Mona Shahwan El-Tahan first arrived in Newfoundland in 1975 as a young engineering graduate from Cairo University, ready to study and earn her master’s degree at Memorial University.
Today, she is president and founder of InCoreTec Inc., a St. Louis-based research and development and consulting firm. John’s engineers, scientists and software developers provide services to local, national and international clients.
She is also a director emeritus of the non-profit organization she founded, WISE NL (Women in Science and Engineering), which works to increase the level of participation of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, often described as the STEM fields, in Newfoundland.
In recognition of International Women’s Day, El-Tahan is one of many women profiled on the Canadian government’s Women of Impact in Canada website.
El-Tahan’s achievements are clearly impressive. In addition to developing the first mathematical model in North America to predict the movement of icebergs, she also helped develop friction-reducing technology on Canadarm, the robotic arm of the International Space Station.
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In Canada, immigrant women can and often do achieve amazing things in all fields of endeavor, empowered by an education system and culture that encourages girls and women to excel in their chosen fields.
After arriving in Canada as an 11-year-old refugee, Guatemala City-born Karina Hayat studied biology at Vancouver’s Douglas College before founding Prizm Media, a digital media and technology company that connects chronically ill patients with products and necessary health care services. , with her husband, Zeeshan Hayat. Today she is the president of the company.
Despite the great strides immigrant women have made in Canada, they are, unfortunately, still less likely to hold executive jobs and sit on corporate boards than Canadian-born workers or immigrant men, finds a report from Statistics Canada.
And those immigrant women most likely to win such coveted positions still come from predominantly Caucasian countries.
Immigrant women under-represented in boardrooms
In his first socio-economic profile of admitted immigrant women who later got managerial gigs in Canada, Immigrant women among directors and board officers: From admission to Canada to executive rolespublished in late 2022, the statistical and demographic services agency found that these women tend to hold lower-level executive jobs and be paid less than others.
“Despite decades of gains in the workplace, women continue to be underrepresented in leadership and decision-making positions,” the statistics and demographic services agency noted.
“Women who achieve an executive role in their careers tend to hold lower-level positions than men or those with less decision-making authority—patterns that are reflected among immigrant women executives.”
In his book, Why do men earn more?Dr. Warren Farrell outlined roughly a decade ago 25 life choices that women tend to make more often than men, which results in them being paid less than their male counterparts. According to Farrell, these choices often lead women to have more balanced and happier lives.
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There are no laws in force in Canada that prohibit women or immigrants from holding any executive position in the private or public sector or favor men. Statistics Canada’s first socio-economic profile of immigrant women working as managers in Canada offers no explanation for its findings.
Statistics Canada only reports that immigrant women were less likely to contribute to a board of directors, with 48 percent of immigrant women serving as board directors and 52 percent as officers. This compares to 65 per cent for Canadian-born men, 61 per cent for immigrant men and 53 per cent for Canadian-born women.
“As officers, immigrant women were less likely to occupy higher senior-level roles,” Statistics Canada found.
Women are less likely to immigrate to Canada as principal applicants
“For example, female immigrant officers were more than twice as likely to serve as president of a corporation than male immigrant officers, while female immigrant officers were more than twice as likely as male immigrant officers to hold a position secretariat.
Statistics Canada’s profile of these female immigrant leaders shows that female immigrant leaders were more likely to be admitted to Canada as a dependent or spouse under the economic category than male immigrant leaders.
“Economic immigrants can be admitted as the main applicant or as a spouse or dependent. To be accepted as the principal applicant, the individual must meet certain selection criteria, while a spouse or dependent does not count against the selection criteria,” notes Statistics Canada.
“They are automatically accepted with the main applicant.”
Immigrant women executives were more than twice as likely as immigrant male executives to arrive in Canada as a principal applicant, while they were more likely to be accepted as a spouse or economic dependent applicant, Statistics Canada notes.
When immigrant women reached the executive level, they were roughly four times more likely to have been born in the United States or the United Kingdom than other immigrant women in Canada.
“Disparities were observed between immigrant women leaders and the broader immigrant women population when examining the top five countries of birth,” notes Statistics Canada.
“For example, immigrant women executives were about four times more likely to have been born in the United States or the United Kingdom than the total immigrant women population. Specifically, the United States … ranked first as a country of birth among immigrant women executives, followed by the United Kingdom … China … Hong Kong … and France.”
