The Career Trajectories of Immigrant Women in the Finnish Healthcare
Yakupova, Asiya (2023)
2023
All rights reserved. This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202304135247
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202304135247
Tiivistelmä
The purpose of this thesis was to explore the career trajectories of immigrant women in the healthcare sector in Finland. The objective was to investigate the “transitions” immigrant women encountered and to delve into experiences and the challenges they faced using the theoretical frameworks of Transitional Labour Markets, Self-efficacy, and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten immigrant women working in the healthcare sector. A combination of convenience and snowball samplings was used. The key recruitment criterium was to be a first-generation immigrant working in the Finnish healthcare sector.
The results showed that the path of immigrant women into the healthcare sector is extremely long, and with many challenges. The educational system and employment in healthcare function well. However, at work, immigrants experience difficulties and decreased motivation due to challenges in integration into the workplace. These included language difficulties, discrimination, and mistrust from co-workers, supervisors, and patients. High self-efficacy helped the interviewed women to overcome these challenges and find their place in healthcare.
The results lead to the conclusion, that after a huge amount of effort put in at individual and institutional levels in training, not fully using the immigrants’ abilities could be considered a huge waste. Therefore, work aimed at changing attitudes towards care workers, as well as immigrants working in the system, should have a positive effect on the attractiveness of the segment for new and existing employees. By creating more diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplaces, healthcare in Finland could rise to an exemplary level.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten immigrant women working in the healthcare sector. A combination of convenience and snowball samplings was used. The key recruitment criterium was to be a first-generation immigrant working in the Finnish healthcare sector.
The results showed that the path of immigrant women into the healthcare sector is extremely long, and with many challenges. The educational system and employment in healthcare function well. However, at work, immigrants experience difficulties and decreased motivation due to challenges in integration into the workplace. These included language difficulties, discrimination, and mistrust from co-workers, supervisors, and patients. High self-efficacy helped the interviewed women to overcome these challenges and find their place in healthcare.
The results lead to the conclusion, that after a huge amount of effort put in at individual and institutional levels in training, not fully using the immigrants’ abilities could be considered a huge waste. Therefore, work aimed at changing attitudes towards care workers, as well as immigrants working in the system, should have a positive effect on the attractiveness of the segment for new and existing employees. By creating more diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplaces, healthcare in Finland could rise to an exemplary level.