Contains the following reports:   Aging and paid work – Ellie Berger Caregiving and social participation – Janet Fast Health over the lifecourse – Amélie Quesnel-Vallée Families – Zheng Wu Immigrants and migrants – Barry Edmonston Aging, lifelong learning and lifecourse flexibility – Paul Bélange

Berger, Ellie

Bélanger, Paul

Edmonston, Barry

Fast, Janet

Wu, Zheng

English

Scholarship@Western

1  Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Reports of Thematic Committees   Aging and Paid Work Thematic Committee Report March 2013  Ellie Berger  Chair, Aging and Paid Work Thematic Committee Committee Overview  Over the next few decades, population and labour force aging in industrialized nations will occur at unprecedented rates, reducing the supply of younger workers entering the labour force. Potential labour shortages, along with concerns about financial support of retirees, have prompted commentators to argue that a critical issue facing industrialized countries is the retention and retraining of older workers.  Older workers are at particular risk if they lose their jobs since they often have difficulty with re-entry due in part to ageism in the workplace. There is a need for employers and governments to develop age neutral workplace policies that consider the changing needs and capacities of workers across the life course so that they can remain productive over a longer term. (Summary of report written by Julie McMullin, former Chair of Aging and Paid Work Thematic Committee).  Past Activities by Aging and Paid Work Committee Members  Please see the Aging and Paid Work Thematic Committee Website (http://sociology.uwo.ca/cluster/en/Aging&PaidWork.html) for more information on past activities, including policy briefs, conference presentations, and members in the news.  Priorities and Future Activities of the Aging and Paid Work Thematic Committee:  Monitor academic and policy papers on aging and paid work and select key ones to transform into policy or research briefs.  Identify and recruit new faculty and student members to the Aging and Paid Work Thematic Committee.  Encourage the development of new research networks and projects in the aging and paid work area.  Determine what knowledge mobilization activities the group is currently engaged in and get suggestions from committee members about future mobilization activities.   Organize Pre-Conference Workshop on Aging and Paid Work to be held in conjunction with Canadian Association on Gerontology (CAG) in Halifax, October 17-19, 2013.   Invite keynote speakers and circulate call for papers  Promote workshop through PCLC, CAG, etc.  Increase knowledge mobilization between academics, policy makers, and those working in the aging field.  Look into planning a separate Student Workshop on Knowledge Mobilization to be held during CAG in Halifax, October 17-19, 2013.   2   Caregiving and Social Participation Thematic Committee Janet Fast, Leader Update on Activities for 2012 and Planning for 2013/14  2012 Activities Activities for this thematic committee have, in some ways, been on the light side in 2012. Only one new initiative was undertaken, largely because we continued to work on initiatives begun in 2011.   A knowledge synthesis from the Canadian Research Data Centre Network conference held in Edmonton in October 2011, supported in part by the PCLC cluster, was produced and placed on the CRDCN web site. A report on knowledge and data gaps identified during the conference also was prepared and submitted to HRSDC.  Our partnership continues with international PCLC cluster member Professor Sue Yeandle and her colleagues at Leeds University in the UK. This partnership was supported early on by a PCLC cluster faculty exchange grant. We are now collaborating with colleagues in Australia and New Zealand on a project titled Older Workers and Caregiving: Statistical Evidence From the UK, Australia and Canada. I visited Leeds again in June 2012 and Australia this February to continue work on the project.  Employer forums that started during Dr. Yeandle’s initial visit to Canada, supported in part by the PCLC cluster faculty exchange grant, also continued in 2012. In addition to the five 2011 roundtables, cluster member Donna Lero, Nora Spinks (CEO of the Vanier Institute of the Family), and I facilitated roundtables on employment and caregiving in Charlottetown (May, 2012), Halifax (May, 2012) and Montreal (October, 2012).  The Economic Costs of Care Research Program, funded by HRSDC and involving PCLC cluster members Fast, Lero, Keating, Dosman, Duncan, Yoshino, Lucas & Waye, also continued in 2012. Final reports for three of the five projects were submitted at the end of 2012.  The one new initiative for 2012 is production of a series of webinars on the topic of employment and caregiving. A series of ten webinars is planned. We received funding from HRSDC, and a PCLC cluster knowledge mobilization grant a series for a total of five of these episodes. The first three webinars have been recorded and are being prepared for distribution.  2013/14 Plans  The remaining HRSDC-funded Economic Costs of Care projects will be wrapped up in 2013. Manuscripts are currently in preparation for submission to academic journals.   Additional webinars will be produced during the first half of 2013, two of them funded by the PCLC cluster.  Professor Yeandle will return to Canada in May 2013 to continue our collaboration on the Older Workers and Caregiving project. Additional colleagues from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Wales (PCLC cluster member Judith Phillips) and Ontario (PCLC cluster member Donna Lero) will attend for the purpose of planning an ongoing research program on employment and caregiving and related major funding applications.  