Working Rough, Living Poor

132 Pages·2011·1.7 MB·English

Working Rough,
Living Poor

Employment and Income Insecurities faced by Racialized Groups
and their Impacts on Health
Published by Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services, 2011

Study funded by:

To be cited as: Wilson, R.M., P. Landolt, Y.B. Shakya, G. Galabuzi, Z. Zahoorunissa, D. Pham, F.
Cabrera, S. Dahy, and M-P. Joly. (2011). Working Rough, Living Poor: Employment and Income
Insecurities Faced by Racialized Groups in the Black Creek Area and their Impacts on Health.
Toronto: Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services.

The content for this report was collaboratively analyzed and written by the core team of the
Income Security, Race and Health research working group. The research was designed and
implemented with valuable feedback from all our Advisory Committee members and other
community partners (see list in Acknowledgement section)

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily represent the views of The Wellesley
Institute or the Metcalf Foundation.

Requests for permission and copies of this report should be addressed to:
Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services
500-340 College Street
Toronto, ON
M5S 3G3
Telephone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
www.accessalliance.ca

© 2011 Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services
About the Income Security, Race and Health Research Working Group

The Income Security, Race and Health (ISRH) Research Working Group is a interdisciplinary
research group comprising of academics, service providers, and peer researchers interested in
examining racialized economic and health inequalities. The group was established in Toronto in
2006 under the leadership of Access Alliance. The key goals of the ISRH team are to investigate
the systemic causes of growing racialized inequalities in employment and income, and to
document the health impacts of these inequalities. We plan to use evidence generated from this
study to mobilize progressive policy solutions to overcome the systemic employment and health
inequalities faced by racialized groups in Canada.

Our research is guided by principles of Community-Based Research (CBR). The ISRH team
decided to focus the initial phases of the research in the Black Creek area, a low-income
marginalized area in the northwest peri-urban region of Toronto. The team developed strong local
partnerships in the Black Creek area and trained and engaged 10 low-income racialized residents
from the Black Creek area as research collaborators (―peer researchers‖) at all phases of the
project.

In 2007, we used photovoice methodology to document the impact of poverty on racialized
residents of the Black Creek area. See www.accessalliance.ca/research/publications for a pdf copy
of the “Exposed‖ photo book from this project. For the second phase (2008-2009), we conducted 8
focus groups with different racialized groups in the Black Creek area and 3 focus groups with
service providers (management and frontline). This study has generated rich evidence about the
strategies that racialized groups use to achieve employment/income security, the multiple systemic
barriers and discriminations that they experience in the labour market, and the compounding
negative impacts these experiences have on their health (at the individual, family and community
levels). The present report, Working Rough, Living Poor, is based on findings from the second
phase of research.

Research bulletins and other outputs from this study is available from www.accessalliance.ca

The salient findings from the second phase have already raised many new questions and have
catalyzed new research projects. The third phase of our research (to be completed by end of 2011)
involves conducting two rounds of in-depth family interviews with 12 precariously employed
racialized families in the Black Creek area to better understand everyday family strategies for
achieving employment/income security and family-level impacts of precarious employment and
income insecurity. At the same time, Access Alliance has brought together another
interdisciplinary research team to investigate the gendered barriers and de-professionalization that
racialized immigrant women in Toronto face. This study on gendered barriers faced by racialized
immigrant women is one of the six case studies of the Poverty and Precarious Employment in
Southern Ontario (PEPSO) project led by Dr. Wayne Lewchuck and United Way Toronto with
funding from a Community University Research Alliance (CURA) grant. Results from this study
will be available in 2012.

i │Working Rough, Living Poor
Acknowledgements

This report is a result of several years of hard work with input and support from many
collaborators, partners, advisors and students. Our sincere gratitude to everyone who helped with
this study (and apologies if we forgot to include your name below). Your contributions enriched
the quality of the study process as well as it findings.

