Probationary precarity? Differential inclusion among post-graduation work permit-holders in Canada

Abstract

In high-income receiving states, educational visa-holders are routinely cast as beneficiaries of immigration systems prioritizing well-trained workers. Promising pathways to permanent residency, Canada's Post-Graduation Work Permit Program (PGWPP), an expanding stream of its new International Mobility Program, is a case in point. Yet there is a dearth of scholarly analysis of program design and its effects on visa-holders. Addressing this lacuna, this article examines the PGWPP through a multi-method approach focusing on the interface between program requirements, distinctions between doors of entry with attention to criteria for accessing permanent residency, country of origin, and gender. Underlining the porosity of entry categories, contributing to multiple doors through which educational migrants must pass to secure permanent residency, it reveals that PGWP-holders experience “probationary precarity” – a concept devised to capture labour market insecurities permit-holders endure.