LBST 312: Migration, Migrants, and Work: A Global Perspective

Contact info

For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Labour Studies by email moninder_lalli@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

Essay  

Start Your Research Here - This page gives you an overview of the research process, or in other words how to find materials for your essay.

Background information

Use encyclopedias and handbooks to obtain an overview of a topic and to identify key authors and resources on a topic.

Journal articles

Databases let you easily to search for articles from within scholarly journals for a discipline.

If the full-text of the article is not available within the database then use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.

Databases

The following databases are useful for finding journal articles which provide a social sciences perspective on international labour migration.  If the

  • ProQuest Sociology Collection - for issues related to class, gender, racism, sexuality and sexism and theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science.
  • Social Sciences Full Text  Covers social science journals
  • Academic Search Premier - multidisciplinary database.  Limit search results to "academic / scholarly"
  • GEOBASE  "Human geography" discipline studies issues related to "refugees" and "migration"
  • Political Science Complete - scholarly articles related to labour, migration, unions, policies and remittances
  • Women's Studies International for any issues related to gender, sexuality and women's studies
  • EconLit - indexes economics journals, including labour
  • Statista - statistics from thousands of sources. Can export of both data and charts in multiple formats.
  • OECD iLibrary - Publications from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including country studies, forecasting publications, reports & periodicals. 
    • International migration outlook 2023 (annual) - analysis of migration movements, labour market inclusion of immigrants, policy changes in migration governance. This edition includes two special chapters on the labour market integration of migrant mothers and on fertility patterns among migrant populations in OECD countries. [description copied from the publication]
    • International migration outlook 2022

Two databases (below) may be useful for finding the business perspective on labour, working conditions, and unions.

  • Business Source Complete
    • For country profiles, choose "country profile" box, and in keyword search box, enter your terms: France
    • Use "thesaurus" for subject specific term:  e.g. when you look up labor unions, you could choose descriptor words that will make your searches more relevant:
      • DE "LABOR unions & international relations"
         
  • CBCA Complete  Canadian Business & Current Affairs 

Articles in legal journals

  • CANLII
    Largest free web resource providing access to legal documents from Canada's federal, provincial and territorial governments, including laws & legislation, and cases.
    • Use only the first search box to enter your entire search:  immigrant* and women and labour
    • Use the "tabs" at the top of search results to limit to cases, legislation, or secondary sources such as decisions by tribunals.
    • Legislation and Tribunals
       
  • Westlaw Next Canada  Current Canadian legal information, including cases, legislation, law reports, and journal articles.  
    Help guides and tutorials
    • Within the database, look at Canadian Encyclopedic Digest and  Canadian Abridgment Digests for overviews of labour topics and  precedents. 
    • From within the database, choose "Index to Canadian legal literature" to find scholarly, legal journal articles on topics
    • Try a search (e.g. "immigrant*"), and in the column on left-hand side, look at "Canadian Encyclopedic Digest" entries.
       
  • HeinOnline - database for articles in legal journals
    Law and law-related research material, including legal journals, government documents, classic legal treatises, and world trials. Contains Canadian, American and international laws and agreements.
    • TIP:
      • Choose "Advanced Search".  In the "fulltext" field field, construct your search such as:
        • (labor OR labour) AND canada AND migrant*

For more databases, see Labour Studies Databases

Selected journals

Below are selected scholarly journals with articles on international labour.  When you wish to search for articles on your research topic, start by using the databases listed above.  Each of the databases (above) will index different sets of journals.

Find books in the Library

Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue: Advanced keyword

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words

Use pulldown menu and select, "Source Types" as "Books"

Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

Write your research question and identify your "key concepts." 

In the search results, for the books that look relevant, click on their "Subject" to find more books on the same topic.

 

Selected books

Browse by subject

Catalogue Search / Browse, then change "Title" to "Subject" and enter:

Government documents 

Canada 

Canadian law and legislation

Website: canada.ca

Search: "temporary foreign worker*"

Canada. Employment and Social Development

Statistics Canada

  • Statistics Canada -  the major statistical gathering agency of the federal government. It publishes the "whole range of statistics on the economic and social activities of the Canadian people".  There are daily, weekly, quarterly, annual and irregular publications. They  also publishes the Census of Canada at five year intervals.
    • Labour
      • how many people are employed or unemployed; the unemployment rate; which industries or occupations people work in;
      • the hours they work; commuting patterns; wage and non-wage benefits; job training; labour mobility;
      • work absences; unionization; unpaid work; and other topics. Also includes geographic and demographic characteristics.

British Columbia

BC Statistics   Check out the tabs at the top
  Citing Government documents, Canadian -- APA style | MLA style | Chicago style

United States

International

Statistics
    • OECD iLibrary - Publications from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including country studies, forecasting publications, reports, periodicals, and socio-economic databases. Topics covered include agriculture, developing economies, education, employment, energy, environment, migration, social issues, and sustainable development.

     

Labour and other organizations

Canada

Using Google and Google Scholar

Search Tips for Google and Google Scholar

While searching the internet can find unexpected gems, be sure to evaluate the sources using the guide, "Evaluating sources"

Google Scholar for topic and "citation" searches

Set up Google Scholar library links and button 

Topic search

E.g. 

Flawed by design? A case study of federal enforcement of migrant workers' labour rights in Canada

       S Marsden, E Tucker, LF Vosko - Canadian Lab. & Emp. LJ, 2021 - HeinOnline
       … of temporary migration programs in Canada and explain why … the sources of labour rights
       for migrant workers, and explain … to better protect migrant workers' labour rights. However, …

"Citation" searching

Search for your "key" article.  Check the link "cited by" right beneath the reference to that article

E.g. Who has cited the following article?

Strauss, K., & McGrath, S. (2017). Temporary migration, precarious employment and unfree labour relations: Exploring the ‘continuum of exploitation’ in Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Geoforum. Vol 78, 199–208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.01.008

The above 2017 article has been cited more than 275 times.

Guides and tutorials

Presentation skills

See the Student Learning Commons for expert and friendly help with academic writing, learning, and study strategies.

Writing help