Thank you to our dedicated Project Advisory Committee members who were instrumental in
helping us design the study, set project priorities and provide ongoing advice along the way. Core
Project Team members (tagged with a ‗*‘) responsible for everyday implementation of the
research are the heart and soul of this study. The project would not have been possible with the
tremendous effort from each member of the Core Project Team and Advisory Committee:

Safy Abouzaid, Peer Researcher
Michelle Ashem, Toronto Public Health
Kenza Belaid, Peer Researcher
Dianne Broad, Griffin Centre
Lisa Brown, Black Creek Community Health Centre
*Felix Cabrera, Peer Researcher
*Sherine Mohamed Abdel Aziz Dahy, Peer Researcher
Sarah Flicker, York University
*Grace-Edward Galabuzzi, Ryerson University
Michaela Hynie, York University
Celena Knight, Peer Researcher
*Patricia Landolt, University of Toronto
*Darren Pham, Peer Researcher
Adriana Pazos, Peer Researcher
Nury Rugeles, Delta Family Resource Centre
*Yogendra Shakya, Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services
*Ruth Marie Wilson, Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services
*Z. Zahoorunnisa, Lead Peer Researcher

We would also like to thank the following partners for various supports and advice to the project
including providing meeting space, helping with recruitment, promoting our events, providing
relevant references/resources and other assistance:

Jackeline Barragan, Black Creek Community Health Centre
Sue Levesque, YorkU-TD CEC
Seneca College in Yorkgate Mall
Black Creek Community Collaborative
Laura Metcalfe, Community Development Officer, City of Toronto
Farid Chaharlangi, Jane and Finch Action Against Poverty
Sabrina ‗Butterfly‘ Gopaul, Jane and Finch Action Against Poverty
Delia Ta, Yorkgate Employment Resource Centre, JVS Toronto
Lorna Weignand, Doorsteps
Diane Patychuk, Steps to Equity
Elaine Ebach, Toronto Public Health
ii │Working Rough, Living Poor
Naomi Ives, Parkdale Community Legal Services (previously at Delta Family and Resource
Centre)
Michael Kerr, Colour of Change – Colour of Poverty
Avvy Go, Colour of Change – Colour of Poverty

Thank you to the following research assistants for helping to co-facilitate (with peer researchers)
the focus groups in first language of study participants: Hannan Harb, Qamar Zaidi, Sugandha
Nagpal, Nayrouz Abu-Hatoum, Paloma Villegas, Francisco Villegas, Diana Younes. Hats off to
students who helped with this project as part of the student placement: Alberto Almeida, Denise
Chung, Davina Balram, Theon Harrichand, Nyembezi Zviuya, Marie-Pier Joly, and Sana Siddiqui.

Thank you to Marguerite Pigeon for editing and proofreading this report, Victor Szeto for design
(cover and graphical components), and Alvin Ng (DraganSnap Design) for printing. Thank you to
George Wilson for lending us his car for project related travel.

Our gratitude to our funders Metcalf Foundation and The Wellesley Institute. Special thank you to
Colette Murphy from Metcalf Foundation and Brenda Roche and Bob Gardner from The
Wellesley Institute for advice along the way, including input about policy implications of study
findings. Thank you to Cities Center, University of Toronto for providing space and other support.

Of course we could not have done this without the help of several Access Alliance staff. Thank
you to our creative Research Trainers, Rabea Murtaza and Matt Adams, for facilitating our
Collaborative Research Design sessions and for providing relevant training. Special thank you to
Carolina Rios for taking care of all the administrative logistics. Thank you to Helene Gregoire and
Sharmila Shewprasad for initial groundwork on this project. Thank you to our resourceful Data
and Evaluation Coordinator, Andrew Koch, for providing relevant data and for assistance with
project evaluation. Thank you to Thuy Tran for helping with recruiting Vietnamese-speaking
participants and for co-facilitating the Vietnamese speaking focus group. And thank you to our
Executive Director, Axelle Janczur, for overall guidance and for providing internal resources to
the project.
iii │Working Rough, Living Poor
List of Acronyms

AAMHCS Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services
CBR Community-Based Research
CCHS Canadian Community Health Survey
CDA Collaborative Data Analysis
CMA Census Metropolitan Area
CRD Collaborative Research Design
CURA Community University Research Alliance
EMCONET Employment Conditions Knowledge Network
EI Employment Insurance
ESA Employment Standards Act
FG Focus Group
ILO International Labour Organization
ISRH Income Security, Race and Health
LSIC Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants in Canada
PE Precarious Employment
SDOH Social Determinants of Health
WAC Workers Action Centre
WHO World Health Organization

