Continuity and innovation: Canadian families in the new millennium 9780176593490, 9780176826376, 0176593497

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Continuity &

I n n ovat i o n

C a n a d i a n Fa m i l i e s i n t h e N e w M i l l e n n i u m

Amber Gazso

Continuity & I n n ovat i o n

K a r e n Ko b aya s h i

nelson.com ISBN-13: 978-0-17-659349-0 ISBN-10: 0-17-659349-7

9 780176 593490

Continuity & I n n ovat i o n C a n a d i a n Fa m i l i e s i n t h e N e w M i l l e n n i u m

Amber Gazso K a r e n Ko b aya s h i

C O N T I N U I T Y A N D I N N O VAT I O N C A N A D I A N FA M I L I E S I N T H E N E W M I L L E N N I U M

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Copyright 2018 Nelson Education Ltd. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Nelson Education reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

C O N T I N U I T Y A N D I N N O VAT I O N C A N A D I A N FA M I L I E S I N T H E N E W M I L L E N N I U M Amber Gazso York University

Karen Kobayashi University of Victoria

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Continuity and Innovation: Canadian Families in the New Millennium by Amber Gazso and Karen Kobayashi

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Gazso, Amber, 1976-, author Continuity and innovation : Canadian families in the new millennium / Amber Gazso (York University), Karen Kobayashi (University of Victoria). Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-0-17-659349-0 (softcover). —ISBN 978-0-17-682637-6 (PDF) 1. Families—Canada—Textbooks. 2. Textbooks. I. Kobayashi, Karen Midori, 1967-, author II. Title. HQ1064.C2G39 2017 C2017-905797-9 C2017-905798-7

306.850971

ISBN-13: 978-0-17-659349-0 ISBN-10: 0-17-659349-7

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For sociologists of the family, past, present, and future

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BRIEF CONTENTS Preface xv Acknowledgments xx About the Contributors  xxi

PART 1 1

FOUNDATIONS  1

FAMILIES AS WE KNOW AND HAVE KNOWN THEM

3

Amber Gazso and Karen Kobayashi

2

THEORIZING AND RESEARCHING FAMILY  14 Amber Gazso and Karen Kobayashi

PART 2 3

FAMILY FORMATIONS AND LIVING ARRANGEMENTS  29

SEEKING INTIMACY, FORMING FAMILIES

31

Sarah Knudson

4

LIVING ARRANGEMENTS  48 Karen Kobayashi and Mushira Mohsin Khan

PART 3 5

SURVIVING AND THRIVING  63

THE OUTCOMES OF INCOMES: FAMILY INSECURITY OR SECURITY IN INSECURE TIMES  65 Kate Bezanson

6

MANAGING LOW INCOME IN FAMILIES: THE IMPORTANCE OF INSTITUTIONS AND INTERACTIONS  80 Ingrid Waldron and Amber Gazso

PART 4 7

PATTERNS OF INDIGENEITY AND (IM)MIGRATION  97

INDIGENOUS FAMILIES: MIGRATION, RESISTANCE, AND RESILIENCE  99 Angele Alook

8

IMMIGRANT FAMILIES AND CANADA’S CHANGING ETHNO-RACIAL DIVERSITY  113 Mushira Mohsin Khan

PART 5 9

POWER AND RIGHTS  129

PAID AND UNPAID WORK: POWER, DIVISION, AND STRATEGIES  131 Glenn J. Stalker

10

WHEN ABUSE STRIKES AT HOME: FAMILIES AND VIOLENCE  147 Nancy Nason-Clark

11

(DE)COLONIZATION, RACIALIZATION, RACISM, AND CANADIAN FAMILIES: RELEARNING THROUGH STORYTELLING ABOUT LIVED EXPERIENCE  163 Wesley Crichlow

PART 6 12

CARE WORK AND SOCIAL SUPPORT  181

FAMILIES CARING FOR CHILDREN IN THE 21ST CENTURY  183 Rachel Berman

13

CAREGIVING AND SUPPORT FOR OLDER ADULTS  199 Nancy Mandell and Vivian Stamatopoulos

14

FAMILIES EXPERIENCING DIS/ABILITY  216 Deborah Davidson and Nazilla Khanlou

PART 7 15

DEEPENING CONTINUITY AND INNOVATION  233

“DOING FAMILY”: LENSES, PATTERNS, AND FUTURES  235 Anne Martin-Matthews

Index 251 NEL



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Copyright 2018 Nelson Education Ltd. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Nelson Education reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

CONTENTS Preface xv Acknowledgments xx About the Contributors  xxi

PART 1 FOUNDATIONS  1 1

Families as We Know and Have Known Them  3 Amber Gazso and Karen Kobayashi Changes We Know and See  4 What Has Changed and What Has Remained The Same: A Framework for Family Sociology in Canada  5

We Assign Meaning to Family  6 We Practise Family  7 Family Is a Process  7 Change and Continuity? Being Comfortable with Apparent Contradictions  8 Chapter Summary  10

2

Theorizing and Researching Family  14 Amber Gazso and Karen Kobayashi Theoretical Frameworks for Understanding Families and Family Relations  15

Mid-19th to Early 20th Century Theories  15 Materialist/Conflict Perspective  15 Structural Functionalism  15 Symbolic Interactionism  16

Mid-20th Century to (Very) Early Millennial Theories  17 Beyond the Nuclear Family: Fictive Kin  18 Practices, Processes, and Doing Family: Emergent Ways of Theorizing about Family Relations  18 Feminist Political Economy and Social Reproduction  20 Late Modernity, Individualization  20 Personal Life, Personal Communities  21 Life Course Perspective  22 Studying Families  22

Quantitative Methods  22 Qualitative Methods  23 Chapter Summary  24

PART 2 FAMILY FORMATIONS AND LIVING ARRANGEMENTS  29 3

Seeking Intimacy, Forming Families  31 Sarah Knudson Choice, Insecurity, Challenges: Theoretical Conversations  32

Major Theoretical Perspectives and Conceptual Frameworks  33 Routes Toward Couplehood  33

Patterns in Coupled Living  36 Practices of Committed Relations  38 Forming a Family—Or Not  39

Options and Challenges for Including Children  39 Options in Practices of Parenting  40 Chapter Summary  42 NEL

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4

Living Arrangements  48 Karen Kobayashi and Mushira Mohsin Khan Marriage and Cohabitation  49

Children 50 Same-Sex Families  50 Lone-Parent Families  51 Living Alone  52 New Innovations in Living Arrangements  53

Step–, or Blended, Families  53 Living Apart Together  53 Multi-generational or Extended Families  55 Chapter Summary  57

PART 3 SURVIVING AND THRIVING  63 5

The Outcomes of Incomes: Family Insecurity or Security in Insecure Times  65 Kate Bezanson Theorizing and Contextualizing Families and Insecurities  66

A Word about Families and Households  67 In/Securities: Families, Incomes, and Work  67

Incomes, Jobs, and Precarious Work  68 Dual Earner-Female Carer and Other Family Forms  70 Gender, Motherhood, and Labour Market Participation  70 Neo-liberalism, Choices, and Moral Registers of Work  72 In/Securities: Families, Social Policies, and Transfers  73 The Outcomes of Incomes: Managing Household In/Securities  75 Chapter Summary  76

6

Managing Low Income in Families: The Importance of Institutions and Interactions  80 Ingrid Waldron and Amber Gazso The Changing Demographics of Low Income  81 The Institutional Context  82

The Welfare State  83 The Labour Market  84 The Community  85 The Family or Household  86 Managing Low Income: A Qualitative Research Study  86

Family Who Help Include Kin and Fictive Kin  87 More Than One Type of Support to “Get By”  87 Support Networks Differ Only Somewhat by Race and Ethnicity  88 Community Organizations Provide Instrumental and Expressive Support  90 Putting it All Together: Managing Poverty From a Feminist Political Economy Perspective  91 Chapter Summary  91

PART 4 PATTERNS OF INDIGENEITY AND (IM)MIGRATION  97 7

Indigenous Families: Migration, Resistance, and Resilience  99 Angele Alook The Colonial Breakdown of Indigenous Gender Roles and Family Relations  100

Dismantling of Gender and Family Roles  101 The Harm of Residential Schools  101

Interference of the Child Welfare System  103

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C o ntents

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The Indian Act and Gendered Discrimination  103 Identity, Gender, and Family Relations in Flux: Between Wabasca and Edmonton  104

Child as Central  106 Grandparents and Siblings as Co-caregivers  106 Building Healthy Relations in the City  107

Family as Central  107 Aunties Building Healthy Relations  107 Cultural Identity and Practices  108 Indigenous Models of Family: Resistance and Resilience  109 Chapter Summary  110

8

Immigrant Families and Canada’s Changing Ethno-racial Diversity  113 Mushira Mohsin Khan Defining the Immigrant Family  115 Coming to Canada: Changes in Patterns of Immigration Across Ethnic Groups  115

A Land of Immigrants  115 The Early Settlers  115 The 1800s  115 1900 to 1960  116 1960 Onward  116

Immigration Categories  116 Family Reunification  116 Living Arrangements and Generational Dynamics  118

Multi-generational Households  118 Transnationalism, Astronaut Families, and Satellite Kids  119 Parent–Child Dynamics within Immigrant Families  121 The Theoretical Toolbox: Intersectionality as a Promising Approach to Gaining Insights Into Immigrant Family Dynamics and Challenges  121 Looking Ahead: Winds of Change and Future Directions  123 Chapter Summary  124

PART 5 POWER AND RIGHTS  129 9

Paid and Unpaid Work: Power, Division, and Strategies  131 Glenn J. Stalker Changes in Female Labour Force Participation and the Gendered Division of Paid Work  132 Theoretical Frameworks  133

Household Production and Developments in the “New Home Economics”  133 Feminist Economics and Models of Household Production  134 Child Care, Daycare, Leisure, and the Division of Paid and Unpaid Work: Recent Findings  136

Same-Sex Families and Queering the Division of Labour  140 Chapter Summary  141

10  When Abuse Strikes at Home: Families and Violence  147 Nancy Nason-Clark Understanding Family Violence: Its Frequency and Severity  149

Intimate Partner Violence in Comparative Perspective  149 Canadian Data on Violence against Women  149 Violence Is a Family Problem  150 Understanding the Dynamics of Intimate Partner Violence  151

Why Is there Intimate Partner Violence?  152 Intergenerational Transmission and the Cycle of Intimate Partner Violence  153

Understanding Men Who Batter  154 NEL

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Raising Awareness about Family Violence  156 What Can Be Done?  157 Chapter Summary  158

11

(De)colonization, Racialization, Racism, and Canadian Families: Relearning through Storytelling about Lived Experience  163 Wesley Crichlow Colonization, Racialization, and Institutionalized Racism: Family Disparity and Inequality  164

Canada’s First Peoples  164 Slavery in Canada  166 Institutionalized Racism toward Immigrant and Racialized Families  168 The Live-in Domestic Worker Program and Caribbean Family Destruction  169 The Alchemy of Storytelling Pedagogy: Challenging Racism  170 Chapter Summary  174

PART 6 CARE WORK AND SOCIAL SUPPORT  181 12

Families Caring for Children in the 21st Century  183 Rachel Berman Socialization Theories  184

The Deterministic Model of Socialization  184 A Relational Approach to Socialization  185 Socialization and Difference  185

Socialization and “Race” or Ethnicity  185 Socialization and Gender  186 Socialization and Social Class  186 Parenting in the 21st Century  187

Culture and Parenting Culture  187 Intensive Mothering, Helicopter Parenting, and the “New” Fathers  187 Baumrind’s Parenting Styles  189 The Challenges of Technology for Contemporary Parenting  189 Caring for Tweens and Teens: Cyber Bullying, Sexting, and Censorware  190 Parenting—You’re Doing It Wrong  191 Parenting Pioneers  191

Parenting Gender Nonconforming Children  191 LGBTQ Parents  193 LGBTQ Youth and Straight Parents  193 Chapter Summary  193

13

Caregiving and Support for Older Adults  199 Nancy Mandell and Vivian Stamatopoulos Families in Later Life  199 Theorizing Care Over the Life Course: Social Reproduction  200 Giving and Receiving Care  201

Care by Older Adults  202 Gendered Care  202 Co-Residence 203

Immigration Shapes Caring  204 Formal Care  205 Transnational Caregiving  205 Grandparent Caregiving and Receiving  206

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Young Carers  207 Consequences of Caregiving  208 Chapter Summary  209

14

Families Experiencing Dis/ability  216 Deborah Davidson and Nazilla Khanlou Understanding Disability as a Social Construction  217 Understanding Disability Through the Social Model  218

Impairments 221 How the Social Model Is Supported by the Medical Model  222 Mark’s Story  224 Understanding Disability Through a Life Course Perspective  225 Families Experiencing Disability: Another Layer of Analysis  227 Chapter Summary  228

PART 7 DEEPENING CONTINUITY AND INNOVATION  233 15

“Doing Family”: Lenses, Patterns, and Futures  235 Anne Martin-Matthews A Long Lens on Families: Looking Back to See Where We Are Coming From  236

Defining Families  236 Contexts: Change and Continuity  239

Only in Canada?  240 Care: “Family Is as Family Does”  241 Toward a New Sociology of Family  242

Concepts to Advance Understanding of Families  242 Methodologies: Ways of Knowing about Families  243 Policy and Practice: Contexts for Understanding Families Today and Tomorrow  244 Chapter Summary  246

