LA&PS Professor Tania Das Gupta investigates the myriad of challenges experienced by international students, focusing on how the housing crisis especially impacts this population while they also experience blame for it.
In an article for CBC and for CBC’s Front Burner, Professor Das Gupta discusses how international students face exploitation and challenges both within the housing and labour markets. Professor Das Gupta mentions how “international students have been scapegoated for the housing crisis by politicians and citizens have followed suit, just like they are blamed for taking away jobs. This is plain and simple racism and xenophobia at play.” International students experience discrimination at multiple levels, while “they are a source of revenue for the post-secondary educational sector, paying 3-5 times the tuition that domestic students pay.” Often, to make ends meet, they take on precarious labour which can negatively impact their health and wellbeing, despite not being covered by provincial health insurance.
To learn more about this issue, you can listen to Professor Das Gupta’s episode on CBC FrontBurner about her research on international students. She was also featured in another CBC article to comment on this topic, and wrote a piece along with Professor Yvonne Su and Professor Soma Chatterjee for The Conversation.