucratic control over
1999 and in Canada in 2002, new points tests were adopted that placed more emphasis on language, education and, in the Australian case, work experience than previous selection grids. In both countries, these new points tests also reduced the emphasis on familial connections within skilled immigration selection, by removing or limiting points gained from ‘sponsorship’ by family members already resident in Australia and Canada. This hinted at the growing demarcation between the skilled and family streams outlined in the previous chapter. Despite similar policy
some of the structural challenges represented by population ageing. In fact, skilled immigration not only offsets the decline in the domestic workforce: in many countries, it is becoming the key source of labour market growth (e.g. External Reference Group 2008: 21). Some commentators go so far as to claim that ‘[s]killed immigration will define the landscape of the global labour market over the longer term’ (Alexander et al. 2012: 5). Within this changing economic context, states aggressively compete over skilled immigrants in what has been referred to alternately
4 Changing the mix, 1988–2003: the shift from family to skilled immigration The ideal migrant is a highly skilled 14-year-old unmarried orphan. (Departmental official, Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs Australia, cited in Jenkins 1990) Introduction Structural ageing in Western countries creates new challenges for nation states. Labour market gaps are emerging, particularly in the health and knowledge sectors, and yet, there are fewer workers to fill this emerging need (Chaloff and Lemaitre 2009: 10). These demographic trends are
or permanent resident equipped to fill the position 134 Gendering skilled immigration policy (Migration Act, 140GB(2)). Annual grants of 457 visas have grown significantly from 22,630 visa grants in 1996–97 to 125,070 grants in 2011–12 (DIAC 2013d). At June 2013, the stock of 457 visa holders in Australia was 162,140 individuals (DIAC 2013a). The 457 visa programme was deregulated in important ways under the Howard Coalition government in 2003. In that year, a labour market testing requirement in place since 1996 was removed and replaced with a less stringent