3  Thematic Committee on Health Inequalities Over the Life Course 2013 Report  Amélie Quesnel-Vallée, TC Leader  Past activities (2009-2013) Membership drive All the departments of sociology, economics, epidemiology and public health across Canada were examined for Faculty interests that coincided with the focus of the thematic committee and the PCLC mandate. A list of 56 new potential members was drafted from this canvassing, and invitations to join the cluster were sent, resulting in 25 responses from faculty members and some of their students.  Sponsored sessions at conferences 2010 Socio-Economic Conference. Public Policies and Health Inequalities 2009 Socio-Economic Conference. Social Inequalities in Health over the Life Course 2009 CRDCN Annual Conference. Health Over the Life Course 4th Population, Work, Family Policy Research Collaboration   Forthcoming activities (2013-2014) Research brief From Brennenstuhl, S., A. Quesnel-Vallee and P. McDonough. 2012. "Welfare Regimes, Population Health and Health Inequalities: A Research Synthesis." Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 66(5):397-409. doi: 10.1136/jech-2011-200277.  (Funding for the research synthesis was provided by the PCLC).  Panel session on census mortality linkage at the Canadian Population Society (co-sponsored by the PCLC) Supporting the travel costs of a speaker to the special panel session: Making the most of Statistics Canada's linked Census and administrative data files: Exploring the Research Potential of the 1991 Census Linked File Organizer and Panel Presider: Pamela White . Panelists: Walter Omariba, Statistics Canada; Paul Demers,Cancer Care Ontario CIHR transition grant development competition.  Background. In 2009, SSHRC revised its guidelines on the eligibility of subject matter, stating that all research primarily intended to improve health, health care, and health-care systems would no longer be eligible for consideration at SSHRC. Since research eligible under the mandate of CIHR will not be considered by SSHRC, many areas of research previously funded through SSHRC programs must now apply to CIHR.  Objective of the funding opportunity. This funding opportunity is intended to assist social scientists in making the transition to CIHR by providing seed funding and in-kind assistance (advice on the grant, if desired) to assist in the development of research proposals for submission to CIHR. Up to three grants of a maximum of $4,500 will be funded.  A call for proposals has already gone out for the April 15 competition.  Sponsor of a plenary session at the 2014 CIQSS conference on the theme of the Social Determinants of Health.  Support will consist of personnel assistance for planning, supplies and printing, travel costs for a plenary speaker, subsidy for registration of 10 PCLC members, and the production of a report for KT.  4  REPORT ON THE PCLC THEMATIC COMMITTEE ON FAMILIES  March 14, 2017  Zheng Wu Chair, Thematic Committee on Families  The main objective of the PCLC Thematic Committee on Families is to plan and organize a two-day workshop on aging families. Given that in Canada and numerous other countries, population aging is re-shaping inter-generational relations as well as the function of families and family roles across the life-course, this is a timely and relevant topic. The purpose of this workshop is to generate discussion and knowledge translation on the interconnection between population aging and family relations and well-being.   The workshop will be held during the Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences (June 3-4) in Victoria, BC, prior to the CPS annual meeting. The call for paper went out in the fall and by the January 31, 2013 deadline we had received 24 abstract submissions. The organizers were very pleased with the quality and variety of submissions. The participants include scholars from China, the USA, UK and across Canada. As such, the workshop has been renamed, the International Symposium on Aging Families. We anticipate about 20 presentations.    Thematic topics include: intergenerational caregiving; care-giver burden and informal caring; aging in poverty; living arrangements; aging families and social support; intergenerational transfers and reciprocity; and family formation in late life. The challenges of aging families for women, low-income groups, and different ethnic/racial groups in and outside Canada are also being discussed.  Besides presenters, we plan to invite stake-holders and policy-makers from, for example, HRSDC, Horizons Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and other government agencies.   We are excited to bring together national and international scholars as well as policy-makers to facilitate an exchange of knowledge across different domains. We plan to disseminate proceedings of select symposium papers in a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Aging.   Please see the attached document for a preliminary program for the Symposium. We anticipate interesting and informative sessions from international and national perspectives.   The Committee is interested to receive suggestions on possible future activities. Various possibilities are being explored, including workshops associated with given venues, special issues of journals, etc. For example, we are seriously considering organizing a third workshop on families as part of Congress 2014 of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Brock University in May 2014.    