South Asian Women Underrepresented in Canada’s Workforce

South Asian women remain under-represented in Canada’s workforce in 2025, even as Canada admits record numbers of newcomers and South Asians make up the largest share of recent arrivals. Researchers and community leaders say the mismatch is sharp: this group is among the most educated in the country, yet many are blocked from roles that match their skills. Persistent barriers—skills recognition gaps, gendered care duties, and racialized workplace dynamics—continue to hold back career growth, wage gains, and leadership representation for a fast-growing pool of talent.

The issue has a wider impact on the economy. As Canada 🇨🇦 seeks to fill labour shortages and raise productivity, the ongoing under-representation of South Asian women weakens the payoff of immigration policy. Employers lose trained professionals to underemployment and high turnover; families shoulder extra stress when one partner steps out of the workforce; and communities see slow progress in leadership diversity. Analysis by VisaVerge.com underlines the scale: when a large, well-qualified group cannot fully contribute, Canada’s long-term goals on innovation, growth, and public service delivery suffer.

Structural barriers inside workplaces

Rupa Banerjee, Canada Research Chair and professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, points to “structural frictions” that hit racialized immigrant women hardest. While some employers have improved hybrid work and adopted anti-harassment policies, these measures have not resolved deeper problems that prevent South Asian women from obtaining promotions, sponsorship, and stretch assignments.

Pink Attitude Evolution, a research group studying workplace experiences of South Asian women, reports many feel stuck below their qualifications and are considering leaving their jobs. Their research highlights a striking pattern: more than half of South Asian women surveyed intend to quit within two years due to poor career progression and feelings of being sidelined.

Key workplace obstacles:
– Foreign credential skepticism and demand for “Canadian experience” acting as informal gatekeepers.
– Care duties (cost and availability of childcare) pushing women into part-time work or career breaks.
– Racialized dynamics that limit access to tough assignments and sponsorship, reducing leadership pipelines.

Result: Many South Asian women describe being overqualified, underused, and unseen, which depresses promotions, wages, and long-term career prospects.

Immigration policy changes and implications

After record admissions in 2023–2024, the federal government announced a strategic reduction in immigration targets for 2025–2027:
– 395,000 permanent residents in 2025
– 380,000 in 2026
– 365,000 in 2027

The plan also introduces the first caps on temporary residents (international students and temporary foreign workers), aiming to cut temporary flows by roughly one-third over three years. These moves are framed as a way to manage population growth and protect service capacity.

For South Asian women—who form a large share of recent newcomers—this changes the timing and scale of arrivals. The pipeline of new workers will likely slow while existing workplace barriers persist.

The government is also reshaping streams toward economic outcomes. The 2025–2026 Departmental Plan mentions:
– Making the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot permanent
– Opening new work permit streams for sectors like agriculture and fish processing
– Updating post-graduation work permit rules

These steps may help overall labour market integration but do not directly address in-firm barriers such as bias, childcare gaps, or credential discounting.

How the problem shows up in practice

Immediate labour market signals:
– Skills under-recognition leads to placements below education level.
– Slow promotions and widening pay gaps over time.
– High intention to quit: when more than half plan to leave within two years, turnover becomes a serious business risk.

Employer costs of inaction:
– Rising recruitment costs
– Lost institutional knowledge
– Lower morale among remaining staff

Credential recognition often creates a long-term detour for many highly educated arrivals (engineering, IT, health, finance, research). Experts recommend early, structured credential reviews and clear bridging options such as:
1. Paid practicums and co-ops that count as Canadian experience
2. Partnerships with licensing bodies for predictable mapping of foreign qualifications
3. Standardized skill tests to replace subjective “fit” screens

Care responsibilities compound the challenge. Even with hybrid work, childcare is costly and scarce. Care duties lead many women to choose part-time roles or avoid travel and late meetings—gateways to leadership. Employers offering subsidized childcare, flexible schedules, and predictable shifts see higher retention among caregivers.

Racialized organizational dynamics are often subtle:
– Passing over key assignments
– Not inviting to client meetings
– Steering toward support tasks versus revenue-generating work

Without sponsorship—a senior leader who pushes for stretch opportunities—promotion odds decline. Mentorship builds confidence; sponsorship opens doors. Companies that track who receives sponsorship and who leads revenue projects can catch gaps early.

Leadership representation and feedback loops

South Asian women remain rare in executive suites across major firms and large public sector divisions. This scarcity creates a feedback loop:
– Few role models reduce perceived paths upward for junior staff
– Stereotypes about “fit for leadership” harden

Interrupting this loop requires:
– Visible targets and transparent promotion processes
– Leaders tying inclusion goals to business outcomes, not just compliance

Policy levers and their limits

The federal plan to reduce intake aims to ease housing and services, but a smaller inflow increases pressure to use the skills of people already in Canada. That makes labour market inclusion for South Asian women a core economic task, not only a fairness issue.

Potential policy supports:
– Permanent Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (potentially clearer paths to permanent residence)
– Sector-based work permits to match workers faster
– Post-graduation work permit updates to align study-to-work transitions

Limits: None of these fully address workplace bias, childcare gaps, or credential discounting. Government can encourage better practices via funding conditions, data reporting requirements, and partnerships with licensing bodies, but employers decide day-to-day outcomes.

