Contact info

If you need assistance with library research, please email Moninder Lalli moninder_lalli@sfu.ca, Librarian for Labour Studies, or use the Ask a Librarian link.

See also guide: Public Policy for Women (GSWS 350/824 page)

Research process

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.

Terminology to search for public polices

Consider using the following search terms since not all policy documents contain the word "policy" in their title or description.

• Policy or policies
• Regulation(s)
• Legislation
• Incentive
• Procedure
• Plan(s)
• Program(s)
• Guidelines
• Statement of principles, values and intent

Search results for "policy" on Govt of Canada website
results  

Selected encyclopedias and handbooks

Use encyclopedias, dictionaries and handbooks to obtain definitions and overviews of a topic and also to identify key authors.

• Handbook of Globalisation
• Handbook of research on the global political economy of work
• Handbook on Well-Being of Working Women (NOTE: use the Springer link)
• Handbook on the international political economy of gender 
• Palgrave Handbook of Intersectionality in Public Policy
• Palgrave Handbook of Women’s Political Rights
• Palgrave Handbook of workplace well-being
• Routledge handbook of Indigenous wellbeing
  This handbook explores the physical, social and emotional, economic, cultural and spiritual, and subjective wellbeing of Indigenous people and communities around the world, and can be used to help develop and implement policies and partnerships. There is also an entry on the "Economic wellbeing of Canada's Indigenous people."
• Sociology of work : an encyclopedia 

Journal articles

How to find journal articles

Search for journal articles on your topic using the databases, below.  From within the database, use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.  

• Women's Studies International -- Main database for GSWS topics. Scholarly journal articles.
• ProQuest Sociology Collection - for issues related to class, gender, racism, sexuality and sexism and theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science.
• Academic Search Premier. Multidisciplinary index to academic & popular journals. 
• Social Sciences Full Text - indexes social sciences journals
• America: History and Life
  Indexes literature on all aspects of United States and Canadian history, culture, and current affairs from prehistoric times to the present.
• Political Science Complete - Scholarly journal articles,Journals, reference books and monographs, and conference papers on political topics with a worldwide focus, reflecting the globalization of contemporary political discourse.
• Business Source Complete - Articles on labour issues. BSC also contains industry and market reports, company profiles, country economic reports, and more. 
• CBCA Complete - Comprehensive Canadian periodical collection for reference and current events. Publications include scholarly journal articles, trade publications, dissertations, books, newspapers and magazines.
• Canada Commons (formerly, Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris) - Canadian health and public policy documents, and Canadian e-books. 
  • The "Boolean operators" (AND, OR) must be in capital letters.
  • If you don't want variations of a term then put the term in quotation marks ("term")
  • Basic search engine
    • policy AND gender AND ("wage gap" OR "pay equity") - results limited by selected "subjects". You can apply additional limits.
  • Advanced search engine: policy AND gender AND ("wage gap" OR "pay equity") 

Selected journals

You can use the above databases to look for articles by topic. From an article's citation (reference), you can find specific
journals by searching for journal's title using the A-Z journals list.  

• Canadian Journal of Women & the Law
• Canadian Public Policy
• Economic and Labour Relations Review
• Gender, Work & Organization
• Journal of Industrial Relations
• Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation
• Journal of Women & Aging
• Journal of Workplace Rights, for articles after 2013, search for title of article in Sage Open
• Labour = Le Travail  [Canadian]
• University of Oxford Human Rights Hub Journal
• Sex Roles
• Women’s Studies International Forum

Find books

The Library Catalogue provides access to books, journal articles, videos, government documents and much more.  To limit the search results to "books", use the filter (left-hand column in search results) to "resource type" of "books."

Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue, using the Basic or the Advanced search

Note: In the searches below, you can limit search results to "Resource type" of "Books"and by "Subject" (left-hand column)

• (women OR female* OR gender*) AND (labor OR labour) AND (race OR class* OR ethni* OR "visible minor*") AND canad*
• (women OR gender) AND (work OR employment OR job OR profession OR pay OR wage* OR salar*) AND (policy OR program OR Regulat* OR Legislat*) AND (canad* OR BC OR british columbia OR ontario OR quebec OR alberta OR manitoba)
  • results limited by selected "subjects" and time (from 2010 on)
• (women OR gender OR lgbt OR queer OR indigenous ) AND (work OR employment OR job OR profession) AND (policy OR program  OR legislat* OR regulat*) AND canad*
  • results limited by selected "subjects" and time (from 2010 on)
• (precar* OR gig) AND (work* OR jobs OR employ*) AND (women OR gender)
• (paid OR unpaid) AND (work OR employment OR jobs OR labor OR labour)
• (work OR jobs OR employ*) AND (edi OR equit* OR diversity OR inclus*) AND canad*
• (Aborig* OR Indigen* OR "First Nations") AND (employ* OR jobs OR labor* OR labour* OR skill*) AND (Canad* OR British Columbia")
• settler colonial* AND (work* OR jobs OR employ*) AND canad*
• "global political economy" AND (labor OR labour OR worker* OR unions) AND (women OR gender)
• (harrass* OR violen* OR bully*) AND Subject contains (work* OR jobs OR employ*) AND (women OR gender)
• (occupational OR workplace*) AND (health OR safe* OR injur*) AND (women OR gender) AND canad*
• (unions OR organiz*) AND (trade OR work) AND (women OR gender) AND canad*
• (pension* OR aged OR aging) AND (work OR employ*) AND (women OR gender) AND canad*
• ("climate change" OR "green economy" OR "clean energy") AND (work OR employ*) AND (women OR gender) AND canad*