5  Barry Edmonston Chair, Immigrants and Migrants Committee March 26, 2013  Report of the Immigrants and Migrants Committee, Population Change and Life Course Strategic Knowledge Cluster  This report describes past activities and plans for future activities for the Immigrants and Migrants Thematic Committee.   Our Committee had three main activities during the past year.  First, following up on the Workshop on Lifecourse Perspectives on Immigration that was held at the Centre Urbanisation, Culture et Société (UCS), Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique in Montréal on Friday, 4 June 2010, the Committee has completed editing and revising six papers from the workshop for publication in a special issue of Canadian Studies in Population. Edmonston has written an introduction for the special issue that will be published later this year.  The committee reimbursed Canadian Studies in Population for the translation from French to English for one paper to be included in the special issue. Second, we originally organized two workshops at the 2012 18th annual conference of the International Metropolis, which was planned for Beijing, China.  Unfortunately, the Beijing conference was cancelled.  As a replacement, the Committee helped organize sessions for two workshops at an Asian regional Metropolis conference dealing with immigrant issues and futures, held 24-26 October 2012 at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand.  Committee members participated in  workshops dealing with (1) Contemporary Migration Issues: Gender and Migration Flows and (2) Identity, Cultural Competence, and Living Arrangements.  On behalf of the Committee, Sharon Lee presented a paper entitled “Family Structure and Immigrant’s Women’s Labour Force Participation in Canada” and Barry Edmonston presented a paper on “Living Arrangements of Canada’s Elderly Immigrants”.   Following the Auckland conference, two Committee members spend a day touring and discussing immigrant issues with Jenny Wang, founder and director of the Chinese New Settlers Trust, New Zealand largest immigrant settlement organization, which serves 15,000 Chinese immigrants in the metropolitan Auckland area. Third, our Committee worked with the Committee on Households and Families, chaired by Zheng Wu, to organize a Workshop on Immigrant Families.  The two-day workshop was held at Wilfrid Laurier University on 28-29 May 2012 and included the presentation of ten papers.  The Committee funded part of the travel expenses for this workshop.   We are currently planning a half-day workshop to be held at the 2013 International Metropolis conference in Tampere, Finland.  We are organizing a workshop dealing with social justice issues of immigrants that will be co-chaired by one of our Committee members and a Swedish lawyer, and will include six to seven presentations as well as audience discussion.  Edmonston also plans to organize a shorter workshop based on papers submitted by students and others for the conference.  6   Population Change and Life Course Strategic Knowledge Cluster Aging, lifelong learning and life course flexibility Update on Activities and Planning for 2012 and Beyond   The committee seeks to mobilize researchers and social partners on specific issues related to Aging, lifelong learning and life course flexibility: How individuals, experiencing desynchronized life course, develop and mobilize knowledge and skills to pilot their occupational life transitions?  How adult work-related learning demand are expressed and met in various economic sectors? How to monitor the on-going silent transition from health welfare to participative learn fare system and consequently the rising concern for health literacy?  In 2012  The Committee has organized an international seminar on the informal component of lifelong learning both from a biographical approach and a human resource perspective, with international participants from France and Italy. This seminar entitled, « Vers de nouvelles façons de développer les compétences tout au long de la vie », has mobilized 25 experts and 72 participants both from different research institutions and labour market partners networks. The goals were to share knowledge on various ways to develop skills and knowledge at workplace and to document innovative practices in supporting informal continuous professional development along people’s life course? (see videos of conferences : http://www.oce.uqam.ca/videos.html)   During this year we have also organized regional workshops for practitioners and researchers  knowledge exchange on two key issues: first, the prior learning recognition of migrants population and, second, the recognition of the demand for basic skills among aging workers in the context of changing mode and technics of production.  2013 and beyond  The major issue for 2013 is the recognition of informal learning events experienced along people`s occupational life. How these learning episodes, though an invisible dimension of learning biographies, are acknowledged and validated? Such prior learning assessment recognition measures have to be situated within the larger socio-economic context and the consequent diversification and de-synchronization of vocational life paths. A review of international research on this theme has been initiated and an international seminar will be held in October 2013 with resource-persons from Australia, Europe and USA.  Paul Bélanger Belanger.paul@uqam.ca 

Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Reports of Thematic Committees

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Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Reports of Thematic Committees

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