Employment specialists say newcomer women often bear a disproportionate share of caregiving responsibilities, delaying or reshaping careers they spent years building. Among recent immigrants, the full-time employment rate was 59 per cent for women educated outside Canada, compared with 80 per cent for Canadian-born women. Marzougui-Yacoubi said one of the greatest misconceptions about immigrant women is that settlement begins only after they arrive in Canada. For Nguyen and Nader, the issue is not whether immigrant women are willing to work hard. “Immigrant women do,” she said.