Index 251

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PREFACE Many contemporary sociology of the family textbooks focus on families and change, emphasizing what is different and new(er) about families today. Such an approach makes sense given demographic trends and the shifting dynamics of family formations and intimate relationships over the past half-century. Indeed, today, nuclear families are no longer predominant, but rather are just one of several family forms, including queer couples, step- or blended families, single-parent families, and multi-generational families. Heteronormativity as the primary lens to understand family lives has proved to be exclusionary and marginalizing. Where once the practice of parenting was synonymous with mothering, “new” fathering and intensive parenting have emerged as increasingly normative experiences. Further, changes to immigration policies and practices have resulted in growing ethnocultural diversity among Canadian families. Scholarly work on contemporary family relations today reflects a necessary emphasis on change and the challenges that have emerged or persist as salient for family members. For example, women participate to a greater extent in the paid labour force than in the past, and they do so with young children and often as part of couple unions. Regardless of one’s family composition, however, the labour market is increasingly characterized by “bad” jobs rather than “good.” Families may therefore experience precarity in household incomes, a reality that is particularly true for racialized, immigrant, and Indigenous families, and one that is exacerbated by the welfare state’s weakened support for vulnerable families. Thus, it is not surprising that scholars of the family focus on how families manage these economic challenges, especially how they can require increasingly more innovative strategies. In particular, the challenge of caring for very young children in dual-earner families may require a complex mix of household, family, community, and government support. And yet, examinations of Canadian families today have sometimes overlooked the historical events and experiences that contextualize the changing contemporary institution and experience. This oversight of historical context is problematic in that it has led to the persistence and production of questionable opinions and assumptions about families. Here are a couple of them that we have heard in our classrooms: “Women (or mothers) have achieved equality with men (or fathers) in all facets of daily life.” “This is how families are and should be.” Another unanticipated implication of an exclusive focus on families as they are experienced today can be a disillusioning about how much has stayed the same in the context of families and family life over time. Indeed, from our perspective, rather than seeing only change, we see that the meanings we assign to families as well as our practices and processes have remained surprisingly similar. Here are some examples of what continues to be of importance to Canadians in the context of the family: • the perception and definition of what family is and why it is important • the determination of what is considered “on- and off-time” vis-à-vis family transitions, for example, marriage, parenthood, and the “empty nest” • the assumption that what is best for all children, whether they are kin or not, matters • the belief that families should be able to sustain themselves economically and socially, and that they have opportunities and resources to do so • the feeling that engagement in intimate and supportive relations makes a difference in families • an understanding that family relationships evolve over one’s life course NEL

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We also argue that, while there is continuity in what remains important about family, there is simultaneous diversity and innovation in the definition and character of the meanings we assign to families and the practices and processes that we engage in. Meanings, practices, and processes significantly vary over time. Such variations can be attributed to differences in individual identities, interactions, and ideologies that are linked to gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, class, age, ability, and citizenship, as well as social-historical context. Caregiving for young children, for example, was a family practice in the industrializing period that continues to be practised now. The practice of caregiving has remained consistent, but how it is performed, by whom, and where is qualitatively different now than in the past. And yet, changes in contemporary family relations may always include echoes of such relations in the past. Inequalities in power and rights continue to texturize family meanings, practices, and processes, an observation that is linked to contemporary theoretical insights grounded in critical feminism, including intersectionality, postmodernism, and poststructuralism, to name just a few. For example, the increased likelihood today that the practice of caring for young children in upper-middle and upper class families is performed by a racialized, foreign-born domestic worker rather than by mothers themselves reflects enduring ethnic, immigrant, and class inequalities in power and rights. In essence, we see continuity and innovation as contemporary themes of Canadian family life that are simultaneous and mutually constitutive of one another. Not surprisingly, continuity and innovation can and do sit uncomfortably alongside one another. Here, we provide a few other examples to further illustrate this tension. First, the nuclear family may no longer be the dominant family formation in Canadian society, but the sanctity of its meaning continues to be entrenched in policies and laws to the social exclusion of other family formations. Second, Canadian-born adult children of immigrant parents may experience conflict in trying to balance their parents’ generational and cultural beliefs with their own education, employment, and family goals and ambitions. Third, Indigenous and racialized youth may find it difficult to reconcile the message that Canada embraces diverse families when they see their family members unfairly treated in the labour market and unjustly targeted by the police and criminal justice systems. This edited collection, therefore, seeks to broaden contemporary discussions within sociology of the family by showcasing both continuity and innovation in Canadian families. Our objective here is to foster and facilitate scholarly work with this hybridity, to theorize sameness and difference simultaneously in the study of families, while critically embracing and perhaps reconciling uncomfortable contradictions. To this end, we have selected the following topics to foster and facilitate critical discussions: • • • • • • •

Part 1: Foundations Part 2: Family Formations and Living Arrangements Part 3: Surviving and Thriving Part 4: Patterns of Indigeneity and (Im)migration Part 5: Power and Rights Part 6: Care Work and Social Support Part 7: Deepening Continuity and Innovation

Part 1 provides the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological grounding from which to engage with the contributed chapters. We introduce our conceptual framework of continuity and innovation more fully here. Parts 2 to 6 focus attention on specific, continuous, and innovative practices and/or processes of family life, with meanings embedded therein. For example, the distribution of power and rights have always produced and influenced the practices of families whether within households or in individual members’ relationships xvi

P r eface

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with the state (see Part 5). These different relations have unfolded over time as knowledge has accumulated. Throughout this collection, we introduce each part as we have in this example, drawing general linkages to the major conceptual pillars of continuity and innovation. The parts that organize this collection are those we see as (1) relevant to the everyday lives of Canadians, especially the lives of students; and (2) cutting across social experiences and structures of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, age, ability, and citizenship. In each part, contributors have written on topics that resonate with them or that represent the areas in which they are actively engaged as sociologists of the family. Contributors take various approaches to explore the family as an institution (macro focus) or as an experience (micro focus), using a variety of theoretical lenses. In addition, they discuss secondary research or present findings from primary qualitative and quantitative data collection and analyses, often sharing stories of activism or experiential learning in doing so. They may write objectively, in the third-person; subjectively and reflexively, in the first-person; or using a blend of the two voices. Chapter contributors also write on topics that cut across the collection. At times, they engage with scholarship already presented in previous chapters. Such overlap makes sense vis-à-vis the way we have organized the parts of this edited collection. For example, if we imagine a Canadian family today or historically, we could write about the meanings that members attach to family and their practices of family in any one of Parts 2 to 6 even though the meanings, practices, and processes may be theorized differently. That being said, our division of this collection into parts is done carefully and deliberately for both organizational purposes and to highlight what we perceive to be the centrally significant arguments made by our contributing authors. To summarize, as editors of this collection, we appreciate and understand the varied and vast experiences that each contributor brings to a discussion on “innovating” families. We appreciate this emphasis while still acknowledging the oft-stable socio-cultural meanings, practices, and processes that have served at various times as the foundation of family lives in Canada. As a collection, this text showcases how emerging and leading sociologists of the family explore the contemporary moments and experiences of Canadian families while interrogating the past or extrapolating the implications of these moments and experiences for the future. In our view, this is how best to do sociology of the family in the new millennium.

Instructor Resources

The Nelson Education Teaching Advantage (NETA) program delivers research-based instructor resources that promote student engagement and higher-order thinking to enable the success of Canadian students and educators. Visit Nelson Education’s Inspired Instruction website at nelson.com/inspired/ to find out more about NETA. The following instructor resources have been created for Continuity and Innovation: Canadian Families in the New Millennium. Access these ultimate tools for customizing lectures and presentations at nelson.com/instructor.

NETA Test Bank

This resource was written by Sarath Chandraskere, McMaster University. It includes over 700 multiple-choice questions written according to NETA guidelines for effective construction and development of higher-order questions. Also included are 150 short answer and 75 essay questions. NEL

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The NETA Test Bank is available in a new, cloud-based platform. Nelson Testing Powered by Cognero® is a secure online testing system that allows instructors to author, edit, and manage test-bank content from anywhere Internet access is available. No special installations or downloads are needed, and the desktop-inspired interface, with its drop-down menus and familiar, intuitive tools, allows instructors to create and manage tests with ease. Multiple test versions can be created in an instant, and content can be imported or exported into other systems. Tests can be delivered from a learning management system, the classroom, or wherever an instructor chooses. Nelson Testing Powered by Cognero for Continuity and Innovation: Canadian Families in the New Millennium can be accessed through nelson.com/ instructor.

NETA PowerPoint

Microsoft® PowerPoint ® lecture slides for every chapter have been created by Rafel Wainer, University of British Columbia. There is an average of 25 slides per chapter, many featuring key figures, tables, and photographs from Continuity and Innovation: Canadian Families in the New Millennium. NETA principles of clear design and engaging content have been incorporated throughout, making it simple for instructors to customize the deck for their courses.

Image Library

This resource consists of digital copies of figures, short tables, and photographs used in the book. Instructors may use these jpegs to customize the NETA PowerPoint or create their own PowerPoint presentations. An Image Library Key describes the images and lists the codes under which the jpegs are saved. Codes normally reflect the chapter number (e.g., C01 for Chapter 1), the figure or photo number (e.g., F3 for Figure 3), and the page in the textbook.

NETA Instructor Guide

This resource was written by Mushira Khan, University of Victoria. It is organized according to the textbook chapters and addresses key educational concerns, such as typical stumbling blocks student face and how to address them. Other features include a chapter review, key terms, and discussion questions.

CourseMate: Engaging. Trackable. Affordable.

Nelson Education’s CourseMate brings course concepts to life with interactive learning tools that actively engage today’s students, increase their time on task, and provide prompt feedback! CourseMate features the following: • an interactive ebook that includes note-taking and highlighting functionality • interactive teaching and learning tools, such as • Chapter Review Quizzes • Think About … situations in the chapter

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• Evaluate Families in Film • Understanding Families in Popular Culture • Analyze Families in a Global Perspective • In the Media—reflective activities tied to the textboxes • Engagement Tracker, a first-of-its-kind tool that monitors student engagement in the course

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS If you get, give. If you learn, teach. — Maya Angelou The crossing of our paths on this edited collection was inspired by our mentors, Dr. Susan McDaniel and Dr. Ellen Gee, two well-respected family sociologists who opened the way for female academics like ourselves to excel in research and teaching. The two were the best of colleagues and friends, and set for us, as their graduate students, an example and a standard of academic excellence rarely encountered in our profession: humble and generous as mentors, honest and supportive as friends. Through them, we developed an enduring friendship as we finished our respective programs. Along the way, they instilled in us the belief that we could be the torchbearers for the next generation. It was an honour to be considered for such an awesome responsibility. This collection, a reflection of the cross-generational transmission of positive mentorship and friendship, pays tribute to their personal and professional partnership over the years. In addition, we pay tribute to Dr. Nancy Mandell, who first entered our lives when we were both beginning our academic careers. Years later, she encouraged us to take on this collection, one that she had participated in more than a decade earlier. Offering continued support and guidance, she walks alongside us as we travel down the path she, too, has set as a leading sociologist of the family. We count ourselves fortunate to now work together as colleagues and, indeed, to call her a friend. A project of this magnitude would not have been possible without the incredible support of Nelson Education: Leanna MacLean, Jessica Freedman, Theresa Fitzgerald, Jennifer Hare, Terry Fedorkiw, Marc-André Brouillard, Raja Natesan, and our copy editor, Kate Revington. It has truly been a pleasure to work with such a professional and diligent group of people. In addition, we would like to thank our colleagues who reviewed the manuscript. These include Sarath Chandrasekere, McMaster University; Pearl Crichton, Concordia University; Amy Kaler, University of Alberta; Caroline McDonald-Harker, Mount Royal University; Vicki Nygaard, Vancouver Island University; Sandra Rollings-Magnusson, MacEwan University; Lina Samuel, University of Toronto Scarborough; and Denis Wall, Brock University. Your reviews are much valued and appreciated. And, of course, this entire collection was made possible by our outstanding contributors. A big “thank you” to each one of you for believing in the purpose and the possibility of this collection, and for truly embracing the challenge to imagine a newer way to do sociology of the family today and tomorrow. We are grateful for your innovative scholarship and for your collegiality. Your work on this project is refreshing and real; it continues to push the critical boundaries of family sociology. But were it not for our students, we could not have even imagined how this collection could take shape. Through our engagement with you, we are always learning what has changed and what has stayed the same in families and in gender relations over time. In particular, we thank those students who participated in our “Families and Social Change” classes at York University and the University of Victoria. You have inspired us to develop this collection. Finally, we give thanks to our wonderful families—Mike and Mac Windle and Cary and Kaelan Hayashi—for their unwavering love and support while we worked on this edited collection. Their patience and belief in our capabilities as partners, mothers, and academics made this dream of working together on a project we truly believed in a reality. Amber Gazso Karen Kobayashi xx

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About the Contributors Angele Alook is a proud member of Bigstone Cree Nation and a fluent speaker of the Cree language. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from York University, Toronto. Her dissertation is titled Indigenous Life Courses: Racialized Gendered Life Scripts and Cultural Identities of Resistance and Resilience. She specializes in Indigenous feminism, life course approach, Indigenous research methodologies, cultural identity, and sociology of family and work. She is an Adjunct Professor, teaching courses on vulnerable populations and the social determinants of health in the Department of Public Health at Concordia University, Edmonton. After working as a labour relations adviser in government, she became involved in the labour movement as a full-time researcher for the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees. Dr. Alook is currently a co-investigator on the SSHRC-funded Corporate Mapping Project, where she is carrying out research on Indigenous experiences in Alberta’s oil industry and its gendered impact on working families. As an Indigenous scholar, she has a holistic approach in understanding the relationships between the environment, the economy, the labour market, family, community, and health. Rachel Berman holds a Ph.D. in Family Studies from the University of Guelph. She taught feminist research methods at York University and McMaster University before joining the School of Early Childhood Studies at Ryerson University in 2000. She currently teaches graduate courses on social research with children and theoretical frameworks for early childhood studies. She has published in the areas of mothering, methods of inquiry, and perspectives of children and youth. She is also the editor of Corridor Talk: Canadian Feminist Scholars Share Stories of Research Partnerships (published by Inanna in 2014). Most recently, Dr. Berman served as the principal investigator on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council–funded project exploring how children and early childhood educators talk about “race” in early learning settings. She is the mother of two children and two cats. Kate Bezanson, Ph.D., is Chair and Associate Professor of Sociology at Brock University. She works in the areas of gender, care theory, social and labour market policy, comparative and Canadian political economy, and welfare state theory. Her research centres on the dynamics of the reconfiguration of the Canadian welfare state in relation to law, families, and social policy. Her scholarship considers the ways in which new forms of Canadian federalism reconfigure the relationship between the state and social reproduction. Dr. Bezanson is currently working on projects related to the gendered effect of parental leave lengths and funding, childcare policy, and care theory. Wesley Crichlow, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. His scholarship is informed by the principles of social justice, anti-black racism, and human rights, with a focus on LGBTQ rights, sexual rights, and gender equality. He is dedicated to social justice, community–university collaborations, the development of scholarly and pedagogical praxis, and teaching as activism. His research interests encompass LGBTQ political criminology; critical equity studies, critical race theory, and anti-black racism; Caribbean masculinities, families, and sexualities; and youth rights in the Caribbean and Americas. Deborah Davidson, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at York University and a feminist sociologist with research and writing interests in the areas of well-being, loss and bereavement, NEL

