Project Completion Report

May 20, 2013
Report to the Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster
Conference on “International Perspectives on Family Structures and Child Well-being”
1. Project Team
Project leader: Shelley Clark (Associate Professor, McGill University)
Team members: Céline Le Bourdais (Professor, McGill University) and Amélie Quesnel-Vallée
(Associate Professor, McGill University)
Conference participants: The following PhD students, professors (ranging from Assistant
Professors to Professors), and representatives from governmental policy and research agencies
attended. We had 37 participants, 14 from Montréal and 23 from elsewhere in Canada, the US
and Great Britain.
Beaujot, Roderic P. (Western U)
Beaupré, Pascale (Social and Aboriginal
Statistics Division, SC)
Berger, Laurence (University of WisconsinMadison)
Bignami, Simona (U de Montréal)
Bohnert, Nora (Demography Division, SC)
Brunet, Geneviève (McGill U, Admin. Staff)
Casuga, Elizabeth (HRSDC, Family Policy)
Choi, Kate (Western U)
Clark, Shelley (McGill U)
Cotton, Cassandra* (McGill U.)
Findlay, Leanne (Health Division, SC)
Goldberg, Rachel (Princeton U)
Grant, Monica (U of Wisconsin)
Jordan, Lucy (U of Southampton)
Kohen, Dafna (Health Division, SC)
Labrecque, Jeremy* (McGill U)
Lardoux, Solène (U de Montréal)
Le Bourdais, Céline (McGill U)
Livingstone, Anne-Marie* (John Hopkins)
Madhavan, Sangeetha (U of Maryland)
Manning, Wendy (Bowling Green U)
Masferrer, Claudia* (McGill U)
McDaniels, Susan (U of Lethbridge)
Merrigan, Philip (UQAM)
Omole, Oluwatosin* (McGill U)
Pacaut, Philipe (M famille et aînés)
Pelletier, David* (U de Montréal)
Proulx, Christine* (McGill U)
Quesnel-Vallée, Amélie (McGill U)
Ravanera, Zenaida R. (Western U)
Sear, Rebecca (London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine)
Smith-Greenaway, Emily* (Penn State U)
Smock, Pamela (U of Michigan)
Saint-Jacques, Marie-Christine (U Laval)
Strohschein, Lisa (U of Alberta)
Tenkorang, Eric Yeboah (Memorial U.)
Vang, Zoua (McGill U)
*=Students, SC= Statistics Canada, HRSDC= Human Resources and Skills Development Canada
Starting in the fall of 2012, Shelley Clark has assumed her new role as director of the Centre on Population
Dynamics (CPD) at McGill. As a new centre, CPD is seeking to build partnerships and form collaborations
with both university and governmental organizations to strengthen Canada’s population research capacity
and mobilize knowledge around critical population issues.
2. Project Description
Families are universal institutions, which play a central role in ensuring the health and well-being of
children. Yet, they exhibit remarkable fluidity over time and considerable variation across different social
and cultural settings. Our conference, entitled “International Perspectives on Family Structures and Child
Well-being,” explored how changes in children’s family structures over their early life course impact the
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well-being of children, particularly, their physical health, mental well-being, and educational attainment.
To promote a vibrant exchange of ideas, we examined the relationship between family structures and child
well-being in two strikingly different social, economic, cultural, and familial contexts: North America and
sub-Saharan Africa. Our theoretical framework for this conference drew heavily on one of the main
principles of the life course theory, “linked lives,” which emphasizes the interdependence and
interconnectedness of lives particularly through bonds of kinship (Elder 1987; 1994; 1998; Elder, Johnson
and Crosnoe 2003; Stack and Burton 1993). Within this broader life course perspective, we brought
together research from two thematic areas of the PCLC Cluster: 1) families and 2) health over the life
course.
Our conference took place over 1.5 days on November 30 and December 1, 2012 in Peterson Hall
Building, conference Room 116, at McGill University. Overall, 37 participants attended the conference
including academic researchers, ranging from Ph.D. students (8) to Professors (22), who work on families
and child well-being in both North America and Africa. To stimulate dialogue with governmental research
organizations and policy makers, we also invited representatives (6) from Statistics Canada, Human
Resources and Skills Development Canada and Ministère de la Famille et des Aînés. Our conference
program featured 8 sessions. Please follow the link below for the conference program along with 19 of the
20 presentations embedded within the program document.