iv │Working Rough, Living Poor
Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................................ 1
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................................................... 3
RESEARCH PRINCIPLES AND METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................... 5
COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH DESIGN ............................................................................................................................ 6
DATA COLLECTION METHODS....................................................................................................................................... 7
COLLABORATIVE DATA ANALYSIS AND WRITING ....................................................................................................... 10
CORE CONCEPTS FOR THE STUDY .................................................................................................................... 11
NEIGHBOURHOOD, DISCRIMINATION AND HEALTH .................................................................................. 13
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................................... 15
PROFILE OF THE BLACK CREEK AREA ........................................................................................................................ 16
Priority Neighborhood Designation .................................................................................................................................... 16
Ethno-racial and immigrant composition of Black Creek residents .................................................................................... 17
Gender and Age .................................................................................................................................................................. 18
Education level ................................................................................................................................................................... 18
Income Levels..................................................................................................................................................................... 19
THE POLITICS OF EXISTING RESEARCH IN BLACK CREEK AREA ................................................................................ 19
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................................................... 21
Neighbourhood and Employment Security ........................................................................................................... 21
Place-based stigma.............................................................................................................................................................. 21
Employment opportunities in the Black Creek area ............................................................................................................ 22
The case of racialized youth in the Black Creek area ......................................................................................................... 24
Community Strength and Activism in the Black Creek area ................................................................................. 26
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................................................. 28
PRECARIOUS WORK, INCOME INSECURITY, AND RACIALIZATION ...................................................... 31
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................................... 33
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................................................... 34
Everyday Experiences of Precarious Work and Income Insecurity ...................................................................... 34
Work and income security profile of focus group participants ........................................................................................... 35
The labour market in the Black Creek area ......................................................................................................................... 35
Family juggling acts ........................................................................................................................................................... 37
Challenges and Obstacles to Finding Stable Employment ................................................................................... 38
Racialized discrimination ................................................................................................................................................... 39
Age-based discrimination ................................................................................................................................................... 41
Time in Canada and immigrant experiences ....................................................................................................................... 41
Recent Immigrants .............................................................................................................................................................. 42
Non-recent Immigrants ....................................................................................................................................................... 43
Canadian-born Population .................................................................................................................................................. 44
Challenges and Obstacles on the Job ................................................................................................................... 45
The production of employment insecurity .......................................................................................................................... 46
Racialized exploitation ....................................................................................................................................................... 47
Lack of recourse and workplace rights ............................................................................................................................... 48
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................................................. 50
ADVERSE HEALTH IMPACTS OF EMPLOYMENT AND INCOME INSECURITY FACED BY BLACK
CREEK RESIDENTS .................................................................................................................................................. 51
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................................... 53
CURRENT EVIDENCE ON LINKS BETWEEN EMPLOYMENT, INCOME AND HEALTH ....................................................... 54
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................................................... 55
Health Status of Racialized Groups in the Black Creek Area ............................................................................... 55
Employment and Income as Determinants of Health ............................................................................................ 57
Health and insecure employment relations ......................................................................................................................... 57
Health and insecure/unsafe conditions of work .................................................................................................................. 60
Health and income insecurity.............................................................................................................................................. 62
Impact on Health of Family and Children ............................................................................................................ 64
Health Strain, Long-term Health Impacts, and Racialized Health Disparities .................................................... 66
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................................................. 70
STRATEGIES FOR EMPLOYMENT AND HEALTH SECURITY ..................................................................... 73
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................................... 75
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................................................... 76
Types of Strategies ................................................................................................................................................ 76
Strategies for finding employment ...................................................................................................................................... 77
Strategies to make ends meet .............................................................................................................................................. 78
Long-term strategies ........................................................................................................................................................... 78
Protective responses ............................................................................................................................................................ 78
Critical Assessment of Services ............................................................................................................................ 79
Short-term fixes .................................................................................................................................................................. 79
Job search and employment workshops .............................................................................................................................. 79
Temp agencies .................................................................................................................................................................... 81
Debate about volunteer work .............................................................................................................................................. 82
Promising solutions ............................................................................................................................................................ 83
Policy Impacts on Quality of Mainstream Services .............................................................................................. 86
Changes to funding structures ............................................................................................................................................. 86
Eligibility requirements ...................................................................................................................................................... 87
Deliverable/accountability structures .................................................................................................................................. 89
Models of service delivery .................................................................................................................................................. 90
Impact on Service Providers ................................................................................................................................. 92
Services Provider Responses to Gaps in Policies and Services ............................................................................ 93
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................................................. 97
CONCLUSION AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS ....................................................................................... 99
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................................... 113
1 │Working Rough, Living Poor