one of the biggest obstacles immigrants face when looking for work is that their qualifications and foreign work experience may not be fully recognised in the host country as a result many immigrant workers hold jobs for which they are overqualified on average men have higher scores on the numeracy and problem solving in technologyrich environments scales than women but the gap is not large and is further reduced when other characteristics such as educational attainment and socioeconomic status are taken into account in literacy the gap in proficiency in favour of men is even narrower