There were 3 main objectives of this conference:
1) Promote idea exchange and cross-fertilization by comparing and contrasting research on families
and child well-being in North America and sub-Saharan Africa;
2) Identify innovative conceptual and empirical methods to capture the fluid and complex nature of
family dynamics;
3) Build collaborations with key Canadian government agencies to improve family-oriented social
policy.
Target audience: through this conference, we were able to reach 3 primary audiences.
1) Academic researchers: Researchers working in both North America and sub-Saharan Africa. The
field of family demography in sub-Saharan Africa is relatively new. Nonetheless, researchers in
North America are currently facing surprisingly similar challenges as unions become more fluid
and less formal and as family structures frequently extend beyond the household.
To reach a wider academic audience, we made the program and presentations with key findings
available on the CPD website along with conference clip and mini-interviews with the presenters
and participants. The program with embedded presentations can be found at
https://www.mcgill.ca/popcentre/news-and-events.
2) Key government agencies: We invited both 1) governmental statistical agencies to demonstrate the
need for longitudinal surveys with appropriate measures of family structures and 2) policy makers
to facilitate evidence-based family policy decisions.
3) General public: The changing nature of families and their impact on child well-being are of
considerable interest to the general public.
We hired three graduate students to disseminate our main findings by posting selected conference
clips and mini-interviews with the presenters and participants on the CPD website. Two interviews
were recorded. The first one features Pamela Smock and Céline Le Bourdais comparing cohabiting
unions in the US and Canada and discussing qualitative and quantitative ways to analyse these
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unions. The second interview was done with Sangeetha Madhavan discussing her areas of research
and more specifically her work on fatherhood in sub-Saharan Africa looking at the concepts of
nurturance and extended family involvement. Two conference clips are also available, one by
Lawrence Berger presenting on “Family Structure Complexity: Implications for Public Policy” and
the second by Lisa Strohschein presenting on “Non-marital Childberaing among First-time Mothers
and Health in Early Childhood in Canada”. These four videos are posted on a Vimeo channel
accessible through the CPD website at http://www.mcgill.ca/popcentre/
3. Project Relevance
This conference helped further the primary goal of the Cluster which is “to promote research that will lead
academics and policymakers to a clearer understanding of the relationship between population structure
and the lives of individuals.” In particular, we focused on how changes in family structures over the life
course impact child health and well-being, making a valuable contribution to the themes of both families
and health over the life course. By engaging both academics and policy makers, it further enhances our
ability to develop sound social, family, and health policies.
4. Training Component
Slightly more than the fifth of our participants were Ph.D. students. Participation in smaller conferences is
important not only for the development of their professional networks, but also for the opportunity to
present their research and share their ideas in a smaller and highly supportive environment before
presenting at one of the larger conferences such as CPS or PAA. Three of our graduate student participants
gained valuable experience by creating videos and mini-interviews with selected speakers.
5. Project Budget
The budget covers the costs of hosting the conference. It includes coffee breaks, 2 lunches and a wine and
cheese reception for 37 participants plus 1 dinner for 14 people. The travel expenses cover transport for 19
out-of-town participants. We also added material costs, lodging expenses at Château Versailles and salaries
for graduate students who taped presentations and did mini-interviews. We requested 12,350$ from the
PCLC KM award to cover airfare for 19 people. We will cover the remaining costs, in the amount of
12,338.57$.
Conference on "International Perspectives on Family Structures and Child Well‐being", November 30 & December 1, 2012, McGill University. Expenses Material an Supplies Food Travel expenses Salaries (including benefits) Lodging TOTAL Description Staples Screen Restaurant La Coupole (14 guests) Coffee Breaks Wine and Cheese Lunches (37 guests) Working Dinner Beverages 19 visiting speakers 3 graduate students Hotel Château Versailles TOTAL 146.37
9.13
2187.04
533.31
648.64
1148.93
250.83
54.41
12563.38
428.24
6718.29
24688.57
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