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.

• Handbook of Migration and Globalisation
• Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies
• Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism
• Palgrave Handbook of International Labour Migration Law and Policy Perspectives
• Research handbook on the law and politics of migration
• Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development
• Routledge International Handbook of Migration Studies
• Routledge handbook of immigration and refugee studies
• Routledge international handbook of globalization studies
• Routledge International Handbook of Migration Studies
• Sage handbook of neoliberalism
• Thinking globally : a global studies reader
• Sage eReference

Journal articles

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

• How to find journal articles tutorial. 
• What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?

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

• Sociological Abstracts - Sociology discipline studies migration, refugees, societal structures, immigrants
• Social Sciences Full Text  Covers social science journals
• EconLit - indexes economics journals, including labour
• 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

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 

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." 

• globaliz* AND (labor OR labour) AND (covid OR pandemic OR disease* OR contagion*)
• immigr* AND (policy OR policies) AND canad*
• (migrant* OR foreign) AND (labor* OR labour* OR worker*) AND (challenge* OR hardship* OR problem* OR racis* OR inequal* OR exploit* OR unfair)
  • results limited to "resource type" of "books"
• (migrant* OR foreign) AND (labor* OR labour* OR worker*) AND (challenge* OR hardship* OR problem* OR racis* OR inequal* OR exploit* OR unfair) AND canad*
• "migrant worker*" AND (transnat* OR global*) AND  (policy OR policies)
• ("migrant work*" OR "foreign labor*" OR migrant*) AND (gender OR race OR class)
•  international AND "migrant labor"
• "labour migrat*" AND (international OR global* OR transborder OR transnational) 
• remittance* AND (poverty OR inequality OR impact OR benefit* OR migrat*)

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

Selected books

• Admitted but excluded : removing occupational barriers to entry for immigrants to Canada
• Canada’s Colour Coded Income Inequality
• COVID-19 and the Canadian Workforce : Reforming EI to Protect More Workers
• Contemporary work and the future of employment in developed countries
• Contesting Chineseness: Nationality, Class, Gender and New Chinese Migrants
• Essential work, disposable workers : migration, capitalism, and class [print]
• Global Labor Migration : New Directions
• Global Old Age Care Industry: Tapping into Migrants for Tackling the Old Age Care Crisis
• Immigration and the Politics of Welfare Exclusion: Selective Solidarity in Western Democracies
• Immigration Canada: Evolving Realities and Emerging Challenges in a Postnational World
• International Health Worker Migration and Recruitment: Global Governance, Politics and Policy
• International labour mobility : how remittances shape the labour migration model
• Invisible Migrant Nightworkers in 24/7 London 
• Legislated inequality: temporary labour migration in Canada
• Liberating temporariness? : migration, work, and citizenship in an age of insecurity
• Made in Canada : how the law constructs migrant workers' insecurity
• Making Critical Sense of Immigrant Experience: A Case Study of Hong Kong Chinese in Canada
• Price of rights regulating international labor migration 
• Race, gender and contemporary international labor migration regimes : 21st-century coolies? 
• Race on the Move: Brazilian Migrants and the Global Reconstruction of Race
• Remittances as social practices and agents of change : the future of transnational society 
• Southern insurgency : the coming of the global working class
• Transnational Employment Strain in a Global Health Pandemic: Migrant Farmworkers in Canada
• Vulnerability, Exploitation and Migrants: Insecure Work in a Globalised Economy
• World migration report

Browse by subject

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

• Canada - Race relations
• Foreign workers -- Canada
• Foreign Workers -- Canada -- Social Conditions
• Immigrant Women
• Immigrants
• Immigrants employment
• Labor
• Labor -- [country or region]
• Labor -- Canada
• Labor -- China
• Labor and globalization
• Migration
• Migrant labor
• Race discrimination Canada
• Refugees Canada
• Transnational migration
• Transnationalism
• Women foreign workers
• Women household employees

Government and statistics

Canadian statistics

• 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.
  • Labour Force Survey
    -  a monthly survey which measures the current state of the Canadian labour market and is used, among other things, to calculate the national, provincial, territorial and regional employment.

British Columbia

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

Statista  A statistics portal that integrates statistics from thousands of sources and provides simple exports of both data and charts in multiple formats.

​United States

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
  • Handbook of U.S. Labor Statistics: Employment, Earnings, Prices, Productivity, and Other Labor Data , 9th ed. - publication based on Bureau of Labor Statistics information, and gathered from various sources

International

• Europa World - for an overview of economic, historical and political overview of a country. 
• Inter-Agency On Migration (IOM) -
  • World Migration report (2022)
  • Migration Portal 
    • Types of migration, including Labour Migration
• International Labour Organization (ILO)
  • International Labour Organization. ILO Minimum Estimate of Forced Labour in the World. Geneva, Switzerland: ILO, 2012.
  • Labour Migration
  • Standards and Fundamental Principles and rights at work
• International Organization for Migration (IMO)
• undata  Provides selected series from 30 specialized international data sources for all available countries and areas.
  • Search results for keywords:
    •  "migration"
    • "refugees"
• Statistics
  • SourceOECD .
    • Choose: Statistics
      • Choose: Trade Unions --> Employment and Labour Market Statistics
        • E.g. Union Members and Employees (international comparison chart)

Websites

Search Tips for Google and Google Scholar for using the Google or Google Scholar search engines

Organizations

Canada

• BC Federation of Labour
  • Issues
• Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
  • Eroding Worker Protections: BC's New 'Flexible' Employment Standards (2005)
  • Labour Matters
• Canadian Labour Congress
  • Issues and Research

International

Guides and tutorials

• What is plagiarism? [guide]
• Understanding and avoiding plagiarism [interactive tutorial]
• How to Write an Annotated Bibliography
• Internet research: Finding and evaluating resources
• Search Tips for Google and Google Scholar
• Research Tutorials
  • Library Research Skills [interactive tutorial]
  • What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?
  • Research concepts worksheet [guide]

Search tips and techniques

• Use "or" to combine same concept
• Use "and" to combine different concepts
• Use "quotation marks" to search for an exact phrase
• Use asterisk (*) the truncation symbol, for variation on endings of words (work* will find: work, works, worker, working, workforce, etc.)
• For Abbreviations, also use full names: ILO or "international labour organization"
• Search Tips for Google and Google Scholar
   
  • Use intitle: to force Google to find those words in the titles of results.  Use quotation marks ("") to search for phrases
    • intitle:"airport security"
       
  • Use filetype: to tell Google to find certain filetypes
    • filetype:pdf
       
  • Use site: to specify results from a government web site
    • "Airport security”  site:gov

Writing help

• Student Learning Commons
  • Writing for University
  • Book an appointment