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family and mothering, and pedagogy. Her current research is on commemorative tattoos and digital archiving. Methodologically, she has expertise in qualitative methods and creative methodologies, and she is particularly experienced in participatory methods, auto/biographical approaches, and research of sensitive topics with vulnerable populations. When not busy with work, Davidson can be found spending time with family and friends— both two and four legged. Amber Gazso, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Sociology at York University. Her main areas of research interest include citizenship, family and gender relations, research methods, poverty, and the welfare state. Overall, she specializes in research that explores family members’ relationships with social policies of the neo-liberal welfare state. More recently, she has published articles on how families manage low income through networks of social support (including family, community, and the state) in the neo-liberal policy context. Assuming this same policy context, her current research explores how women and men, including those with children, experience social assistance receipt while also living with and managing addiction. A side passion is the study and practice of qualitative research methods; with co-author Katherine Bischoping, she authored Analyzing Talk in the Social Sciences: Narrative, Conversation and Discourse Strategies (Sage). Mushira Mohsin Khan is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology and a student affiliate with the Centre on Aging at the University of Victoria. Her research primarily focuses on transnational ties and intergenerational relationships within mid- to later-life diasporic South Asian families, ethnicity and immigration, aging, health and social care. At time of publication, she was working on a chapter on care work and filial obligation within immigrant Canadian families for a forthcoming book on transnational aging and kin-work (RutgersUniversity Press). In 2015 alone, her work was published in an edited volume on healthcare equity for ethnic minority older adults (Simon Fraser University), the Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series, and the International Journal of Migration, Health, and Social Care. She is also the recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Canada (SSHRC) Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canadian Doctoral Scholarship (2015–18). Nazilla Khanlou, R.N., Ph.D., is the Women’s Health Research Chair in Mental Health in the Faculty of Health at York University and an Associate Professor in its School of Nursing. Professor Khanlou’s clinical background is in psychiatric nursing. Her overall program of research is situated in the interdisciplinary field of community-based mental health promotion, in general, and mental health promotion among youth and women in multicultural and immigrant-receiving settings, in particular. She has received grants from peer-reviewed federal and provincial research funding agencies. Dr. Khanlou was the 2011–13 co-director of the Ontario Multicultural Health Applied Research Network (OMHARN). She is the founder of the International Network on Youth Integration (INYI), an international network for knowledge exchange and collaboration on youth. She has published articles, books, and reports on immigrant youth and women, and mental health. She is also involved in knowledge translation to the public through media. Sarah Knudson, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan. Her main research interests are in the sociology of families, with a particular focus on dating and early stages of intimate relationships at various points across the life course. Most of her research is qualitative, and she enjoys using methods xxii

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such as in-depth interviews and content analysis to gain interpretive understandings of practices. Her recent research projects include a North American study of matchmaking services and clients, and a Prairie-based study of how dating and relationship formation factor into young adults’ goal setting, particularly alongside educational, financial, and career goals. In her teaching as well as her research, she stresses the importance of situating people’s intimate lives against the broader backdrop of cultural and structural influences. Karen Kobayashi, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and a Research Affiliate at the Institute for Aging and Lifelong Health at the University of Victoria. She is a social gerontologist who uses a life course perspective to explore the intersections of structural, cultural, and individual factors or experiences affecting health and aging in the Canadian population. She has published widely in the areas of family and intergenerational relationships, ethnicity and immigration, dementia and personhood, and health and social care. The majority of her research to date has been developed and carried out collaboratively in interdisciplinary teams, spanning disciplines in the social sciences, human and social development and medicine, and across a number of academic institutions and healthcare authorities. Her current research program examines the social, economic, cultural, and health dimensions of an aging population with particular focuses on (1) the development of resources to address elder abuse in ethnocultural minority communities; (2) facilitation of access to health and social care services and programs for ethnocultural minority immigrant older adults; and (3) new and emerging family formations, such as living apart together (LAT), and the implications of changing family relationships for social support in later life. Nancy Mandell, Ph.D., is a Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at York University. Her research and teaching interests include gender, aging, intergenerational relations, and migrant settlement. She has published articles and book chapters on rising income inequality in Canada, economic security among senior immigrant families, intergenerational transnational exchanges in later life families, and critiques of aging. She currently holds two research grants on economic, cultural, and social factors shaping migration, settlement, and resilience among Canadian migrants. Anne Martin-Matthews, Ph.D., is a Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. From 2004 to 2011, she was Scientific Director of the Institute of Aging of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and championed the launch of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. Martin-Matthews has published a number of books, including Widowhood in Later Life and Aging and Caring at the Intersection of Work and Home Life: Blurring the Boundaries (which she edited with Judith Phillips); she has also published papers on aging and later life, social support, generational ties, and intersections of paid and unpaid care in home care. Nancy Nason-Clark, Ph.D., is a Professor of Sociology (and chair of the department) at the University of New Brunswick. She is the director of the RAVE Project, a research initiative that was funded by the Lilly Endowment. Nason-Clark received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science, London, England. She is the author, editor, or co-author/co-editor of 12 books and has published articles in a variety of sociology of religion and violence against women journals. Nason-Clark has served as president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion and president of the Religious Research Association; further, she is incoming president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Nason-Clark served two terms as editor of Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly NEL

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Review. Her recent books include Men Who Batter (2015, Oxford University Press; with Fisher-Townsend), Overcoming Conflicting Loyalties (2015, University of Alberta Press; with Sevcik, Rothery, and Pynn), and No Place for Abuse (2nd edition, 2010; with Kroeger). She has served twice as the acting director of the Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research at the University of New Brunswick. Glenn Stalker, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at York University. He has published research articles on gender and family relations, particularly focusing on time-use and leisure. More recently, his research is in the areas of political sociology and social movements, culture, and environmental sociology. Vivian Stamatopoulos is a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate Program in Sociology at York University and a newly appointed member to the faculty of Social Sciences & Humanities at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT). Her doctoral research focuses on the experiences of child and youth caregivers across Canada (young carers). Ingrid Waldron, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at Dalhousie University and the director of the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health Project. Dr. Waldron’s scholarship bridges the gap between sociology, illness, and health by examining the social, economic, health, and mental health impacts of colonialism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, and ableism in African Canadian, African Nova Scotian, Indigenous, and immigrant communities. She does so as a sociologist in the Faculty of Health Professions. She is currently conducting projects on racism in psychiatry, environmental racism, the racialization of space, and African and Indigenous health epistemologies.

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Chapter 1 Families as We Know and Have Known Them Amber Gazso and Karen Kobayashi

Chapter 2 Theorizing and Researching Family Amber Gazso and Karen Kobayashi

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ociology as a discipline is rife with increasing specialization and advancements in theory and methods that reflect social change. Our purpose in this edited collection is to highlight these adaptations in the field as they pertain to the family and family relationships. In the opening chapter, we review the major ways families have changed over time, but we also pause to consider that which seems to have remained consistent. Here, we introduce the organizing conceptual framework of “continuity and innovation” to which our contributors have subscribed in presenting their perspectives on salient topics in family sociology today (see Figure 1.1). Chapter 1 is where we provide a rationale for the construction of a family sociology of the new millennium: one that wrestles with understanding contemporary family life as both different and the same as previous meanings, practices, and processes in and of the family.

© Laborant/Shutterstock

PART 1

Foundations

Chapter 2 introduces family more fully as a foundational specialization in sociology. Just as sociology emerged in the 19th century, early theorizations of family life are traceable to this time. We review these earlier theories, consider their strengths and weaknesses, and offset them by paying attention to contemporary emphases placed on families as we personally know, define, construct, and experience them. The popular methods by which sociologists study family are also reviewed. In essence, Chapters 1 and 2 provide the backdrop against which each contributor’s contemporary empirical and theoretical approaches to family can be compared and contrasted. Change is perceived only by our knowing that which existed before and whether it was different. Chapter 2 provides the theoretical and methodological background needed to appreciate and understand families as changing and, sometimes, staying remarkably the same.

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CHAPTER 1 Families as We Know and Have Known Them

Imagine that today you are asked to participate in an interview about the meaning of family. The interviewer asks you questions like these: “What does family mean to you? “Who belongs in a family?” “What are the activities that comprise family life?” Fast-forward into the future and imagine that some time has passed and you are

© Elzbieta Sekowska/Shutterstock © Ken Burns/iStockphoto.com

Amber Gazso and Karen Kobayashi

L E AR NI NG O B JE C T I V E S

now an older adult. An interviewer asks you to once again speak to what family means to you. You are asked the same questions. If you imagine that some of your responses about family will remain the same over

After you have read this chapter, you will be able to

time and that some will change, you are already engaging with the core premise

• understand major trends in

of this edited collection.

Canadian family life • have insights into an under-

Why study the family? In a discipline oriented to connecting personal biography with social history (Mills, 1959/2000)—to using our ­sociological imagination—there are a number of reasons to focus on the family. First, we all have experiences within families for at least a period of our lives (McDaniel & Tepperman, 2014), and even though we may not always agree on what constitutes family, there is some consensus that our experiences in families and of families mean something to us (Eichler, 1997). Second, the family is a public institution. As we learned in our introductory sociology courses, the family is an institution alongside the economy, education, religion, the media, and more in society that provides a context for understanding our personal experiences. Many of us would agree that when our own experiences and meanings of family are not shared by teachers, economists, religious leaders, policymakers, or the media, we may feel socially excluded. Third, sociologists study the family and family relations because of the changes that have occurred within them over time. The aim of this edited collection is to explore continuity and innovation in the family and family relationships. In this introductory chapter, we begin by reviewing key changes in Canadian families over time. We then introduce “continuity” alongside “innovation” as the two guiding themes for this collection, outlining how we see the social construction of NEL

standing of continuity and change in Canadian families • understand families in relation to meanings, practices, and processes and to see these as subject to change—or not— over time • discover salient themes and topics that speak to the increasing diversity of structure and experience in families today

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meanings about family and the practices and processes of family life both as consistent over time and as offering opportunity for innovation. By way of concluding, we discuss how one way to understand these two sometimes contradictory and simultaneous themes in families is through the theories of late modernity.

Changes We Know and See If we think about the stories we have been told about previous generations, most of us would agree that families are quite different today than they were in the past. Indeed, the construction of a family trajectory and the timing of events and transitions along it have become increasingly individualized over time. No longer is there quite the same assumption that there is a normative, linear family pathway along which the majority of people travel—for example, marriage, parenthood, and “empty nest”; this pathway is more commonly experienced by some people 70 years and older than those in mid-life (ages 45–64). Today that path is now more likely than ever to be a meandering one, taking us in many different directions, even back to experiencing the same events, at varying times in our lives. For example, one consequence of divorce is the opportunity to experience the transition to parenthood with not only one intimate partner but two or even three partners at different stages in the life course. There are several other trends that suggest that families are, indeed, different today. The timing of the transition to committed partnerships and their composition has changed. The first major transition to a committed or intimate partner relationship is still most likely to begin in young adulthood. Today, however, it is less likely to result in marriage and nuclear family formation (husband, wife, and their children) than in the past (see Chapter 4; see “Canada Has More Same-sex Couples, One-person Households, Census Shows” in In the Media). Instead, young adults (25–29 years) in the post-dating stage are more likely to opt for cohabitation rather than marriage (Wu & Schimmele, 2011), especially in Québec where common-law unions continue to outnumber marital unions even when children are present (Statistics Canada, 2012, 2017). If people do marry, they do so later. In the 1970s, young women and men married in their 20s. Now they marry closer to age 30 or into their 30s (Employment and Social Development Canada, 2014). 4

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We think about love differently now than in the past. Intimate relationships have been redefined in late modernity with the acknowledgment that intimacy and love are qualitatively different (Roseneil & Budgeon, 2004). Whereas literature of the Middle Ages told stories of love akin to the chivalrous love of knights in shining armour and the valorization of women’s chastity (Coontz, 2005; Mitchell, 2012), contemporary theorists like Giddens (1992) argue that intimacy with conditions is the foundation for most intimate relationships today. People form intimate partnerships for different reasons today. Historically, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, marriages were largely economic partnerships and need not begin with love (Bradbury, 1994). The pursuit of romantic love as the basis for marriage can be traced to the late 18th century, growing in importance from the mid-19th century onward (Coontz, 2005). Now, the idea of marrying for love may be waning in importance as women no longer feel confined to practise love and intimacy within marriage. Indeed, women are now more likely to pursue intimacy in non-marital forms, including cohabitation or online or at-a-distance (living apart together) relationships (see Chapters 3 and 4). People date differently today. With the rise of the Internet, contemporary dating practices have changed significantly over the past few decades. While in the 19th and early 20th centuries decisions as important as courtship—with whom and how—were never left to the “whims of young people” and actual practices rarely unsupervised, today, young adults are turning to Webbased applications like Zoosk or Match.com or mobile applications such as Tinder or Grindr to locate and construct intimate relationships (see also Chapter 3). Much of this process is now largely influenced by peers and not family. What’s more, the experience of dating often occurs in cyberspace via FaceTime, Skype, and text-based communication platforms; meaningful communication and intimate relations occur simultaneously outside of physical meeting spaces. There is greater diversity and greater awareness about sexual and ethnocultural diversity in family formation and practice. Heteronormativity, an ideology that promotes heterosexuality as “normal,” is omnipresent in Canadian society. There are, however, fractures in this ideology, reflecting significant social change over the past decade. Since 2005, same-sex couples have had the right to legally marry in Canada and NEL

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the number of these couples has been steadily increasing since 2001 (Hogg, 2005; Statistics Canada, 2017). Moreover, family practices engaged in by LGBTQI2SA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer or questioning, inter-sexed, two-spirited, and allies) adults, whether they engage in marital unions or not, may have ­commonalities—and differences—with those practised by heterosexual adults (see Chapter 12). Notably, parenthood is no longer restricted to reproductive potential. New reproductive technologies such as in-vitro fertilization or surrogacy have transformed people’s abilities to have and raise children (Baker, 2010). Canadian families are also increasingly ethnoculturally diverse (see also Chapters 8 and 11). Whereas the first colonizers were of European (English or French) origin, the majority of new immigrants today are from Asia and the Middle East (Government of Canada, 2015). According to 2016 Census data, the most common language spoken at home besides English or French was Mandarin. Tagalog and Arabic are the fastest growing unofficial languages (CBC News, 2017). Families are smaller than before and people are living longer. At present, the average number of children per family has demographers concerned as fertility has dropped below replacement levels. In fact, for the first time in Canada’s history, persons over the age of 65 outnumber those under the age of 15 (­Statistics Canada, 2015). People are also living longer—life expectancies have increased for both men and women—a demographic reality that means an increase in single person households (Statistics Canada, 2017) and that has implications for

© CREATISTA/Shutterstock

What Has Changed and What Has Remained The Same: A Framework for Family Sociology in Canada

Family formation and practice is diverse and ever-changing.

