Mend Mariwany and Nehal El-Hadi, The Conversation

On March 19, 2003, the United States led an unlawful invasion into Iraq — at the time, the reason given was the search for weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. occupation of Iraq lasted over eight years, until the official withdrawal of troops throughout 2011.

While the number of deaths as a result of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has been difficult to accurately calculate, it is estimated that around 405,000 deaths occurred as a direct result. Most of these deaths were of Iraqi civilians. Hundreds of thousands of others were injured, and over nine million displaced.

Initially, this was due to the U.S. invasion, then as a result of continued conflict due to the sectarian violence that followed between 2006 and 2010, and finally because of the Islamic State group’s occupation in parts of the country from 2013-17.

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly, we speak to two researchers who examine the impact the invasion and conflict have had on the lives of Iraqis.

Sana Murrani Associate Professor in Spatial Practice and Deputy Director for the Doctoral College for the Arts, Humanities and Business at the University of Plymouth, United Kingdom. Originally from Baghdad, Murrani fled Iraq shortly after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. As part of her research, she has focused on how people cope with the traumatic effects of war.

“Iraqis wake up to a very different landscape every single day,” she points out. “And they engaged with that landscape to have to go to work, to school.”

Murrani interviewed 15 people across Iraq about their lives since the U.S. invasion. These collected narratives will be published in a forthcoming book and featured (Bloomsbury, 2024) in an upcoming exhibition. Ruptured Domesticity: A visual narrative of domestic responses to war in Iraq will be on display at the London School of Economics in the U.K.

For the exhibition, Murrani created collages and maps to visualize the stories of the people she interviewed, which will also be accessible virtually.

“I think these stories and memories and traumas that have certainly only appeared for a very brief moment under the spotlight,” Murrani explains. “And I’m thinking that this will bring back a focus on Iraq for a bit, for people to understand what has become of a country after 20 years of invasion and traumas.”

Inna Rudolf is a senior research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Divided Societies, King’s College London in the U.K. As part of her research, Rudolf has conducted interviews with Iraqis to understand how contested narratives surrounding decades of conflict have impacted the memory of various communities and their identities.

“What we found out that in order for projects to contribute to social and psychological healing, they need to bring individuals together, and to create a context in which these individuals can perceive each other as humans again. Iraqis from different communities need to recognise that they were all affected by the violence and that each group carries its own scars, which need time and conditions to heal.”

Rudolf says that once the people recognize each other’s pain, Iraqis can begin to heal their communities and their country.

“Each community wants its own victimhood to be heard, understood and acknowledged. And the more they feel that they are pushed into one category, or that their own suffering is not being taken seriously either by their counterparts, by their co-nationals or by the Iraqi government, the more feelings of alienation are likely to prevail over feelings of belonging to the state as equal citizens.”

Many Iraqis want to be able to move on in order to contribute in meaningful ways to their society and actively shape their future, as Rudolf found out.

Listen to the full episode of The Conversation Weekly to find out more.

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was produced and written by Mend Mariwany, who is also the show’s executive producer. Sound design is by Eloise Stevens, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl.

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Mend Mariwany, Producer, The Conversation Weekly and Nehal El-Hadi, Science + Technology Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Naomi Lightman, Toronto Metropolitan University and Hamid Akbary, University of Calgary

The pandemic has heightened Canadians’ awareness of the 3D jobs — dirty, difficult and dangerous — done by many migrant workers in our communities.

When the pandemic first struck, many of these workers were on the front line working in essential services. Engaged in low-wage work in health and child care, immigrant care workers had high rates of COVID-19 infections, while also experiencing widespread job losses and continuing financial struggles to make ends meet.

Our recent paper in the Journal of Aging and Social Policy reveals troubling realities for immigrant women care workers as they age. We found that immigrant women aged 65 and over who entered Canada through the (Live-in) Caregiver program work more but make less than other comparable immigrant women. The required live-in component was removed in 2014 and the program has since been split into two pilot programs.

These findings are crucially important given Canada’s rapidly aging population and increasing concern about senior poverty in racialized communities.

Working past retirement age

In Canada, we have long known that it is disproportionately racialized immigrant women (specifically Black and Filipina women) who do challenging and devalued work as carers. We also know that jobs like personal support workers, home health aides and child-care workers are still usually associated with “women’s work” and tend to have low wages.

However, what we have not known is whether these women continue to experience these disadvantages later in life. Specifically, we have very little information about the financial challenges immigrant women care workers in Canada face as they age.

On the one hand, it is plausible that care workers are more likely than other workers to continue working past the typical retirement age because of their relatively low wages and limited savings.

On the other hand, due to the physically and emotionally demanding nature of care work, which can be detrimental to their health, care workers may be less likely to continue working past age 65 and have higher rates of eligibility for government low-income supports.

Our recent research tried to clarify the situation of immigrant care workers as they age. We examined 11 years of Statistics Canada data from 2007-2017 to compare the income sources and trajectories of immigrant women who entered Canada through three migrant entry programs.

We used Statistics Canada’s Longitudinal Immigration Database to unpack how the gendered and racialized devaluation of caring occupations disadvantages immigrant women as they age. The database is a comprehensive source of administrative data that includes information on the socio-economic status of tax-filing immigrants since their arrival in Canada.

The data show that care workers are more likely to be employed after the age of 65 than other immigrant women, but have a lower and declining total income as they age.

Furthermore, while care workers receive higher rates of government pension benefits, they tend to have lower levels of private pension savings. And the cumulative income they report shows a relative decline over time.

Prioritizing care workers as they age

So what does this all mean? Our study underscores serious concerns about government investment in alleviating senior poverty. The conditions of low-wage care workers, before and after retirement, must be prioritized.

The package of pension supports available in Canada, which includes Old Age Security, the Guaranteed Income Supplement and the Canada Pension Plan, does not offset the decline in earnings immigrant care worker women face as they age.

That means there is a need to enhance policies that address senior poverty, recognizing that immigrant care worker women are among Canada’s most vulnerable populations. These women experience intersectional disadvantages as immigrants, women and racialized minorities.

Our findings also reinforce the need for more full-time, permanent and well-paying jobs in the Canadian care sector. As of 2017, the unemployment rate of female immigrants in Canada was nearly double that of their Canadian-born counterparts. Recent research finds that the pandemic increased rates of unemployment and led to shifts to precarious work for many immigrant women in Canada.

The federal government must enhance access to and the amount of money provided through the Guaranteed Income Supplement to address senior poverty within underserved communities. Any government invested in reducing social inequalities and protecting vulnerable senior populations must consider the financial challenges immigrant care worker women face as they age and equalize their income over time with other comparable groups. And we, as the electorate, must do our part to keep governments accountable to this goal.

Ultimately, immigrant women are doing the essential jobs that most Canadians rely on. They are caring for our elderly, sick or young family members when we are in need.

It is the very least we can do to ensure that immigrant women care workers are able to age with financial security, dignity and adequate social protections.

Naomi Lightman, Associate Professor of Sociology, Toronto Metropolitan University and Hamid Akbary, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Calgary

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.