Questioning the role of information poverty in immigrant employment acquisition: empirical evidence from African immigrants in Canada
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-11-2021-0233 |
| Published date | 13 June 2022 |
| Date | 13 June 2022 |
| Pages | 203-223 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
| Author | Millicent N. Mabi,Heather L. O'Brien,Lisa P. Nathan |
Questioning the role of information
poverty in immigrant employment
acquisition: empirical evidence
from African immigrants in Canada
Millicent N. Mabi, Heather L. O’Brien and Lisa P. Nathan
School of Information, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Abstract
Purpose –Skilled,well-educated African immigrantsarrive in Canada with aspirations for more opportunities
and a better life, but toooften end up with few employment options and precariousjobs. The purpose of this
paper is to investigate the experiences of African immigrantsattempting to locate suitable, well-compensated
employmentin Canada. More specifically,this paper revealshow long-standing informationpoverty frameworks
fromthe field of information behaviorare inadequate for understandingintersectionaland broader socio-cultural
forces influenceaccess to information and employment precarityamong African immigrants.
Design/methodology/approach –Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with twenty-five
African immigrants in Metro Vancouver. Qualitative content analysis was used to explore participants’
employment information seeking and perceptions of information availability using Britz’s information poverty
framework.
Findings –Participantsencountered a range of difficultieswhen seeking information relatedto employment,
including content, process and identity-related challenges, in alignment with Britz’s framework. However, the
frameworkdid not fullyencompass their informationseeking experiences.Limitedaccess to relevantinformation
impacted participants’abilityto make timely career decisions,and there was evidence of informationinequity
resultingfrom a mismatch between informationprovision and participants’multifacetedidentities.
Originality/value –This research applied Britz’s information poverty approaches and provided a map of
participants’responsesto information seekingchallenges.Participants did notfit into the category of information
poor as defined by Britz. The findings suggest that the discourse on information poverty would benefit from
considerationsof the diversebackgrounds of informationseekers and the incorporationof cultural dimensionsto
understandingsof information access,information poverty andtechnology use for informationseeking.
KeywordsInformationpoverty, Africanimmigrants,Information inequity,Intersectionality,Informationaccess,
Immigrantemployment,Blackimmigrants, Informationexperiences,Informationpractices, Immigrantsettlement
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Immigrants’settlement objectives are multi-faceted, including securing housing and
employment, accessing social systems, (e.g. healthcare and banking), and developing
social connections and a sense of belonging. When immigrants successfully settle in their new
society, they contribute to the economic and socio-cultural fabric of their new communities
(Caidi and Allard, 2005). Conversely, when immigrants experience settlement challenges,
such as the inability to secure meaningful employment (Rayes et al., 2016), they feel alienated,
and their new communities do not derive the full economic, cultural and social benefits
possible through immigration (Mwarigha, 2002). Earlier research suggests that employment-
related information is crucial to immigrants’ability to achieve their settlement goals (Lloyd
et al., 2013;Khoir et al., 2015). Yet, immigrants face significant barriers during the settlement
process, including the acquisition of essential information. These types of findings have led to
immigrants being framed as “information poor”(Lingel, 2011;Lloyd et al., 2013).
The role of
information
poverty
203
The authors are thankful to the African immigrants who participated in this study for sharing their time
and insights. Thanks to Dr. Luanne Freund for their contribution to this research. This research was
funded by the University of British Columbia Faculty of Arts.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 29 November 2021
Revised 12 May 2022
Accepted 16 May 2022
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 79 No. 1, 2023
pp. 203-223
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-11-2021-0233
Information poverty has been broadly described as a global phenomenon affecting many
individuals across societies, particularly those who already face other forms of inequality
(Bruce, 2016;Clement and Shade, 2000). Immigrants are one such marginalized population
who have been framed as ‘at risk’of experiencing information poverty, a situation where
individuals and communities do not have adequate access to relevant information (Britz,
2004). Access to information has been called the leveler of all inequalities (Nwakanma, 2017),
meaning that information can empower people to overcome obstacles, utilize opportunities
available to them and generally improve their lives (Marcella and Chowdhury, 2020).
Previous research has explored the information practices of immigrants (Khoir et al., 2015;
Shuva, 2020), attending to the types of information immigrants require during settlement, as
well as how they obtain and use such information. Other researchers have mapped the
information requirements of immigrants onto settlement stages (Caidi et al., 2010;Kennan
et al., 2011) and emphasized that immigrants face barriers to information acquisition, such as
language and cultural differences. Such barriers may limit immigrants’access to timely and
relevant information and predispose them to information poverty. In order to design more
effective information interventions to benefit both immigrants and their host nations,
existing scholarship suggests that it is appears crucial to understand information poverty as
it relates to immigrants. However, few researchers have investigated the applicability of
theories of information poverty in the context of immigration and settlement. Is information
poverty a generative lens for understanding inequality with respect to immigrants’access to
information? The present paper contributes to existing bodies of knowledge on immigration
and information poverty by exploring this question.
This research focuses on a specific area of immigration and settlement: labor market
integration. Access to employment has been examined by diverse disciplines and dimensions,
and barriers to equitable employment, such as discrimination and lack of recognition of
foreign credentials, have been highlighted through this work (Hosoda et al., 2012;Subedi and
Rosenberg, 2017). From a Library and Information Studies (LIS) perspective, existing
scholarship suggests that securing employment commensurate with qualifications requires
access to critical labor market information, such as details concerning available employment
opportunities and the academic and experiential requirements necessary to practice in
professions of interest (Caidi et al., 2014).
It is importantto note that African immigrants in Canada are more likelyto be unemployed
and have lower incomes compared to the rest of the Canadian population (Keung, 2016),
making them disproportionately represented below the poverty line (United Nations, 2016).
Yet paradoxically, asa group, African immigrants are also highly educated,have substantial
work experience, and are young –all desirable qualities for employment integration (Loxley
et al., 2015;Statistics Canada, 2019). Why this disconnect? Are African immigrants
“information poor”? In this paper, we interrogate Britz’s Information Poverty framework to
consider the information-related experiences of African immigrants seeking equitable
employment in Metro Vancouver, Canada. We interviewed twenty-five African immigrants
who settledin Canada within the last thirteen years. We askedthem to reflect on their access to
and use of employment information. While some aspects of information poverty resonated
with our participants’lived experiences, we determined that the framework was lacking in
crucial ways. We examined Britz’s three approaches to information poverty and found both
confirmatoryand contradictory examplesin this data, and we used this to consider the benefits
and drawbacks of the framework andsuggest directions for future research.
Literature review
The information poor have been portrayed as people who: are economically deprived and
unable to afford Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for information access
JD
79,1
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