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the Canadian labour force and the provision of social support and care in later life (see Chapters 13 and 15). “Boomerang kids” are an increasingly common phenomenon. Increasing economic uncertainty for young adults, coupled with an increase in partnership instability into mid-life, has meant that adult children live longer periods of time in their family households (Statistics Canada, 2017) may return to the “empty nest,” that is, they may “boomerang,” sometimes with their own children. Gone are the days when adult children’s transition to marriage marked the end of intergenerational cohabitation. The cluttered nest (which has led to an increase in intergenerational co-resident living arrangements) has become a reality for more and more aging parents (Mitchell, 2006) (see Chapter 4). The presence of women and mothers in the labour market is has been normalized, and two incomes are better than one. Women’s labour force participation has increased dramatically since the 1970s, a change that can be partially attributed to feminist advocacy and social movements in the 1960s and a changing economy. This has been particularly true for mothers of young children. Despite the inroads that have been made by women, personal incomes have not grown in ways that have allowed all families to meet the basic costs of everyday living (see Chapters 5 and 6). In most two-parent families, two incomes are better than one; indeed, a dual-income family is necessary to make ends meet in an increasing number of Canadian families today. Not surprisingly, lone mother–headed families have the greatest likelihood of experiencing poverty (Statistics Canada, 2010).

CHAPTER 1

Over time, there have been significant changes to the composition of families, the way they are constructed, and the nature and practice of intimate relationships. However, key to this edited collection is the idea that some dimensions of family life have remained consistent even alongside shifts or changes that have occurred. The chapters in this edited collection rest on the assumption that we can trace continuity Fa m ilies as W e K now and H av e K nown T he m

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IN THE MEDIA Canada Has More Same-sex Couples, One-person Households, Census Shows OTTAWA—Changing social norms, immigration and economics are driving big changes in how Canadians live, with more same-sex couples, more lone-parent families, more one-person households and more young adults living with their parents… There were 14.1 million private households in Canada in 2016—9.5 million (67.7 per cent) had at least a married or common-law couple, with or without children, and loneparent families. For the first time, people living on their own was the most common type of household, accounting for almost 30 per cent of all households in 2016. That percentage has been steadily increasing since 1951, when it stood at just

and innovation within Canadian families across three dimensions: • the meanings we ascribe to family or the ideas and definitions we have of family • the practices we engage in as family or the behaviours and actions of intimate relations • the processes of being, becoming, or constructing family or the dynamic interactions that constitute family life Figure 1.1 illustrates how we think of this visually: as continuity and innovation always connected to

Innovation Meanings, Practices, Processes Continuity

FIGURE 1.1

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A Framework for Family Sociology

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7.4 per cent. More women (53.7 per cent) than men are living alone… At the other end of the household spectrum, multigenerational homes—with at least three generations under the same roof – are also on the rise, growing by 37.5 per cent since 2001…are most common among immigrant populations and Indigenous peoples. Source: Campion-Smith (2017), https://www.thestar.com/ news/canada/2017/08/02/canada-has-more-same-sex-couples-one-person-households-census-shows.html. Reprinted with permission—Torstar Syndication Services. Quoted and excerpted from the article.

one another, and meanings, practices, and processes embedded therein.

We Assign Meaning to Family Clearly, as our review of trends suggests, changes in intimacy, growth in diversity, and even smaller families suggest that there have been innovative changes in how families are defined in Canada. What remains consistent over time, however, is that meaning is given to “what is family?” Every person has some definition of a family that may be tied to, for example, household experiences growing up, religious and ethnocultural identity, or education. Our definitions, informed by these micro-level interactions, can also be thought of as the meanings we give to family. And when we live as family or choose to create family, we do so with a sense of these meanings, often adjusting them as we age (see Chapter 3). Even at the macro level, government officials and policymakers have their own definitions of the family. That we create social constructs of what a family should be is an example of how continuity textures family lives at the same time that these lives seem to change remarkably. What has also remained continuous over time is how the very meanings that we assign to families can be exclusionary. The presumption that the majority of

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We Practise Family Despite women and men partnering differently (if at all), participating in the labour market similarly, and having smaller families, some practices of family life have remained continuous. As in past generations, individuals still live with and relate to others as family via family practices. By “practices,” we mean the activities engaged in as part of family life (see Chapter 2 for a more nuanced discussion of practice). As people grow up and age, experiences of family practices include the giving and receiving of instrumental and expressive support, for example, provisioning, caregiving, and emotional guidance (see also Chapters 6, 12, and 13). Many people still also practise family within specific family configurations or units, for example, with intimate partners and children as per nuclear families or in households that include extended kin, such as grandparents or aunts and uncles (see Chapters 4 and 5). Thus, on the one hand, although some specific practices have remained the same despite changes in families over time, such as financially supporting members, young and old, this becomes particularly complex when a family is concerned about whether members have enough to eat and can afford a place to live (see Chapters 5 and 6). The boomerang kid phenomenon, although a harbinger of the ways in which NEL

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family has changed, is also indicative of the extent to which we rely on family members for financial assistance and emotional support over the adult life course. On the other hand, family practices are not equal or the same. Family practices differ depending on race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, age, and citizenship (see multiple chapters in this collection). Further, the challenges in engaging in what appear to be normative family practices, including raising children, can become difficult such as when a child is not perceived to be equally able-bodied as other children (see Chapter 14). Moreover, power imbalances continue to texture family lives no matter the broad dynamics of families and social change observed. For example, most women today participate in the paid labour force, a significant change from the past, and yet the division of unpaid work is not equal when women enter into intimate relationships (see Chapter 9). Trying to balance work and family remains primarily a women’s issue, with workplace and family policies in Canada lagging far behind those of the Scandinavian countries. Intimate partner violence and violence against women, children, and older adults remain significant social problems in Canada today (see Chapter 10). And, some individuals’ family experiences of racism are a corollary to historically entrenched discourses of colonialism and imperialism (see Chapter 11).

Family Is a Process Processes, or changes or events that happen over time, define families. Family processes over the life course include forming, maintaining, and ending intimate

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families are nuclear in composition, for example, has historically assumed a universality of experiences and functions—what Eichler (1997) terms the monolithic bias. When we consider how heteronormativity is also perceived to regulate family life, this very assumption about the meaning of family excludes nonconforming family dynamics, such as the families of persons who identify as LGBTQI2SA. As for Indigenous peoples, they have historically found their definitions and practices of family life to be circumscribed and revised by European colonizers, the most blatant example of this being the displacement of Indigenous children from their family homes to residential schools (see Chapters 7 and 11). The ­ ommission hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation C that concluded in 2015 were in response to the settlement of a class-action lawsuit; they were an attempt by the Conservative government at the time to address and respond to the decades-long cultural harms perpetrated against Indigenous peoples and their families.

Celebrating family members illustrates the family practice of caring.

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relations, simultaneously sustaining income security, and caregiving for others as they age (see multiple chapters in this collection; see also McDaniel & ­Tepperman, 2014; Morgan 1996, 2011). Many of these family processes echo what we define as family practices. Note that while family practices can be thought of as those routines that occur in the everyday lives of families, family processes capture how they are created, change in trajectories, and/or end over time. The changes in Canadian families that we reviewed earlier in this chapter reflect different family processes now as opposed to in the past. Individuals today will experience still other family processes over their life courses. As time goes on, the processes that characterize a generation, for example, might be different than those of other generations; however, some processes, such as how caring for other family members will go through several iterations as individuals age, will also remain the same. Indeed, every person will experience families as subject to change in other ways too. Simply by moving out of their childhood homes and living with another person as a couple, individuals transform their experience of families and the experiences of others close to them. Many people will decide whether to have children or end an intimate partnership or even a close friendship. These are family processes that their counterparts before them have experienced. These processes are just set in a different social-historical context and thus influenced by different socio-cultural forces. Finally, sometimes family transitions are not intended and can be experienced negatively. Government officials and policymakers, for example, define some family transitions such as divorce and marriage both legally and politically. Although the governing of the start and end points of family relationships has been a fairly continuous process over time, how this is achieved and for what reason(s) has shifted.

Change and Continuity? Being Comfortable with Apparent Contradictions How might we explain the reasons for this apparent continuity and innovation in contemporary family meanings, practices, and processes? And why should these dual themes be embraced in the sociology of 8

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the family? Our intent in this collection is not to passively embrace Alphonse Karr’s famous saying: “plus ca change, plus c’est la même chose” (The more things change, the more they stay the same). Indeed, we see our framework on continuity and innovation as conceptually informed by the work of theorists who attempt to critically make sense of shifts in modernity and the contradictions they create. Contemporary society, or society characteristic of late modernity (as opposed to the transition from agrarianism to industrialization), is perceived by Ulrich Beck (1992) as a risk society. The risk society has different patterns of security, trust, and risk, as well as relations between individuals and social structures than those of the past. In our present modernity, however, the social order of the industrialization period is both dis-embedded and re-embedded, a phenomenon termed reflexive modernization (Beck, Giddens, & Lash, 1994). A specific example is how the institution of the family and, specifically, the nuclear family model, a development of industrialization, is retreating in importance but not disappearing today (Beck & Beck-­ Gernsheim, 2001; Lash, 2003). Indeed, the timing and means of creating family is less determined by norms and sequences of nuclear family life (Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Gazso & McDaniel, 2015). The de-­normalization of roles (Lash, 2003) is perhaps best reflected in ­women’s greater participation in paid work and men’s greater participation in unpaid work relative to the past (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 1995). In the risk society, there is a parallel shift away from culturally prescribed collective identities toward an engagement in what Giddens terms “the reflexive project of the self ” (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 1995; Giddens, 1991; Piper, 2000). Beck et al. (1994, p. 13) define this as the individualization process of reflexive modernization. Indeed, in late modernity, the individual is obligated to construct his or her own life in the midst of the retreat of tradition. As Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2001) explain, part of this “imperative” is tied to the contemporary economy. Persons must now navigate the labour market carefully in order to earn enough for their survival and that of their families. This expectation of looking after one’s own self has taken hold in all spheres of social life, including public and private. What specifically does individualization have to do with the family? Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (1995) write that because of individualization NEL

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… it is no longer possible to pronounce in some binding way what family, marriage, parenthood, sexuality or love mean, what they should or could be; rather, these vary in substance, exceptions, norms and morality from individual to individual and from relationship to relationship.” (p. 5)

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Beck and Beck-Gernsheim also argue that because the pursuit of families is a part of one’s personal biography, as evidenced by the sheer diversity in family compositions and the broader changes in families we observed earlier, families are now more appropriately seen as post-familial families. Lash (2003), for example, observes the distantiation of family as an outcome of reflexive modernization. By this, he does not mean the destruction of family. Rather, through separation and divorce, children are removed from an intimate unit of origin and dispersed across potentially two or more families (e.g., if their parents re-couple). Individualization can create discomfort for individuals. “They find themselves bereft of unquestionable assumptions, beliefs or values and are nevertheless faced with the tangle of institutional controls and constraints that make up the fibre of modern life (welfare state, labour market, educational system, etc.)” (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 1995, p. 88). And, freedom to pursue a life of one’s own does not mean the absence of social

In the “reflexive project of the self,” people can create and present their self through body art—and their raising of children too.

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structures in one’s life. Not surprisingly, Lash (2003) observes that, in living in increasingly reflexive ways in late modernity, individuals experience tensions and contradictions. Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2001), for example, observe that individualization creates individual need for intimacy and security, prompting them to speculate that “most people will continue—at least for the foreseeable future—to live with a partnership or family. But such ties are not the same as before, in their scope or their degree of obligation or permanence” (p. 98). Anthony Giddens also writes of late modernity as characterized by the independence of agency from structure (Lash, 2003). He offers insight into how the norms, values, and behaviours surrounding intimacy have transformed in our current period of late modernity. As we discussed earlier, Giddens observed changes in the meaning of love and argued that love is now more about conditionality. Giddens (1992) specifically argues that people now enter into what he terms pure relationships, which are characterized by confluent love. Unlike pure, or unconditional, love of the past, confluent love is active and conditional, and presumes equality in exchanges of emotional support. The commonplace practices of divorce and separation illustrate the effects of this meaning of love. If individuals’ expectations of love are not met, unions are dissolved. Pure relationships are also characterized by open and “plastic sexuality” and are not exclusive to straight individuals. What Giddens means by plastic sexuality is sexuality de-centred from reproduction. Intimacy can be for pleasure, regardless of sexuality and gender, and need not involve reproduction. Thus, we see a shift away from the heteronormative assumption that one marries and then monogamously engages in sexual intimacy and a shift toward multiple relationships over one’s live course rarely confined to marriage. But then, how might we explain gender, racial/ ethnic, class, cultural, and other differences in terms of family meanings, practices, and processes that change or remain the same? Through the critical lens of intersectionality theory, individual experiences in families must be understood as shaped by and through perceived social attributes and social structures of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, citizenship, and ability, among others (see Chapter 8). (See “Still More Reasons to Orient Sociology of the Family Future-­Forward” in Intersections.) Coupling this awareness with the

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insights of modernity theorists, we can see these differences as inherent contradictions of processes of reflexive modernization and individualization. Individuals are freed to pursue their own biography in the contemporary moment, but traditions can still matter. Indeed, Smart and Shipman’s (2004) research with transnational families in Britain prompts them to argue that not all families share the agentic values of the individualization perspective. In their paper, they argue that religion and other cultural values and norms still matter to transnational families, despite the availability of and access to unbounded individual choices about family forms and relations; that is, traditions persist in some families despite exposure to change.

