Skilled immigrants working in jobs they're vastly overqualified for face significant mental health challenges including a loss of skills and professional identity, a new study shows.
To make matters worse, these jobs are often in what's known as precarious working environments, with insufficient wages to meet living expenses, irregular hours and a lack of benefits including health insurance and pension, according to study co-author Shu-Ping Chen, associate professor in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Alberta.
"Most research generalizes precarious employment across populations, but our study looks specifically at immigrant workers, whose voices are not often represented in research," she says.
