Information, Employment, and Settlement of Immigrants: Exploring the Role of Information Behaviour in the Settlement of Bangladesh Immigrants in Canada
Immigrants shape Canada’s future in terms of innovation, population, and economic growth. Immigrants need information before and after arrival to make informed decisions about their move and for satisfactory settlement. Although Canada regularly welcomes immigrants with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, very little is known about the settlement information behaviour of immigrants. This doctoral study investigates the transitional information behaviour of Bangladeshi immigrants in Canada. It uses mixed methods to explore the information experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants in pre- and post-arrival contexts and features the role information plays in newcomers’ employment. Bangladeshi immigrants who arrived in Canada between 1971 and 2017 were recruited for 60 semi-structured interviews and 205 surveys. Participants reported requiring a broad array of information in pre- and post-arrival contexts and they consulted various information sources to gather information about their host country. Pre-arrival assumptions about life in Canada shaped participants’ transitional information behaviour, sometimes resulting in a profound mismatch between expectations and the reality of their new lives. Employment is a central settlement concern and there is evidence that purposeful, strategic information seeking can mitigate much anxiety about post-arrival job-seeking and employment. My study also explores a paradoxical finding regarding the role of immigrants’ social networks revealing that when some immigrants consult their most trusted sources – friends, family, and ethnic community members – there are not always good outcomes. I put forward two new concepts: information sharing fear and information intelligence. Information sharing fear describes the phenomenon in which immigrants do not share information about the reality of life in Canada, including its challenges, for fear of being perceived to be discouraging. Information intelligence describes the ways in which some newcomers cultivate and use their various informational, social, and emotional competencies to gather a comprehensive picture of life before arrival resulting in better settlement preparations and experiences. Overall, the study highlights the information behaviour of newcomers in a new country with a particular focus on the role of information in settlement processes. It ends with a call for further research on exploring the complex, culturally situated information behaviour of immigrants