Practical actions for employers (what works)

A focused employer agenda produces quick returns:
– Early, paid credential recognition trials tied to conversion standards
– Paid co-ops/practicums that count as Canadian experience
– Childcare supports and predictable schedules aligned with school hours
– Assign sponsors to high-potential South Asian women; tie sponsor outcomes to manager reviews
– Track hiring, pay, promotions, and exits with intersectional data

Three quick-win steps employers can implement now:
1. Recognize foreign credentials with paid, time-limited trials and clear conversion standards.
2. Fund childcare supports or offer predictable schedules aligned with school hours.
3. Build sponsorship into manager goals and reward leaders who promote diverse talent into revenue roles.

Recruitment-to-promotion playbook

Breaking the common cycle requires concrete steps at each stage:
– Recruitment:
– Remove blanket “Canadian experience” requirements
– Use work-sample tests and publish salary ranges
– Onboarding:
– Map each hire’s skills to a growth plan with milestones in year one
– Assign both a sponsor and a mentor
– Performance:
– Track who gets high-visibility projects; ensure fair access
– Flexibility:
– Offer caregiver-friendly schedules and avoid penalizing flexible options
– Progression:
– Hold promotion panels accountable with intersectional data

These practices benefit all employees but are especially important for South Asian women facing bias and care pressures.

Role of community organizations and education institutions

Community groups like Pink Attitude Evolution call for:
– More internships, co-ops, and tuition support tailored to South Asian women
– Paid placements and credential mapping as cost-effective investments in productivity and retention

Universities and colleges can design co-ops that accept international experience and match students with employers willing to assess skills through real work, not only interviews.

Measurement and data gaps

Intersectional data (by gender, race, and immigrant status) is sparse. Without it, progress can be claimed without proof. Advocates urge federal and provincial bodies and large employers to report on:
– Hiring
– Pay
– Progression
– Exits

with enough detail to see how South Asian women fare at each step.

Temporary resident caps and students/work permit impacts

Caps on temporary residents will reduce international student and temporary worker inflows. For those already in Canada, the policy shift raises the premium on:
– Pathways to permanence
– Fast skill validation

The labour-market focus may favour fields such as health, tech, and skilled trades, but women in these fields still face the same within-firm barriers.

Hybrid work: pros and cons

Many South Asian women said hybrid work helped them stay employed during the pandemic by reducing commute time and allowing more control over care duties. However:
– Hybrid has not fixed sponsorship gaps or lack of leadership chances
– Remote work can sideline employees from informal networks that build careers

Employers can set norms to prevent invisibility:
– Rotate in-person client visits
– Schedule shared presentation time
– Plan networking days

Individual and household strategies

Practical steps for affected workers:
– Build portfolios and work samples to prove skill
– Seek sponsors with influence over project assignments
– Use professional associations to secure local references
– Use community groups for interview prep that translates foreign projects into local context
– Coordinate family childcare plans to align with career-building activities

Household trade-offs matter: accepting lower-paid flexible work to cover care can depress future earnings and affect long-term savings and security.

Economic stakes and what to watch next

Labour economists note that bias and poor matching show up in productivity numbers: when workers don’t use their skills, output per hour drops. With lower immigration targets and higher service demands, closing the gap for South Asian women is a clear way to raise productivity without increasing pressure on housing or services.

Three policy developments to watch:
– Roll-out of the permanent Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot and whether it includes supports for credential recognition and settlement for high-skill women
– Impact of temporary resident caps on international students, many of whom are South Asian women
– Effects of post-graduation work permit updates on time to permanent residence and quality of first jobs

Call to action for employers and policymakers

Employers can act immediately:
– Audit promotion lists for diversity
– Pair high-potential South Asian women with sponsors tied to business outcomes
– Partner with community groups on internships and co-ops
– Set meeting times that work for caregivers
– Track retention across teams to catch early warning signs

Policymakers can help by tying funding to inclusive practices, supporting credential mapping, and improving intersectional data collection. But day-to-day choices by employers, managers, and teams will determine whether the skills of South Asian women are used effectively.

The federal reset of immigration volumes may calm pressures on housing and services, but it also heightens the importance of using existing talent well. South Asian women bring degrees, experience, and drive. The barriers that push them into roles below their level—or out of the workforce altogether—are well known. The fixes—credible skill validation, sponsorship, and family-friendly policies—are practical and achievable.

When South Asian women can match their education to their jobs, promotions come faster, leadership becomes more diverse, and productivity rises. When they cannot, employers lose talent and communities lose role models. The next phase of Canada immigration policy will shape who arrives and when. What happens inside workplaces will decide whether they can thrive.

Readers can review the government’s intake goals at the IRCC immigration levels plan for 2025–2027: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/levels-plan-2025-2027.html.

Key takeaway: With fewer newcomers arriving than in the recent peak, every underused degree and every stalled career carries a higher cost. The pathway to better results is clear—will employers and policymakers move from plans to practice in time to turn a well-educated, fast-growing group into the leaders Canada needs?