One cautionary note is important by way of concluding this section. As discussed above, we observe that our overarching conceptual framework for family sociology in this collection—the importance of the dual themes of continuity and innovation in family lives—can be understood through theorizing the risk society and individualization in late modernity. This overarching framework, however, does not preclude the review and application of other theories and methods to the study of Canadian families then and now. Indeed, the following chapters in this edited collection illustrate each contributor’s unique approach to a salient topic in family sociology. Our objective has been to situate their contributions within this overarching framework.

INTERSECTIONS STILL MORE REASONS TO ORIENT SOCIOLOGY OF THE FAMILY FUTURE-FORWARD In their 2012 article in Current Sociology, Farrell, VandeVusse, and Ocobock review how reproduction and household labour are discussed in studies presented in four sociology journals from 1993 to 2011. They begin their article with an exploration of the lived realities, especially the living arrangements, of American families. They then contrast these trends to what is studied in the four journals. On the basis of their review, they conclude: Much of the sociological study of the family still views the two-adult, heterosexual, married couple, residing together with their biologically related offspring, as

constituting “the family.” By 2010, this described half of the households in the U.S. (p. 297)* Family sociology needs to expand to reflect the new realities of Americans’ lives. While this is an American study, the journals reviewed include not just American but North American scholarship on families. Thus, Farrell, VandeVusse, and Ocobock’s findings have relevance for how we theorize and understand Canadian families, too. Source: Farrell, VandeVusse, & Ocobock (2012). Paraphrased and quoted from this article.

CHAPTER SUMMARY This chapter has reviewed major trends in family lives over time but also established what seems to remain continuous in the midst of change: the meanings we give to family, the practices we engage in as family, and the processes that we are involved in over the life course. This chapter has therefore introduced the overarching framework of this collection as one of continuity and innovation. To this end, our intention has been to underscore continuity and innovation as dual themes in understanding contemporary family vis-à-vis theories of modernity. Although family life today may differ from the past, there are echoes of this past in the current lived realities of Canadian families. Previously, we noted that while we 10

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situate Chapters 3 to 15 in this collection according to this framework, contributors do not always draw on, nor would we expect them to, the same theoretical insights. In Chapter 2, we turn our attention to the diversity of theories and methods used to study contemporary family life.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. Is there such a thing today as a typical Canadian family? If so, what does that family look like? 2. The construction of a family trajectory and the timing of events and transitions along it have become increasingly individualized over time. What are some of the factors that may have contributed to this shift? 3. In what ways have family practices (e.g., feeding family members and caregiving) evolved and adapted over time? 4. What is meant by the “reflexive project of the self ” in relation to forming family and living as family?

APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. Consider the changes we can see in Canadian families today compared to families in the past (refer to “Changes We Know and See” near the beginning of the chapter). Consider these in relation to what you knew about families before reading this chapter. Are there any changes missed? What are they? 2. What is meant by understanding continuity and change in families through meanings, practices, and processes? 3. The social construction of the meanings of families has remained remarkably consistent. How has this resulted in the social exclusion of some people as family? 4. Using the concepts of “risk society” and “reflexive modernization,” what do you think are some of the key challenges facing the contemporary Canadian family?

FURTHER RESOURCES Vanier Institute of the Family Annual Report, 2014. www.vanierinstitute.ca/annual_report. The Vanier Institute of the Family is a national, independent, charitable organization dedicated to understanding the Canadian family. This report presents a comprehensive overview of its research on the family, including publications, research initiatives, presentations, and social media initiatives. Statistics Canada, Fifty Years of Families in Canada: 1961 to 2011. https://www12.statcan. gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-312-x/98-312-x2011003_1-eng.cfm. This 2012 publication presents a snapshot of the Canadian Census family and how social and economic changes have influenced evolving family dynamics. Statistics Canada, Portrait of Families and Living Arrangements in Canada. www12 .statcan.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-312-x/98-312-x2011001-eng.cfm. This report provides an overview of the living arrangements of Canadian families, including married couples, same-sex couples, stepfamilies, and aging families. “The Motherload,” CBC’s Doc Zone. www.cbc.ca/doczone/episodes/_search_results/ 6b545e2c85f782cf42a7d339441118d7/P5. In this television program, Ann-Marie MacDonald discusses why “mothers can’t have it all” as they juggle the demands of raising children and taking part in a competitive workplace. NEL

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KEY TERMS boomerang kid: a young adult who returns to live in the parental home, usually due to financial problems caused by unemployment or the high cost of living independently (p. 7) cluttered nest: refers to the phenomenon of young adults returning to live with their parents or choosing to remain at home past the customary age for leaving home (p. 5) confluent love: according to Anthony Giddens, a type of love which is contingent, ephemeral, and temporary (unlike the idea of romantic love) (p. 9) heteronormativity: a worldview that promotes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation (p. 4) individualization: the cultural imperative to construct one’s own life, in the midst of a contingent and contradictory social context, in late modernity (p. 8) intersectionality theory: the theory that states individual experiences in families must be understood as shaped by and through social attributes and social structures of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, citizenship, and ability, among others (p. 9) nuclear family: husband, wife, and children (p. 4) plastic sexuality: according to Anthony Giddens, sexuality that is de-centred from reproduction (p. 9) post-familial families: a concept that indicates how the family, as an institution, now includes diverse organizational forms such as cohabitation, with or without

children, and with or without marriage, singles and s­ ingle-parent families, as well as same-sex partnerships, among others (p. 9) pure relationships: Anthony Giddens’s term for a new kind of relationship based on equality and negotiation (p. 9) reflexive modernization: refers to the way in which advanced modernity “becomes its own theme,” in the sense that the industrial social order is both dis-embedded and re-embedded. For example, the timing and means of creating family in late modernity appear less determined by traditional norms and sequences of nuclear family life. (p. 8) risk society: the manner in which modern society organizes in response to risk (p. 8) social constructs: an idea or concept that is created by individuals through their interactions with one another and institutions and structures within their particular social-­ cultural context (p. 6) sociological imagination: a concept used by American sociologist C. Wright Mills to describe the ability to “think yourself away from the familiar routines of everyday life” and look at them from an entirely new perspective (p. 3) Truth and Reconciliation Commission: the commission that had the mandate to inform all Canadians about what happened in Indian residential schools; documented the stories of survivors and their families (p. 7)

REFERENCES Baker, M. (2010). Choices and constraints in family life (2nd ed.). Toronto, ON: Oxford ­University Press. Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. London, UK: Sage. Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (1995). The normal chaos of love. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2001). Individualization. London, UK: Sage. Beck, U., Giddens, A., & Lash, S. (1994). Reflexive modernization: Politics, tradition and aesthetics in modern social order. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002). Reinventing the family: In search of new lifestyles. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Bradbury, B. (1994). Women’s workplaces: The impact of technological change on working-class women in the home and in the workplace in nineteenth-century Montréal. In A. Kobayashi (Ed.), Women, work and place (pp. 27–44). Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Campion-Smith, B. (2012, September 20). Canadian families growing more diverse, census data shows. Toronto Star. Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2012/09/20 /­canadian_families_growing_more_diverse_census_data_shows.html Coontz, S. (2005). Marriage, a history: From obedience to intimacy or how love conquered marriage. New York, NY: Viking. Eichler, M. (1997). Family shifts: Families, policies, and gender equality. Toronto, ON: Oxford ­University Press. Employment and Social Development Canada. (2014). Family Life—Marriage. Retrieved from http://well-being.esdc.gc.ca/misme-iowb/[email protected]?iid=78 12

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Farrell, B., VandeVusse, A., & Ocobock, A. (2012). Family change and the state of family sociology. Current Sociology, 60(3): 283–301. Gazso, A., & McDaniel, S. (2015). Families by choice and the management of low income through social supports. Journal of Family Issues, 36(3), 371–395. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in late modern age. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Giddens, A. (1992). The transformation of intimacy: Sexuality, love & eroticism in modern societies. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Government of Canada. (2015). Facts and figures 2013—Immigration overview: Permanent residents. Retrieved from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada http://www.cic.gc.ca /english/resources/statistics/facts2013/permanent/10.asp Hogg, P. (2005). Canada: The constitution and same-sex marriage. International Journal of Constitutional Law, 4(4), 712–721. Lash, S. (2003). Reflexivity as non-linearity. Theory, Culture, and Society, 20(2), 49–57. McDaniel, S. A., & Tepperman, L. (2014). Close relations: An introduction to sociology of families (4th ed.). Toronto, ON: Pearson. Mills, C. W. (1959/2000). The sociological imagination. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, B. A. (2006). The boomerang age from childhood to adulthood: Emergent trends for aging families. Canadian Studies in Population, 33(2), 154–176. Mitchell, B. A. (2012). Family matters: An introduction to family sociology in Canada (2nd ed.). Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars’ Press. Morgan, D. H. J. (1996). Family connections: An introduction to family studies. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Morgan, D. H. J. (2011). Rethinking family practices. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Piper, A. (2000). Some have credit cards and others have giro cheques: “Individuals” and “people” as lifelong learners in late modernity. Discourse & Society, 11(3), 515–542. Roseneil, S., & Budgeon, S. (2004). Cultures of intimacy and care beyond the family: Personal life and social change in the early 21st century. Current Sociology, 52(2), 135–159. Smart, C., & Shipman, B. (2004). Visions in monochrome: Families, marriage, and the individualization thesis. British Journal of Sociology, 55(4), 491–509. Statistics Canada. (2005, 22 March). Study: Canada’s visible minority population in 2017. The Daily. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/050322/dq050322b-eng.htm Statistics Canada. (2010). Women in Canada: A gender-based statistical report (Catalogue No. 89-503-X). Retrieved from http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/access_acces/alternative _alternatif.action?l5eng&loc5/pub/89-503-x/2010001/article/11388-eng .pdf&teng5Economic%C2%A0Well-being&tfra5Bien-%C3%AAtre%C2%A0%C3%A9conomique Statistics Canada. (2012). Portrait of families and living arrangements in Canada (Catalogue No. 98-312-X-2011001). Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/ as-sa/98-312-x/98-312-x2011001-eng.cfm Statistics Canada. (2015). Canada’s population estimates: Age and sex, July 1, 2015. The Daily. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/150929/dq150929b-eng.htm Statistics Canada. (2017). Family households and marital status: Key results from the 2016 Census. The Daily. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dai-quo/ssi/homepage/rel-com/ theme40000-eng.htm. Wu, Z., & Schimmele, C. M. (2011). Changing families. In B. Edmonston & E. Fong (Eds.), The changing Canadian population (pp. 235–252). Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

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CHAPTER 2 Theorizing and Researching Family

Phylicia grew up in a single-parent household. Carter grew up with two parents, a mom and a dad, and his sister Jadelyn. Farid was raised by his uncle in Canada after his parents were killed in a civil war

© Shutterstock/wavebreakmedia Ken Burns/iStockphoto.com

Amber Gazso and Karen Kobayashi

in his homeland. Jacqueline and Constance have been in a committed relationship for 12 years,

L E AR NI NG O B J E C TI V E S

married for five of them. They have two cats. family and household composition? How do they theorize families? How do they

After you have read this chapter, you will be able to:

study them?

• appreciate that there are

What are the ways in which sociologists of the family work with such diversity in

many ways to theorize about

In this chapter, we establish the theoretical and methodological foundations for the study of families in Canada. We discuss how sociologists have theorized about families, reflecting on the historical contexts in which these theories were developed, and focus also on the theoretical perspectives that are most prevalent in family sociology. We conclude the chapter with a brief review of the common research methods that have been used to study families. As will become clear throughout this collection, each contributing author is writing about family and family relations specific to a topic and from a particular theoretical perspective and methodological vantage point. Our hope is that Chapter 2 provides content that will allow you to develop a better understanding of the significance of each chapter’s contribution, especially how it ­invigorates our current understandings of change and continuity in family and family relations.

the family • understand that ­theorizing about family life has ­undergone significant change • appreciate that there are many different approaches to engaging in research on the family • understand that survey research and interviewing are two popular ways to research family life • establish a strong ­foundation in theory and research from which to understand ­contemporary research on family life

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Theoretical Frameworks for Understanding Families and Family Relations

Mid-19th to Early 20th Century Theories The sociological study of the family can be traced back, in part, to 19th and early 20th century scholarship that focused on (1) the emergence of the post-industrial or “modern” family, that is, the nuclear family, defined as a husband, wife, and children, in relation to historical and material change; and (2) the nuclear family according to its composition, roles, functions, and the interactions of its members. Materialist/Conflict Perspective Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx’s co-author of The Communist Manifesto, wrote The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884/2010) in the late 19th century. While not without its critics, Engels’s work has also been recognized as making a distinct contribution to sociology of the family for its historical materialist approach and feminist insights. Engels drew on the anthropological work of Lewis Henry Morgan to theorize that the state and monogamous marriage emerged parallel to the transition from “primitive society,” to an agrarian, feudal-based economy, to the industrializing and wage labour economy of the modern city. For Engels, the nuclear family had its foundations in early Greek society but was consolidated in the classbased society of the 1800s, primarily through men’s monopoly on ownership of property and their desire NEL

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By the time most sociology students enroll in a “sociology of the family” course, they have already been introduced to the macro-micro orientation of the discipline through theoretical discussions, both classical and contemporary, on the nature of the relationship between the individual and society. It should be of no surprise, then, that some of these same theories are used to understand the social institution and experience of the family. In fact, what will become apparent is that different theoretical perspectives have varyingly focused on meanings, practices, and processes with regard to families.

