Well, for someone like me, staying home was never a choice. If I couldn't go out and earn a living wage I have no idea what my life would be like.
I honestly have no answer to the question about whether women are better off than they were. I guess the answer is yes and no. Some are, some aren't. My mom used to talk about the 'glory days' in the 50s when she and the other mothers would take their kids to the park and picnic and basically have the day together, almost every day then get ready for their husbands to come home so they could party (no TV no video no games, MUCH socializing). It didn't sound horrible. But for some energetic and brilliant women it was extremely confining. It's good those women can now have careers. But let's not forget, the majority of women do not have careers. They have jobs, just like most men, jobs they'd just as soon not have to get up and go out in the cold to every winter, but which they have no choice because in today's economy one salary is rarely enough to get by on. Not to mention women no longer leave their dad's house for one with their husband in their early twenties. A lot of those women I have spoken to would much rather be home with kids than working at some crummy, unsatisfying job.
The TFW program was certainly exploited to tilt the labor market in favor of employers.
There's no getting around the law of supply and demand.
But I'm not sure that all of the immigrants should be just assumed to fall under the heading of unskilled labor.
I never suggested all of them do. But clearly, too many do. We don't need statistics to see this because we run into them all the time - although the statistics on the deteriorating economic success of immigrants is clear. One interesting aspect of the US system is that economic immigrants already have job offers or actual jobs when they get here, unlike ours. That might be something we want to look at changing.
There are... or there used to be, at least... some good colleges in the Muslim world, probably built by well-intentioned dictators trying to push their countries forcefully in to the 20th century.
My understanding is there are actually NO good colleges in the Muslim world. And what colleges they have focus their energy and pride on learning more about Islam. All those glittering buildings in the gulf are designed by westerners. Their oil infrastructure is maintained by westerners. Most of their professionals are westerners. I would expect them to hire a lot more Arabs if there were really good Arabs to be hired.
In regard to Germany, their big problem is that young men from the "Maghreb" countries file bogus refugee claims to come to Germany, live in Germany while their claims are processed, and refuse to leave Germany after their claims are rejected. Germany can't even deport them... their home countries refused to take them back.
Most of the immigrants crossing our borders illegally right now appear to be from this same region, as well as a little further south, Somalia, Nigeria and Sudan.
I remember there being a hair salon in Rideau Centre owned by a Muslim family.
I wasn't mentioning him merely because he was economically successful but because I've spoken to him often in the last twenty years and he has made an honest effort to raise his kids as Canadians and to involve himself in Canadian society beyond the Lebanese community. My next door neighbor, meanwhile, is Canadian born, but I've never seen a non-Arab go into his house (and he has a lot of visitors) and all the women wear Arab robes and head scarves, including his wife. He makes sure his kids speak Arabic and learn about 'home' and takes them back frequently, sometimes for months at a time so they won't lose their culture. Which is what his parents did with him...
Now, you've mentioned Ottawa has issues with Somalis in particular. Perhaps Somalis who end up in Canada are often refugees, as opposed to economic immigrants who come here with employable skills?
They also come from a society which has been at war forever, with no real government, industry or school system, leading a hardscrabble existence where you take anything you can because nobody will give you a thing. There is little sense of morality about a dog eat dog world, and when they come here they find themselves in paradise, making extensive use of every social welfare advantage they can, regularly getting their food at food banks and their clothes at the Salvation Army - regardless of whether they can afford their own. In my old building it was well known that every family claimed multiple kids, and if by chance an inspector called to visit they would simply borrow the extras from relatives or friends. Crime is also clearly a byproduct of where they came from, as they congregate in male only gangs (naturally, since they don't speak English on arrival and young Somali girls are not allowed out with boys), get into trouble, and escalate into violence.
But this was easily foreseen, and few of them are actual refugees as opposed to economic migrants. Canada needs to be a lot more careful about who it takes in as a refugee, since that's a virtual guarantee of citizenship. And it needs to find a way to deport people a lot faster.