Inspiring Minds seeks to broaden awareness and impact of graduate student research, while enhancing transferable skills. Students were challenged to describe their research, scholarship or creative activity in 150 or fewer words to share with our community.
Desmond Oklikah
PhD candidate, Faculty of Social Science
The (un)changing housing experiences and dynamics of caregivers in Canada
In Canada, foreign caregivers are a group whose work revolves around making the home a place of comfort for others. Invaluable to Canada’s economy, caregivers take on gendered housework — caring for the sick and the differently abled, thereby enabling Canadians to compete effectively in the job market. To date, little is known about how these predominantly racialized women navigate Canada's unstable housing market. To fill this gap, I study the distinct realities, barriers and resources of caregivers when seeking housing through an intersectional feminist lens, and the frameworks of political economy and social network analysis. Centering the realities of this minoritized group will underscore the urgency of housing access and its connections to aspects of immigrants’ integration and wellbeing. With home described as a “shelter from storms,” this study contributes to national discourse by depicting the storms weathered by caregivers.
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