Structural functionalists celebrated the nuclear family of the 1950s for its ability to achieve a harmonious division of gender roles.

to bequeath their wealth to their offspring. According to Engels (1884/2010), “Within the family he [the man] is the bourgeois and the wife represents the proletariat” (p. 105). For example, patriarchy afforded men power and privilege in the public sphere that carried over into the private domain; women were relegated to private service in the household. Engels maintained that all conflict within families could be traced to the growth of capitalism and its exploitative and oppressive relationships. Echoing what many students learn about conflict theory in their introduction to sociology, inequality is an outcome of material and social change. Structural Functionalism Structural functionalism as a theory in sociology of the family has its roots in anthropology. In The Family amongst the Australian Aborigines, British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1913) argued that families were universal but that their characteristics varied according to particular structural and social contexts. Malinowski’s research led him to conclude that a family could be defined as a regulated and delimited group of individuals that had distinct responsibilities (a division of labour), practised some form of c­ o-­residence, performed activities, and displayed ­emotions (­Cornell, 1990, p. 69; Malinowksi, 1913). T h e o r i z i n g a n d R e s e a r ch i n g Fa m i ly

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In Social Structure, anthropologist George Murdock defined the family in this way:

Murdock’s definition and theory of the family was based on his extensive fieldwork in 250 cultures across five continents. He argued that the nuclear family was found universally as a separate unit from the community in all cultures; only the family could provide the “functional prerequisites” for a healthy life. Families were further defined by extended kin relations created when two adult offspring married. Notably, Murdock (1949/1960) defined kin relations as people linked by blood or marital relations. The study of families as nuclear with particular functions gained currency in the 1940s and 1950s (Cornell, 1990). In Family, Socialization and Interaction Process, Talcott Parsons and Robert Bales (1955) theorized that the family coexisted harmoniously with other institutions, such as the economy, and fulfilled certain social and economic functions within industrial society: • the production and socialization of individuals (children and adults) so that they fit into society • the provision and protection of its members through divisions of instrumental and expressive labour • the provision of emotional well-being and the maintenance of adult relationships • the organization of sexual relations Regarding the second function, Parsons and Bales understood men to perform instrumental roles in the public realm in areas of business and commerce and women to perform emotional roles within the household. Like Engels, Parsons and Bales perceived that men’s earnings solidified their positions as “heads of the household” with authority and decision-making power over women and children. Women were not to enter the workforce but rather care for and nurture others, specializing in love and emotional relationships in the 16

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a social group characterized by a common residence, economic cooperation, and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain socially approved sexual relations, and two or more children, own or adopted, of the s­ exually cohabitating adults … [T]he nuclear family consists typically of a married man and woman with their offspring, although in individual cases one or more additional persons may reside with them. (1949/1960, p. 1; italics in original)

Within nuclear families, the work of looking after the home still tends to be primarily performed by women.

private domain of the home. The role specialization of women and men reflected the macro instrumental (work) and expressive (love) dimensions of society and enabled the family to function harmoniously. Symbolic Interactionism American sociologist Ernest Burgess was also interested in how roles defined families. He was a member of the Chicago School, the name given to a group of sociologists studying urban life in the 1920s and 1930s at the University of Chicago. His perspective, however, focused more on the inner, micro dynamics of family life. Influenced by symbolic interactionist George ­Herbert Mead, Burgess (1926) defined the family as a unit based on interactions among persons. He maintained that people interact with others according to the roles that they perceive others perform. Once individuals identify one another as family and engage in relations as family, they are a family and are recognized as such by their communities (Erikson, 2003). Burgess (1926) also argued that industrialization and modernization transformed interactions between family members as they created opportunities for forming families based on love and companionship rather than law and cultural customs. (See “In Hindsight: Limitations of ­Earlier Theories” in A Closer Look.) NEL

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A CLOSER LOOK In Hindsight: Limitations of Earlier Theories As sociology of the family continued to grow as a sub-­ discipline of sociology from the mid-20th century onward, several points of criticism were raised against these earlier theories. Here, we focus on a few of the challenges raised. 1. Nuclear families were not universal. Many family sociologists and other scholars have since pointed to how earlier claims of universality of families, such as those in Murdock’s work, were under-theorized and not necessarily empirically falsified. Anthropologist Kathleen Gough (1959), for example, discovered the absence of nuclear family relations across different cultures. Further, Tadmor (2010) maintains that the nuclear family definition is misleading because it cannot possibly capture the constant movement of people into and out of households over time. Another problem that arose from imposing the nuclear family as the standard by which all other family relations were assessed was that family relations outside this standard were overlooked or viewed as deviant (Smith, 1993). Only those marital unions that produced and/or reared children were recognized as family ­(Cornell, 1990). And early theories about role specialization overlooked how poor and racialized women had a long history of working for pay in industrialized societies (Bradbury, 1994; hooks, 1981). 2. Sociology of the family was largely androcentric and heteronormative. As in the discipline of sociology more generally, Dorothy Smith (1987) has observed that the canon of sociological thought on the family has reinforced male privilege. The prominent theorists

Mid-20th Century to (Very) Early Millennial Theories We can credit the work of feminists for significantly shifting the theoretical terrain of family sociology. While feminist scholarship can be traced to the 18th century and earlier, it was really from the mid-20th century onward that its profound influence on the subdiscipline can be noted. As Ferree (1990) explained two decades ago, feminism challenged researchers to rethink their assumptions that the family is a single NEL

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in the area were men and they presented an inherently male picture of family life. Smith (1989) goes on to say that these earlier theories of the family had the effect of preserving the desired social order, or “ruling relations,” of capitalism and of perpetuating men’s power in the public sphere and authority over women and children in the household. Approaches like structural functionalism also valorized heterosexual couple unions, perpetuated inequality in gender relations, and excluded all other family relations in the process (Widmer & Jallinoja, 2008). 3. Sociology of the family had Eurocentric and ­ethnocentric leanings. Sociology of the family has had a tendency to primarily focus on the experiences of Caucasian persons of European descent. Cornell (1990), for example, observes that earlier work was grounded in the experiences of white middle-class families in Western industrial societies.  ntil the mid-19th century, there was considerable U silence about how slavery shaped the family lives of African-Americans in early “mainstream” sociology of the family. In The Philadelphia Negro, Du Bois (1899) argued that the social problems facing families in the Black ­Seventh Ward of Philadelphia, such as poverty and unemployment, were due to historical, cultural, and economic conditions (such as slavery) that stymied opportunity. His study was published in the late 19th century but was not recognized as a significant contribution to sociology and the study of the family until the mid-to-latter half of the 20th century.

unit with a shared standard of living and interests and functions that are only confined to the household. Although there are different feminist perspectives, it is reasonable to perceive that two assumptions underpin this shared challenge: (1) inequalities exist within and across family and social relations, especially as they are differentiated by race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, age, and citizenship; and (2) ­inequalities are socially, culturally, and historically variable. In essence, feminist scholarship solidified the possibility to define family as grounded in women’s practice and T h e o r i z i n g a n d R e s e a r ch i n g Fa m i ly

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experience (Thompson & Walker, 1995, pp. 856–858). Further, while certain functions of families such as reproduction and socialization of family members are still studied, they are no longer perceived as gender specialized or to occur only in nuclear family units. Beyond the Nuclear Family: Fictive Kin The strides made in broadening the definition of family beyond blood or legally sanctioned marital relations in sociology are linked to arguments made in anthropology. Anthropology offered a way to conceptualize kinship relationships, such as through the work of Malinowski (1913) and Murdock (1949), but other scholars soon resisted seeing kinship as an outcome of biological and marital association. Ibsen and Klobus (1972), for example, argued the concept of fictive kin to include any persons to whom individuals in a family feel close to and with whom they have strong relations. Carol Stack (1974) took up this definition of family in her groundbreaking study of how poor African-American families managed to “make do” through reciprocal exchanges of financial and emotional support. Stack (1974) used the term fictive kin to describe friends who exchanged goods and services (e.g., caregiving for children who were not biologically related to them) within a social network; people became kinsfolk through these exchanges and were then perceived in the same way as biological kin. Carsten (2000) referred to kinship relations in the context of “cultures of relatedness,” using her anthropological work in Indigenous communities to construct an understanding of what makes a person a relative. Fictive kin relationships in this research, however, were not necessarily signs of innovation in families but rather simply practices of family and community life. This observation is reflected in Macdougall’s historical research on the family. In her study of the development of Métis communities in 19th century Saskatchewan, Macdougall (2010, p. 69) noted that men and women who worked in the fur trade established relationships “… that mimicked genealogical relationships based on blood …” as a strategy of socio-economic survival. While it is impossible to argue that fictive kin relationships are new or innovative per se, contemporary sociologists of the family have certainly developed a more focused interest in them. There is a growing consensus that family is not defined by blood or 18

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marriage, as in conventional nuclear and kin definitions of family, but is largely socially constructed: an observation that has been taken up in several different ways in the sociological literature. In queer theory, for example, “families of choice” materialized as a concept to capture how gays and lesbians define their families as those with whom they feel close (Sullivan, 2004; Weeks, Heaphy, & Donovan, 2001; Weston, 1991). For some people, being queer and part of a family means practising family outside the confines of heteronormative family roles (Armesto & Shapiro, 2011; Epstein, 2009). In the wider scholarship, there is considerable variation in the term used to refer to intimate relations that do not assume marital or biological associations, including fictive kin, families of choice, or chosen family. The use of such terms implies that families are defined by personal experience, interactions, and choices (Schmeeckle, Giarrusso, Feng, & Bengtson, 2006). Moreover, Muraco (2006) cautions against an “either/or” approach, such as perceiving gay and lesbian families as families of choice and straight families as including fictive kin. Essentially, anyone’s chosen family—those that they socially construct as family—can include fictive kin. Tadmor (2010) offers one final cautionary note vis-á-vis embracing these concepts, namely, to avoid seeing them as “new” meanings about family. She reminds us that families of choice share characteristics of 19th century households, where kin resided with several servants in order to produce a means of subsistence; this household organization is referred to by some as the “family economy” (Tilly & Scott, 1978). Practices, Processes, and Doing Family: Emergent Ways of Theorizing about Family Relations Another theme in sociology of the family is to emphasize interactions, or practices, within families rather than define family by its composition, for example, the nuclear family unit. Indeed British sociologist David Morgan (1996) maintains that the word family is not a noun but an adjective. Specifically, family describes practices “which deal with ideas of parenthood, kinship, and marriage” and their associated obligations, expectations, and interactions (p. 11). For example, a common family practice is that of caring for children (see also Chapter 1). Emotions and the work of NEL

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regulating emotions are at the core of family practices. Morgan does not regard family practices as universal. Instead, he argues that they are context specific and imaginatively and ideologically driven. More recently, Morgan (2011) has added that these practices are specifically and simultaneously constitutive of family membership. For Canadian sociologists of the family McDaniel and Tepperman (2015), their interest is in what they see as common processes of family life, such as dependency, intimacy, and power dynamics. ­Emotional dependency, for example, characterizes family relationships, and members’ exchanges of emotional support can change. McDaniel and Tepperman’s focus on the common processes of family life is similar to the arguments put forward by Morgan (1996, 2011) and Hareven (1974) in that they assume these very ­processes to constitute family life over time. Connidis (2001, 2010), by contrast, focuses on family ties among those in middle age (45–64) and older. Key to her research is an emphasis on the intimate intra- and inter-generational relationships of those not partnered or living according to conventional family configurations (e.g., single, divorced, and childless people; sibling relationships; gay and lesbian individuals). In much of her work, she stresses the importance of understanding family ties as processes that unfold over the life course and that are characterized by intergenerational ­ambivalence, or individuals’ simultaneous experience of positive and negative feelings about and within families. This ambivalence is understood as interactionally and structurally constituted. Intergenerational ambivalence contrasts and improves upon a dualistic view of families as smoothly functioning or “dysfunctional” (see, for example, ­Connidis, 2015). The idea of “doing family” is a post-1990s way of thinking that originates from the work of American family sociologists. “Doing family” captures the interactions that create and maintain social ties and networks, define others as family, and establish boundaries around responsibility for attachment and care (Hertz, 2006; Nelson, 2006). The doing of family is shaped by the materiality and cultural norms of one’s social location (Nelson, 2006). Functions, such as unpaid caregiving and economic provision for dependants, are assumed as part of a “doing family” perspective, but these functions are not exclusive to nuclear families nor are they linked to gendered family roles (Muraco, 2006). NEL

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Finch (2007) extends the notion of “doing family” to include the ideas of performance and representation. Family members “display” to others what family means to them. Audiences play a central role in this display because they confirm that what they are observing is family (James & Curtis, 2010). As James and Curtis’s (2010) research demonstrates, both the innovative doing and display of family can be challenging in post-industrial societies because families are largely organized, and perceived to be organized, according to

INTERSECTIONS LESBIAN MOTHERING: OUTSIDE THE (HETERO) “NORM” Andrea Hunter analyzed 30 blogs of lesbian mothers between May 2007 and May 2014. She found that while same-sex marriage has been legalized and it seems that the family practices of lesbian mothers are more fully recognized, mothers still experience feeling “outside of the norm.” The blogs illustrate that mothers feel invisible, must self-advocate for recognition as parents with rights and responsibilities, and face heteronormative values and assumptions in their daily lives that make being “out” difficult. For example, one blogger wrote about how her family was not the norm and thus largely invisible: We are fortunate to live in a very open-minded and diverse city like Toronto. I’m actually surprised by the number of people who will use the word “partner,” as opposed to “husband” in conversation. Regardless, I still frequently get asked “what my husband does?” or receive comments about how “my husband and I must have our hands full.” There are times when I’ll just nod and smile because explaining seems too much work. More often than not though, I’ll have to explain. (2moms2dogs2babies, 2011) (p. 217)

Hunter’s central argument is that blogging provides a means of narrating the subtle or nuanced nature of homophobia that lesbian mothers experience in their practices of mothering. Source: Hunter (2015). Paraphrased and quoted from the article.

