Comment:

When comparing this table to other tables in this series, we find that immigrant women tend to turn up in the same occupational groups as women with less than Grade 10 education and in roughly the same proportions. This may reflect an actual difference in the educational levels between Canadian- born women and some groups of foreign-born women; but it more likely reflects a form of stereotyping which assumes that immigrant women are basically under-educated. In some cases this stereotype operates on the assumption that an educated person will speak English (or French) and was educated in English (or French). Another assumption may be that education obtained in foreign countries (and in a language other than English or French) is basically inferior to that obtained in Canada. We have very little data on the equivalence of Canadian and foreign educational experiences nor on the equivalence of training and work experiences.

What is not clear from this data is whether the majority of foreign-born women obtain their education and training in Canada or in their country of origin. For example, many "foreign-born" women could have arrived here at the age of five years and obtained all their education and training in the Canadian school systems.