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")

Selected books

• Ageism at Work : Deconstructing Age and Gender in the Discriminating Labour Market 
• Bullying and harassment in the workplace 
• Canadian labour policy and politics 
• Climate Change and Gender in Rich Countries
• Collective bargaining and gender equality
• Decolonizing employment : Aboriginal inclusion in Canada's labour market  [print]
• Employment equity in Canada : the legacy of the Abella report
• Equity, Diversity & Canadian Labour
• Feminism’s Fight: Challenging Politics and Policies in Canada Since 1970
• Gender, Class and Power An Analysis of Pay Inequalities in the Workplace
• Gender pay gap : understanding the numbers
• Gender work ; feminism after neoliberalism
• Gendering of Inequalities: Women, Men and Work : Women, Men and Work 
• Globalization and precarious forms of production and employment : challenges for workers and unions
• Health and Safety in Canadian Workplaces
• In pursuit of equity : women, men, and the quest for economic citizenship in 20th-century America
• Individualising Risk: Paid Care Work in the New Gig Economy
• Just work? : migrant workers' struggles today
• Legislated inequality : temporary labour migration in Canada
• Labour politics in Canada
• Making Care Count : A Century of Gender, Race, and Paid Care Work
• Platformization and Informality Pathways of Change, Alteration, and Transformation 
• Public policy for women : the state, income security, and labour market issues
• Rising up : the fight for living wage work in Canada
• Speaking up in a culture of silence : how to change organizational systems of bullying and incivility to safety and responsibility
• Unfree labour? : struggles of migrant and immigrant workers in Canada
• Vulnerability, Exploitation and Migrants: Insecure Work in a Globalised Economy
• Women and the State: the shifting boundaries of public and private
• Women in a globalizing world : transforming equality, development, diversity and peace
• Women, labor segmentation and regulation varieties of gender gaps 
• Women's Health in Canada : Challenges of Intersectionality (2nd ed.)
• Women's lived experiences of the gender gap : gender inequalities from multiple global perspectives
• Women's unpaid work in Canada : report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women 
• Working women in Canada

Browse by subject

Browse by subject (change the default "Browse by title" to ""Browse by subject" using the pull-down menu)

You can sort the results list by "newest first" (default is by "relevance")

• Bullying in the Workplace
• Discrimination in employment
• Discrimination in employment -- Canada
• Equality -- Canada
• Foreign workers -- Canada
• Industrial safety. -- British Columbia
• Industrial safety -- Canada
• Labor laws and legislation -- Canada
• Pay equity
• Pensions -- Canada
• Precarious employment
• Sex discrimination in employment
• Women -- Canada  -- Economic conditions
• Women employees
• Women -- Employment -- Canada
• Women -- Government policy
• Women -- Government policy -- Canada
• Women and work
• Women in workforce
• Women's rights
• Women's rights -- [name of country or region]
• Women's rights -- Asia
• Women's rights -- Africa
• Women's rights -- China
• Women's rights -- Great Britain

Government

British Columbia

• WorkSafe BC

Federal

• Statistics Canada
  • Gender, diversity and inclusion statistics hub
  • "Intersectional perspective on the Canadian gender wage gap," 
  • Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces
  • Women in Canada: A gender-based statistical report, 7th edition
• Women and Gender Equality Canada 
  • Gender-Based Analysis Plus

International

Along with documents from United Nations, you may also wish to use the Google search engine to find documents from governments around the world.

• United Nations

  • UN Women
    • Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women
    • Progress of the World’s Women (series)
• World Economic Forum
  • The Global Gender Gap Report (annual)

Associations and organizations

• Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA)
  • Labour Matters
  • Reports on "employment & labour"
    • Living Wage for Families BC
    • Working for a Living Wage: Making paid work meet basic family needs in Metro Vancouver: 2023 Update
    • Understanding Precarity in BC
• Westcoast LEAF
  • Gender equity report card (2021/2022) - "assesses BC’s progress in advancing gender equality in economic security and access to healthcare." [description from the website]
  • Mind the Pay Gap: A Legislative Approach to Ending Pay Discrimination in BC

Google or Google Scholar

Search Tips for Google and Google Scholar
Set up Google Scholar library links and button [i.e. "Get@SFU link" within Google Scholar]

Search results limited to words in the title of document, using "intitle:".  Use capital "OR" for synonyms. Put braces "(__ OR__ )" around words with the same meaning (synonyms). "AND" is assumed by Google so you don't need to include it in your search strategy.

access Google Scholar through the Library

Presentation skills

• Resources on developing your participation skills
• Resources to help you improve your presentation skills

Library guides

• Library Research Skills [interactive tutorial]
• Popular versus scholarly sources [video]
• What is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal?
• What is plagiarism? [guide]
• Evaluating sources
• How to Write an Annotated Bibliography
• Referencing and citation management software For help, please contact us at citation-managers@sfu.ca 
• Tutorials
• Student Learning Commons & Writing help

Writing help

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