This article paints a picture of the professional integration of female immigrants in the Quebec City area, a city in which they are a small minority. Our main interest is the obstacles to their socio-professional integration. We attempt to shed light on this reality by giving an overview of the effects that disruptions in a woman's career in general and an immigrant woman's career in particular have in that, as workers in the so-called secondary sector, they are often the first affected by market polarization, our focus is on the intersection of identities that allow us to place the building of a professional identity in these women within its link to the adopted culture. Following is the representation of the obstacles faced by some of the women, approached in the framework of research on their professional integration, and the innovative identity-building strategies used to overcome these obstacles. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007.

Work integration Immigration Psychosocial identity career

Canada female Quebec [Quebec (PRV)] migrants experience employment Quebec [Canada] immigration North America