Income Insecurity and Exclusion of Older Immigrant Women in Canada: A Narrative Review
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
In Canada, many older immigrants experience a lack of income security, shame, social exclusion, and social isolation due to insecure access to economic equity and redistribution. In addition, older immigrant women experience disproportionately high rates of income insecurity associated with feelings of shame and social isolation. This narrative review explores why the lack of income security is prevalent among the immigrant population and how financial instability could lead to feelings of shame, unwantedness, social exclusion, and social isolation. The analysis of the articles included in this review identified four themes: i. the mechanisms of income insecurity related to financial literacy; ii. shame, unwantedness, and social isolation associated with lack of income security for immigrant women; iii. women’s experiences with income insecurity and social exclusion; and iv. ageism, immigration, resistance, and resilience.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors hold the copyright of all published articles except otherwise stated.
References
Basavarajappa, K.G. (2000). Distribution, Inequality and Concentration of income among older immigrants in Canada. International Migration, 38(1), 47–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2435.00098.
Bergen,A.P.L. van,. Loon, A., Wit, M. A. de, Hoff, S. J., Wolf, J. R. L. ., & Hemert, A. M. van. (2019). Evaluating the cross-cultural validity of the Dutch version of the Social Exclusion Index for Health Surveys (SEI-HS): A mixed methods study. PloS One, 14(11), e0224687–e0224687. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224687.
Boyd, M. (1989). Immigration and income security policies in Canada: Implications for elderly immigrant women. Population Research and Policy Review, 8(1), 5–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00124278.
Boyd, M. (1992). Gender, visible minority and immigrant earnings inequality: reassessing an employment equity premise, in Vic Satzewich (ED.), Deconstructing a Nation: Immigration, Multiculturalism and Racism in 90’s Canada, Chapter 13, Fernwood Publishing, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Brown, B. (2006). Shame Resilience Theory: A Grounded Theory study on women and shame. Families in Society, 87(1), 43–52. https://doi.org/10.1606/1044-3894.3483.
Bunel, M., & Guironnet, J.-P. (2017). Income inequalities for recently graduated French workers: A multilevel modelling approach. Empirical Economics, 53(2), 755–778. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-016-1130-4.
de Hooge, I.E., Breugelmans, S. M., Wagemans, F. M. A., & Zeelenberg, M. (2018). The social side of shame: approach versus withdrawal. Cognition and Emotion, 32(8), 1671–1677. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2017.1422696.
Debesay, J.,Nortvedt, L., & Langhammer, B. (2022). Social inequalities and health among older immigrant women in the Nordic countries: An integrative review. SAGE Open Nursing, 8, 23779608221084962–23779608221084962. https://doi.org/10.1177/23779608221084962
Ferrari, R. (2015). Writing narrative style literature reviews. Medical Writing (Leeds), 24(4), 230–235. https://doi.org/10.1179/2047480615Z.000000000329.
Ferrer, I., (2017). Ageing Filipino domestic workers and the (in)adequacy of retirement provisions in Canada. Canadian Journal on Aging, 36(1), 15–29. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0714980816000684.
Ferrer,I., Lee, Y., & Khan, M. N. (2020). Understanding the lived experiences and financial realities of older immigrants. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 52(2), 53–78. https://doi.org/10.1353/ces.2020.0013.
Foster, N,. Kapiriri, L., Grignon, M., & McKenzie, K. (2023). “But…I survived”: A phenomenological study of the health and wellbeing of aging Black women in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada. Journal of Women & Aging, 35(1), 22–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/08952841.2022.2079925.
Green, B.N., Johnson,C. D., & Adams, A. (2006). Writing narrative literature reviews for peer-reviewed journals: secrets of the trade. Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, 5(3), 101–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0899-3467(07)60142-6.
Gidengil, E,. & Stolle, D. (2012). What do women know about government services and benefits? Canadian Public Policy, 38(1), 31–54. https://doi.org/10.3138/cpp.38.1.31.
Guenther, L. (2011). Shame and the temporality of social life. Continental Philosophy Review, 44(1), 23–39. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-011-9164-y.
Heisig, J.P., Lancee, B., & Radl, J. (2018). Ethnic inequality in retirement income: a comparative analysis of immigrant–native gaps in Western Europe. Ageing and Society, 38(10), 1963–1994. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X17000332.
Kei, W., Seidel, M-D., Ma, D., & Houshmand, M. (2019). Results from the 2016 Census: Examining the effect of public pension benefits on the low income of senior immigrants. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2019001/article/00017-eng.htm. Accessed March 24, 2023.
Kerr, C., Charles, N., & Kerr, M. (1988). Women, food, and families. Manchester Press.
Koehn, S., Spencer, C., & Hwang, E. (2010). Promises, promises: Cultural and legal dimensions of sponsorship for immigrant seniors. Diversity and aging among immigrant seniors in Canada: Changing faces and greying temples, 79-102. Detselig Enterprises Ltd.; 2010:79-102.
Lightman, N,. & Good Gingrich, L. (2012). The intersecting dynamics of social exclusion: Age, gender, race and immigrant status in Canada’s labour market. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 44(3), 121–145. https://doi.org/10.1353/ces.2013.0010.
Mirza, R.M,. Rhyason, M., McDonald, L., Syed, M. A., Kryzanowski, L., Iafolla, V., David, K., & Dillman, A. (2017). Empowerment of older immigrant women through improved financial literacy. Innovation in Aging, 1(suppl_1), 755–755. https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igx004.2731.
Rehm, M., Schneebaum, A., & Schuster, B. (2022). Intra-couple wealth inequality: What’s socio-demographics got to do with it? European Journal of Population, 38(4), 681–720. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-022-09633-4.
Siddharth, S,. & Gayatri, B. (2021). Writing and appraising narrative reviews. Journal of Clinical and Scientific Research, 10(3), 169–172. https://doi.org/10.4103/jcsr.jcsr_1_21
Vázquez, J. J. Panadero, S., & García-Perez, C. (2020). Immigrant women living homeless in Madrid (Spain). American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 90(5), 633–643. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000488.
Wang, L,. Guruge, S., & Montana, G. (2019). Older immigrants’ access to primary health care in Canada: A scoping review. Canadian Journal on Aging, 38(2), 193–209. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0714980818000648.
Yeo, Y,.. (2017). Healthcare inequality issues among immigrant elders after neoliberal welfare reform: empirical findings from the United States. The European Journal of Health Economics, 18(5), 547–565. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-016-0809-y.