Our study examines the career achievements of 50 professional couples that immigrated from China to Canada. We compare their job attainment when they left China with that years after immigration. We apply concepts of human capital and institutional theory to understand why the job status of the majority drops after immigrating. Human capital concepts account for most career advancement in China. Human capital theory falls short in explaining the structural barriers to achievement that affect those in the controlled professions, and especially women, in Canada. The institutional framework views immigrants' unemployment and a drop in job levels and wages as a status change. Structural concepts handle job deterioration, and in particular women's loss of status, in terms of social recognition of career paths. Structural concepts explain why immigrants' past career paths are poorly understood or are blocked in a new context. We conclude that institutional theory is more widely applicable than human capital theory for understanding the loss of job status for our sample of skilled immigrants from China. © 2003 John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.

China Professional migrants Human capital theory Canada institutional theory

Canada skilled labor Asian immigrant migrants experience employment North America human capital