The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected those who face historical and ongoing marginalization. In centering pandemic experience of recent immigrant women in the accommodation and food services sector in Canada, we examine how their precarious work translated to experiences of work precarity and wellbeing. This paper illuminates how pre-existing and ongoing marginalization are reproduced during a health crisis for those at the intersection of gender, race, migration, and labour inequities. Using semi-structured interviews and systematic analysis using the Work Precarity Framework, we found that the pandemic exacerbated pre-existing socio-economic marginalization and resulted in unique experiences of work precarity. The latter was experienced as precarity of work (unpredictable work hours and job or employment insecurity), precarity from work (inadequate incomes), and precarity at work (physical, psychological, and relational unsafety). Work precarity stood out as a social determinant of health in relation to its outcome of degraded mental health and wellbeing. Recognizing the role of policies in producing, reproducing, and distributing precarity, we recommend policy directions to reduce social inequities in pandemic recovery.
Recognition of the differential effects of COVID-19 on women has led to calls for greater application of gender-based analysis within policy responses. Beyond pointing out where such policies are implemented, there is little analysis of the effects of efforts to integrate gender-based analysis into the COVID-19 response. Drawing on interviews informing a lived experienced approach to policy analysis, this article asks if, how, and to what effect gender-based analysis was implemented within social and economic policy responses during the initial lockdown, in British Columbia, Canada. It finds that, despite a rhetorical commitment to gender-based analysis, policies failed to address everyday inequalities.
Objectives:Moral distress has been identified as both a contributor to healthcare worker attrition as well as an outcome of it. To this aim, our study applies intersectional analysis to explore moral distress levels among doctors, nurses, and in-home- or community-care-providers in British Columbia, Canada with a specific focus on the intersection of race and gender identity. Furthermore, it aims to identify which experiences were more distressing, and the predicted turnover intent for each intersecting identity and profession.Methods:We conducted an online survey of 1,314 healthcare professionals from all health regions of BC. Our descriptive analysis was stratified by the participants’ profession. The categorical variables included age, gender, racial identity, migratory history, and type of work contract. The continuous variables included a moral distress score (range: 0 to 144) and a mitigation score consisting of 11 distress-coping strategies (range: 0 to 275).Results:Nurses had significantly higher moral distress scores compared to physicians and in-home- or community-care-practitioners (H-CCPs). Only 24.7% of physicians had considered leaving their position or had already left, compared to 61.3% of H-CCP, and 72.7% of nurses. White women had significantly higher moral distress levels than White and Indigenous men, whereas women of colour were more distressed than White men, though these differences were no longer significant after adjusting the scores by profession. Men had higher mitigation scores than women across all groups. Sources of distress and mitigation strategies differed across identity groups. White men had a significantly lower turnover intention (15.3%) than all other groups. Conclusion:High distress scores and turnover intention responses, particularly among women and racialized healthcare workers indicate an urgent need to address the root causes of moral distress.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.