The Substance and Style of Emotional Labour

Abstract

The continuance of gender inequity has dominated most of the discourse on diversity in organisations. Few studies, particularly in the Australian context, deal with the racialised nature of many professional workplaces. This chapter critically examines immigrant Indian professionals’ experiences of perceived discrimination, exclusion after inclusion, and bias in Australian organisations. It focuses on the complexities of emotional labour, since concealing true emotions and displaying the emotions necessitated by the job can be difficult. Job burnout and stress are possible outcomes of this conflict between required and true emotions. There is a rapidly growing Indian community in Australia. In 2020, there were over 7.6 million migrants living in Australia. This was 29.8 percent of the population that were born overseas. One year earlier, in 2019, there were 7.5 million people born overseas. Those born in India (721,000) were in second place, with an increase of 56,300 people (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2020a). This chapter examines the challenges and adjustments experienced by immigrant Indian professionals, as well as whether these factors play a role in their workplace integration.

Citation

Gowan, S. (2023), "The Substance and Style of Emotional Labour", The Ethnically Diverse Workplace: Experience of Immigrant Indian Professionals in Australia, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 69-92. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80382-053-820221004