From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Indo-fijians/Norman Buchignani
The qualities of innovation and entrepreneurship that developed among Indians in Fiji of necessity, have been effective adaptation aids in Canada. Indo-Fijian male immigrants have been extremely flexible in the area of employment, typically finding work quickly and maintaining high levels of employment, even though the jobs are often not in the areas in which they had previous experience. Women have had to be more flexible still. In Fiji only 10 percent of Indian women overall, and 14 percent in the cities, participate in the workforce, while since the 1970s, the majority of Indo-Fijian women in Canada have worked outside the home. Indo-Fijians are found in a wide range of occupations, with some concentrations in janitorial work, automobile services, the building trades, fabrication, sewing, bookkeeping, and other clerical occupations. Most Indo-Fijian businesses are food stores, real-estate agencies, travel-agencies, appliance and furniture stores, and fabric and clothing stores, and they serve a primarily Indo-Fijian or more general South-Asian clientele.
Overall, most Indo-Fijians in the Vancouver area are now well-established economically, and those in Calgary even more so. A major factor in their achievement of economic stability has been the extensive use of family-based economic strategies, such as pooling of parents’ and children’s incomes. For Indo-Fijians, home ownership is an important symbol of prosperity and a stable family life. Until house prices in the Vancouver area rose dramatically in the early 1980s, families typically bought their first homes within six years of immigrating. Unfortunately, home ownership is now virtually impossible for many in the Vancouver area although not in Calgary. A small but increasing minority of Indo-Fijians can be considered poor; these are primarily a few older people and young adults living alone, as well as some families that have immigrated recently. Few Indo-Fijians have returned home after making any kind of long-term commitment to life in Canada.