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the composition and ideology of the nuclear family (see also Smith, 1993). Indeed, ­“Lesbian Mothering: Outside the (Hetero) ‘Norm’” in Intersections, highlights how families of choice experience challenges in simply being family because their practices are within a society largely organized around n ­ ormative assumptions. Feminist Political Economy and Social Reproduction Feminist scholars improved upon earlier sociological understandings of families as changing in accordance with material and social change in an approach known as “feminist political economy.” (For an extended description of this perspective, see Chapters 5 and 6.) A central interest is in social reproduction: Among other things, social reproduction includes how food, clothing, and shelter are made available for immediate consumption, the ways in which the care and socialization of children are provided, the care of the infirm and elderly, and the social organization of sexuality. Social reproduction can thus be seen to include various kinds of work—mental, manual, and emotional—aimed at providing the historically and socially, as well as biologically, defined care necessary to maintain existing life and to reproduce the next generation. (Laslett & Brenner, 1989, pp. 382–383)

INTERFOTO/Alamy Stock Photo

Feminist scholars tend to concur that it is ­primarily women who perform social reproduction (see, for example, Hartmann, 1981; Lorber, 1994; and Luxton, 2001). Social reproduction is a concept used to specify practices of families and households as they are

Many products of capitalist ­production, such as the automobile, have dramatically changed how families engage in daily life.

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contextualized by the wider, intersecting governance and economic systems of society. The concept is also tied to other processes of daily life, such as gender and class relations. For example, according to Bezanson and Luxton (2006), women’s participation in the process of social reproduction reproduces labour power, predominantly that of men, especially within nuclear families. Late Modernity, Individualization As we noted in Chapter 1, understanding families as changing in line with modernization has been written about by scholars Beck, Beck-Gernsheim, and ­Giddens. All three situate their interests in family change within the context of the transition from modernity (re industrialization) to late modernity (re post-industrial society). Here, we provide a reminder that a central process of late modernity, that of reflexive modernization, is seen to fracture structures like the nuclear family and invite change (Beck, Giddens, & Lash, 1994). Related to this is the process of individualization, that is, how individuals “must produce, stage, and cobble together their biographies themselves,” including their family lives (Beck et al., 1994, p. 13). As we outlined in Chapter 1, a consequence of individualization is that family relationships such as procreation, marriage, and even sex cannot be taken for granted (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 1995). (See “Polyamorous Triad: ‘We Are a Stable and Happy Blended Family’” in In the Media.) As also discussed in Chapter 1, the reflexive project of the self (Giddens, 1991), outside the confines of the heteronormative nuclear family, can invite tension and contradiction. Individuals’ pursuit of “a life of their own” can be hampered by historically entrenched cultural norms and values. Indeed, Beck and Beck-­ Gernsheim (1995) argue that there is a “normal chaos of love” in contemporary patterns of intimacy. Individuals feel a pull to pursue their own path and develop intimate relations on equal terms, and yet, are contradictorily expected to be selfless in the care of others. This is especially the case for women. Thus, although families are different in late modernity, historical notions about family remain and continue to have personal, interactional, political, and ideological significance. This approach to theorizing family, a macro-level focus on broad social change, is balanced with the micro-level insights gleaned from exploring how meanings about family and family practices transform via the processes of reflexive modernization and individualization. NEL

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IN THE MEDIA Polyamorous Triad: “We Are a Stable and Happy Blended Family” Zoe Duff is 50 years old and lives in Victoria in a relationship that she describes as a polyamorous triad. In her affidavit filed by the Canadian Polyamory ­Advocacy Association, Duff says she has lived common-law with Jayson Hawksworth since 2006, although both have dated others, and as a couple they have dated other couples. From two previous marriages, Duff has six children aged 15 to 26; Hawksworth has two adult children. Duff’s two youngest children live with them. Since 2009, Duff has also had an “intimate and conjugal relationship” with Danny Weeds. “We are a stable and happy blended family,” she says, describing Hawksworth, Weeds, her two youngest children, and herself, who all live together. “Each of the children has his own room. The members of our triad share one very large bed in one bedroom…. We share all common areas and enjoy family times with the children as well as shared private times.” The household chores are shared and “we have a posted calendar in the kitchen and an online calendar where we keep track of everyone’s work and school schedule and events. Dates with outside partners are posted to the online schedule for the adults to note.” Duff goes on to say in her affidavit, “Sexuality within our triad is heterosexual, as both men have that orientation.

Personal Life, Personal Communities Some scholars deliberately refrain from use of the term family in their studies of close and intimate relations. Carol Smart (2007) developed the “sociology of personal life” to include kinship ties, close relations created in same-sex families, relationships created by new reproductive technologies, and friendships. Pahl and Spencer (2004) suggest that the concept of “personal communities” can be used to understand peoples’ lives as embedded in active and significant network ties that are ascribed and chosen, with chosen relations including kin and non-kin. Roseneil and Budgeon (2004), meanwhile, argue that it may be preferable to focus on networks and flows of intimacy and care that characterize people’s lives (p. 154, italics in original). They maintain NEL

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Romantic and sexual expressions are spontaneous and even though date nights are scheduled, sexual activity is not assumed or an obligation for any member of the triad.” Each of the triad members is free to have relationships outside. “These relationships may involve one, two or all three triad members. We generally inform each other of outside dating and seek approval of the others as a consideration.” Duff says they are open to adding others to their triad, “on an equal footing, but do not currently have the space or inclination.”… She says the polygamy law “places us in a moral dilemma as parents who have raised children to be law-abiding citizens.” It has meant their children have had difficult conversations with their friends and friends’ parents about their family triad. Their children “love and respect us as parents and know that our relationship is supportive and loving, but we have trouble explaining why our breaking that law is fine but such things as underage drinking and recreational drug use have never been tolerated in or around our home.” Source: Adapted from Bramham (2010). www.vancouversun. com/life/Polyamorous+triad+stable+happy+blended+family/3856353/story.html Reprinted with permission. Quoted and excerpted from the article.

that practices of intimacy and care can no longer be understood by focusing on kin but should, instead, be explored in their own right, that is, as non-normative, and on that basis worthy of their own field or focus of study. Roseneil and Budgeon align their perspective with the insights of Beck and Beck-­Gernsheim, discussed above. What these three approaches illustrate is a shift away from conventional understandings of the individual and family, precisely because they cannot capture new patterns of intimacy and caring. James and Curtis (2010), however, remind us that apparently unique performances and displays of personal life cannot escape their situation within the wider confines of cultural context: “hegemonic discourses of family continue to be influential in the ways which people organize their family lives” (p. 1164). T h e o r i z i n g a n d R e s e a r ch i n g Fa m i ly

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The dynamics of intimacy within polyamorous relations, illustrated in In the Media, above, is suggestive of the tensions of practising close relations outside the confines of what are perceived to be normative family relations (see also Chapter 3).

research methods used by family sociologists to gather and theorize information on Canadian families today. (See “Common Paradigms: Positivism and Interpretivism” in A Closer Look.)

Life Course Perspective

Quantitative Methods

Not a theory per se, the life course perspective has become increasingly popular as a way to conceptually frame the study of families and family relations. Generally, the focus is on the prevalence, timing, and pattern of life events and transitions (Elder, 1994). For example, individuals’ life courses are understood to be made up of a series of events (e.g., marriage, child birth) and transitions (e.g., new career, parenthood) that unfold in relation to social institutions and social context, including gender and race relations, over time. The pathways of individuals are understood as being influenced by several other meso-level factors, such as their age, gender, race/ethnicity, and class, and social relationships with others (Marshall & Mueller, 2003). Indeed, the choices and chances of a family member are intimately linked to their relations with others, including family or friends, co-workers, or complete strangers. Life course researchers acknowledge that changes within families can be tumultuous and that individual lives can be marked by gravity, shocks, and consequences (McDaniel & Bernard, 2011). The life course perspective is especially appealing to family sociologists because of the underlying assumption that the personal choices of an individual are understood to intersect with the structural conditions in which the individual lives (Connidis, 2001; Hareven, 1991; Morgan, 1996). Family dynamics are reduced to neither individual choice nor structural determinism.

Researchers who identify with the positivist paradigm (see A Closer Look, “Common Paradigms: Positivism and Interpretivism”) will use quantitative methods to gather data and test their ideas in order to uncover “facts” about families and family relationships. Quantitative methods produce numerical data, which can then be statistically analyzed to test hypotheses, construct further questions, and develop and revise theory. Surveys are a common quantitative method of data collection. Many of us have completed a survey. In a survey, we are asked to answer a list of closed questions: questions where the responses we can choose from are often fixed. The researcher has usually randomly selected us to participate as part of a sample from a larger population of interest. Survey methods are incredibly popular in sociology of the family research. Statistics Canada produces public-use data from surveys of random samples of the population that researchers can quantitatively analyze. For example, Cycle 25 of the General Social Survey focuses on families. This survey is cross-sectional in that respondents answer questions at a specific point in time. Other surveys are designed longitudinally, to collect information from the same respondents over time, such ­ ongitudinal Survey on Children and as the National L Youth (NLSCY) or the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA). As we indicated earlier, theory connects to sociologists’ use of quantitative methods. Here is an example: the researcher interested in studying changing family composition over time may work from a materialist and feminist theoretical orientation. She might hypothesize that women are less likely to marry today than in the past because they no longer conform to patriarchal notions of family life. She may use Census data to test her hypothesis. The researcher may also be interested in the variables that predict lower rates of marriage, such as women’s age, education, paid employment, and income. Indeed, an examination of the relationship between two or more variables, such as how the decline in women’s marriage rates may be

Studying Families Any theory of family and family relations is connected to research, whether driving the research forward or emerging as an outcome of the research, or a mix of both. For example, we can know that people have various understandings of family due to survey findings that reveal different family compositions over time and interviews that capture what women and men think, believe, and practise in regard to family life. In this section, we narrow our focus to common 22

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A CLOSER LOOK Common Paradigms: Positivism and Interpretivism A paradigm, or worldview, is the starting place for any research that a family sociologist wants to conduct. The paradigm includes the sociologist’s ontological and epistemological positions. Ontology simply refers to what can be known. The emphasis is on the nature of reality. The question “do families exist?” is an example of what is meant by ontology. Epistemology refers to how individuals know; it emphasizes the relationship between the knower and the known. If we can assume that something can be known, questions such as “how do we know about changing practices in the family?” may arise. We can distinguish between two main paradigms, or worldviews, that are connected to the methods we use to study families as sociologists: positivism and interpretivism. Positivism has an ontology of realism. In other words, we assume that we can perceive and observe reality, but reality can be never be completely apprehendable (Guba & ­Lincoln, 1994). Being a realist also implies that we see reality as independent of ourselves; the epistemology is, therefore, of objective knowledge. The paradigm of positivism can be connected to the scientific method, which contains several

attributable to women’s increased participation in paid employment, would be of particular interest to quantitative researchers.

Qualitative Methods Interpretive researchers use qualitative methods to explore the experiences of people in their everyday lives, including the meanings they ascribe to their experiences, the symbols that orient them in the social world, and their characteristics as part of a group. Qualitative methods can produce textual descriptions of a phenomenon of interest, result in comprehensively rich data from which to make sense of complex social problems, and reveal participants’ grounded ­experiences of their lives. Interviews are a core method of qualitative data collection. Open-ended or semi-structured interviews permit a researcher to ask respondents a series of predetermined and open-ended questions to solicit their ideas, thoughts, or feelings. Like quantitative NEL

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of these and other assumptions: what we see, smell, hear, taste, and feel are real; there are specific facts about our lives that we can observe, explain, and predict in a ­value-neutral way. Although most of us would associate such assumptions with the natural sciences, these assumptions are also applied to the study of families in sociology through q ­ uantitative methods, in particular. The paradigm of interpretivism does not share the same ideas about reality as positivism. Interpretivism is linked to an ontology of constructionism. Reality is perceived, understood, experienced, and produced by individuals. The researcher subjectively rather than objectively knows reality. People construct knowledge of their social realities rather than reality being independent of people. Moreover, in their interactions with others, people inter-subjectively create their own understandings of their experiences. The ­Weberian concept of verstehn, or empathetic understanding, is relevant to this paradigm. Researchers who study families in this way would try to apprehend family members’ definitions of their situations and experiences through largely qualitative methods (Schwandt, 1994).

researchers, qualitative researchers require a sample of persons from whom to collect data. One of the main differences, however, is in how they derive their sample. Instead of recruiting a random sample of individuals from a population, qualitative researchers primarily use non-probabilistic methods such as convenience or snowball sampling techniques to solicit participation. (See “Mixing Methods” in A Closer Look.) Since qualitative findings provide insights into individuals’ experiences of families, researchers using this approach align themselves with theories that also stress meanings and perceptions, such as symbolic interactionism and feminism. Qualitative researchers tend not to work from hypotheses, but rather they choose to use open-ended questions (e.g., how? why?) that might yield theoretical insights (as in grounded theory) when asked of participants. For example, here is a primary question that might orient a qualitative research project on the family: “How do single mothers of toddlers (children under the age of three years) manage their childcare needs while participating full time in the paid labour force?” T h e o r i z i n g a n d R e s e a r ch i n g Fa m i ly

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A CLOSER LOOK Mixing Methods Instead of orienting strictly to quantitative or qualitative research, some sociologists of the family prefer to conduct mixed methods research. Mixed methods research can refer to how a researcher might use both quantitative and qualitative methods to provide key insights into the nature of contemporary families and family relationships. For example, an online survey of university students’ experiences of intimate partner violence may be accompanied by one-on-one interviews with a sub-sample of students who agree to be interviewed about their experiences. While such an approach less easily commits a researcher to any one paradigm, many sociologists of the family choose to use a hybrid approach, to best understand, for example, the nature of family members’ experiences over time. Mixed methods research, however, need not assume both quantitative and qualitative methods but a mix of

methods and analytic strategies that permit the researcher to study family relations using multiple perspectives. Small (2011, p. 60), for example, offers the following useful definition of mixed methods research in this vein: I define as mixed data–collection studies those based on at least two kinds of data (such as field notes and administrative records) or two means of collecting them (such as interviewing and controlled experimentation). I define as mixed data–analysis studies those that, regardless of the number of data sources, either employ more than one analytical technique or cross techniques and types of data (such as using regression to analyze interview transcripts). This categorization helps avoid some pitfalls of the standard quantitative-qualitative distinction …

CHAPTER SUMMARY In this chapter, considerable attention has been paid to the theoretical perspectives on family, both then and now. We discussed how in the 1940s and 1950s, the focus on the composition and functions of the family reflected the rise to prominence in Western society of the heterosexual, nuclear family with clearly gendered roles and responsibilities. ­Further, at that time, central to the definition of the family were biological relationships (e.g., mother– daughter, father–son relationships) and kin relationships by marriage. We then introduced contemporary approaches to theorizing about family and family relationships; as expected, these have been increasingly grounded in the recognition that family practices and processes are influenced by structural, cultural, and political forces outside family members’ control. We also acknowledged that definitions of the family need to challenge the assumption that families are solely defined by blood or marriage ties or experienced only within a particular structure or composition, namely, the nuclear family. Indeed, recent theories on the family emphasize how family forms materialize through practices with others. Such contemporary approaches recognize that fluidity, complexity, and the uncertainty of meanings, practices, and processes in late modernity are hallmarks of modern families. Finally, we briefly reviewed the major methods used by researchers to understand the shifts and consistencies within and across families. Indeed, the foundational argument on which the remainder of this edited collection rests is that family relations are characterized by innovation and continuity.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. What are the functions of the family according to structural functionalism? Do families today serve ­different functions? 2. It seems that theories of the family underwent revision because families changed. Nonetheless, why are ­earlier approaches to theorizing family (e.g., materialist perspectives, structural functionalism, and symbolic interactionism) still so useful? 3. How are contemporary theories of family life more socially inclusive than earlier ones? 4. How might continuity and change in Canadian families be captured differently using quantitative versus qualitative approaches? What are the strengths of using a mixed methods approach to the study of the family?

APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. Compare and contrast materialist and structural functionalist theories of family. What are some similarities and differences of these macro perspectives? 2. If you wanted to use a life course perspective to study family life, how might you go about doing this? What methods would you use? 3. Considering all that you have read in this chapter, how would you make the case that some theoretical orientations seem to fit most comfortably with quantitative methods and some with qualitative methods? 4. How would you gather evidence to support a set of recommendations to government on reducing family poverty in your province?

FURTHER RESOURCES Heather Brown, “Marx on Gender and the Family: A Summary,” Monthly Review. http://monthlyreview.org/2014/06/01/marx-on-gender-and-the-family-a-summary. The June 2014 article provides important insight into Marx’s views on gender and the political economy and division of labour within the family. Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim, Distant Love. This path-breaking book from Polity Press in 2014 explores the changing nature of family and interpersonal relations in a globalized world. Marla H. Kohlman, Dana B. Krieg, and Bette J. Dickerson, Notions of Family: ­Intersectional Perspectives, Advances in Gender Research. http://www.emeraldinsight. com/doi/book/10.1108/S1529-2126%282013%2917. Using the lens of intersectionality, this 2013 volume, published by Emerald Group in the United Kingdom, presents new and original research on gender and the institution of family and features both quantitative and qualitative analyses.

KEY TERMS fictive kin: any persons to whom individuals in a family feel close to and with whom they have strong relations (p. 18) intergenerational ambivalence: refers to how individuals can hold positive and negative feelings about their family relations simultaneously (p. 19) interpretivism: an approach that moves away from positivism and looks instead for culturally derived and historically situated interpretations of the social world (p. 23) NEL

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kin relations: ties or connections brought about by heredity, marriage, or adoption (p. 16) mixed methods: mixing of qualitative and quantitative data, methods, methodologies, and/or paradigms in doing research (p. 24) patriarchy: a social system (family, group, or government) and/or ideology in which power and authority rest in men (p. 15) T h e o r i z i n g a n d R e s e a r ch i n g Fa m i ly

25

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positivism: an approach that claims that scientific knowledge is the only authentic knowledge and that such

knowledge can come only from observable and verifiable data acquired strictly through the scientific method (p. 23)

REFERENCES Armesto, J. C., & Shapiro, E. R. (2011). Adoptive gay fathers: Transformations of the masculine homosexual self. Journal of GLBT Family Studies, 7(1–2), 72–92. Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (1995). The normal chaos of love. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Beck, U., Giddens, A., & Lash, S. (1994). Reflexive modernization: Politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bezanson, K., & Luxton, M. (2006). Introduction: Social reproduction and feminist political economy. In K. Bezanson & M. Luxton (Eds.), Social reproduction: Feminist political economy challenges neo-liberalism (pp. 3–10). Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Bradbury, B. (1994). Women’s workplaces: The impact of technological change on workingclass women in the home and in the workplace in nineteenth-century Montreal. In A. Kobayashi (Ed.), Women, work and place (pp. 27–44). Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Bramham, D. (2010). Polyamorous triad: “We are a stable and happy blended family.” Vancouver Sun. Retrieved from www.vancouversun.com/life/Polyamorous+triad+stable+happy+blended+ family/3856353/story.html Burgess, E. W. (1926). The family as a unity of interacting personalities. The Family, 7, 3–9. Carsten, J. (2000). Cultures of relatedness: New approaches to the study of kinship. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Connidis, I. A. (2001). Family ties and aging. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Connidis, I. A. (2010). Family ties and aging (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Connidis, I. A. (2015). Exploring ambivalence in family ties: Progress and prospects. Journal of Marriage and Family, 77(1), 77–95. doi:10.1111/jomf.12150 Cornell, L. L. (1990). Constructing a theory of the family: From Malinowski through the modern nuclear family to production and reproduction. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 31, 67–78. doi: 10.1163/002071590X00042 Du Bois, W. E. B. (1899). The Philadelphia negro. Philadelphia, PA: University of ­Pennsylvania Press. Elder, G. H. J. (1994). Time, human agency, and social change: Perspectives on the life course. Social Psychology ­Quarterly, 57(1), 4–15. Engels, F. (1884/2010). The origin of the family, private property, and the state. London, UK: Penguin Classic. Epstein, R. (Ed.). (2009). Who’s your daddy? And other writings on queer parenting. Toronto, ON: Sumach Press. Erikson, R. J. (2003). The familial institution. In L. T. Reynolds & N. J. Herman-Kinney (Eds.), Handbook of symbolic interactionism (pp. 511–538). New York, NY: Altamira Press. Ferree, M. M. (1990). Beyond separate spheres: Feminism and family research. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52(4), 866–884. Finch, J. (2007). Displaying families. Sociology, 41(1), 65–81. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Stanford, CA: Stanford ­University Press. Gough, K. (1959). The Nayars and the definition of marriage. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 89(1), 23–34.

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Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 105–117). London, UK: Sage. Hareven, T. K. (1974). The family as process: The historical study of the family cycle. Journal of Social History, 7, 322–329. Hareven, T. K. (1991). The history of the family and the complexity of social change. American ­Historical Review, 96(1), 95–124. Hartmann, H. (1981). The family as a locus of gender, class, and political struggle: The example of housework. Signs, 6(3), 366–394. Hertz, R. (2006). Talking about “doing” family. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 68(4), 796–799. hooks, b. (1981). Aint’t I a woman: Black women and feminism. Boston, MA: South End Press. Hunter, A. (2015). Lesbian mommy blogging in Canada: Documenting subtle homophobia in Canadian society and building community online. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 19(2), 212–229. Ibsen, C. A., & Klobus, P. (1972). Fictive kin term use and social relationships: Alternative interpretations. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 34(4), 615–620. James, A., & Curtis, P. (2010). Family displays and personal lives. Sociology, 44(6), 1163–1180. Laslett, B., & Brenner, J. (1989). Gender and social reproduction: Historical perspectives. Annual Review of Sociology, 15(1), 381–404. Lorber, J. (1994). Paradoxes of gender. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Luxton, M. (2001). Family coping strategies: Balancing paid employment and domestic labour. In B. J. Fox (Ed.), Family patterns, gender relations (pp. 318–338). Toronto, ON: Oxford ­University Press. Macdougall, B. (2010). One of the family: Metis culture in nineteenth-century northwestern ­Saskatchewan. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. Malinowksi, B. (1913). The family amongst the Australian Aborigines: A sociological study. London, UK: University of London Press. Marshall, V. W., & Mueller, M. M. (2003). Theoretical roots of the life-course perspective. In W. R. Heinz & V. W. ­Marshall (Eds.), Social dynamics of the life course: Transitions, institutions, and interrelations (pp. 3–32). New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter. McDaniel, S., & Bernard, P. (2011). Life course as a policy lens: Challenges and opportunities. Canadian Public Policy, 37(1), 1–13. McDaniel, S. A., & Tepperman, L. (2015). Close relations: An introduction to the sociology of families (5th ed.). Toronto, ON: Pearson Education Canada. Morgan, D. H. J. (1996). Family connections: An introduction to family studies. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Morgan, D. H. J. (2011). Rethinking family practices. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Muraco, A. (2006). Intentional families: Fictive kin ties between cross-gender, different sexual ­orientation friends. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 68(5), 1313–1325. Murdock, G. P. (1949/1960). Social structure. New York, NY: Macmillan. Nelson, M. K. (2006). Single mothers “do” family. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 68, 781–795. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2006.00292.x Pahl, R., & Spencer, L. (2004). Personal communities: Not simply families of “fate” or “choice.” ­Current Sociology, 52(2), 199–221. Parsons, T., & Bales, R. (1955). Family, socialization and interaction process. London, UK: Routledge. Roseneil, S., & Budgeon, S. (2004). Cultures of intimacy and care beyond the family: Personal life and social change in the early 21st century. Current Sociology, 52(2), 135–159. NEL

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Schmeeckle, M., Giarrusso, R., Feng, D., & Bengtson, V. L. (2006). What makes someone family? Adult children’s perceptions of current and former stepparents. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 68(3), 595–610. Schwandt, T. A. (1994). Constructivist, interpretivist approaches to human inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 118–137). ­Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Small, M. L. (2011). How to conduct a mixed methods study: Recent trends in a rapidly growing literature. Annual Review of Sociology, 37, 57–86. doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102657 Smart, C. (2007). Personal life. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Smith, D. (1987). The everyday world as problematic: A feminist sociology. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Smith, D. (1993). The standard North America family: SNAF as an ideological code. Journal of Family Issues, 14(1), 50–65. Stack, C. B. (1974). All our kin: Strategies for survival in a black community. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Sullivan, M. (2004). The family of women: Lesbian mothers, their children, and the undoing of gender. Berkeley, CA: ­University of California Press. Tadmor, N. (2010). Early modern English kinship in the long run: Reflections on continuity and change. Continuity and Change, 25(1), 15–48. Thompson, L., & Walker, A. (1995). The place of feminism in family studies. Journal of Marriage and Family, 57(4), 847–865. Tilly, L. A., & Scott, J. W. (1978). Women, work and family. London, UK: Routledge. Weeks, J., Heaphy, B., & Donovan, C. (2001). Same-sex intimacies: Families of choice and other life experiments. London, UK: Routledge. Weston, K. (1991). Familes we choose: Lesbians, gays, kinship. New York, NY: Columbia ­University Press. Widmer, E., & Jallinoja, R. (Eds.). (2008). Beyond the nuclear family: Families in a configurational perspective. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

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Chapter 3 Seeking Intimacy, Forming Families Sarah Knudson

Chapter 4 Living Arrangements Karen Kobayashi and Mushira Mohsin Khan

T

he focus of Part 2 is on family formations and living arrangements. Here we explore how related transitions and experiences have reflected consistency or innovation over time. While forming an intimate partnership marks a key transition to family life, constructing how to live as a family represents a key practice. Both the formation and “doing” of family are shaped by the diverse experiences that individuals bring to the family and family relationships: experiences that may not always be congruent or shared between partners in couples or members within families. The central focus of Chapter 3 is on a major transition in the life course: the choice and act of creating an intimate partnership in contemporary society, with or without children. In this chapter, Knudson discusses the pathways along which people can form couples, including Internet dating, matchmaking, and marriage, and presents innovative ways of constructing intimate relations such as

© Vadim Georgiev/Shutterstock

PART 2

Family Formations and Living Arrangements

polyamory. While attention is given to couples who remain childless by choice and the non-procreative avenues by which people bring children into their lives, Knudson also observes the consistency of family composition—a mother and father and children—over time. In Chapter 4, Kobayashi and Khan explore the contemporary living arrangements of Canadians and discuss how current experiences compare to past family practices. How people live as families following separation and divorce, with several extended members of their families, or according to a set of unique rules and guidelines in different cultural contexts are questions that emerge in this chapter. Particular attention is given to living apart together (LAT) relationships, a contemporary example of innovation in Canadian families that reflects both choices and constraints (from economic to emotional exigencies) in family life.

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CHAPTER 3 Seeking Intimacy, Forming Families

Jarret, age 28, is from Magnetawan First Nation in Northern Ontario and now lives in Toronto. He self-identifies as a “gay native” who is “half-Caucasian, half-Aboriginal.” Like many Canadian Millennials, he has a profile on a dating app called Grindr and uses it regularly to connect with other singles. Although he uses the app with the hope of finding an Indigenous partner, he has encountered prejudice online. When interested users message Jarret asking, “What are you?” and he replies that he’s Aboriginal, some people quit messaging him and others

© © wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock Ken Burns/iStockphoto.com

Sarah Knudson

L E AR NI NG O B JE C T I V E S

his frustration that queer Indigenous voices can be silenced in Indigenous commu-

After you have read this chapter, you will be able to

nities’ conversations about couple and family formation. He would love to partner

• compare differing theoret-

delete him. Jarret’s disappointment in ethnic prejudice online is compounded by

and form a family through adoption, but does not feel that a space exists for him

ical approaches to studying

to talk openly about these hopes and dreams within his community.

couple and family formation

In rural Saskatchewan, Adam, a 29-year-old farmer, could only dream of the dating options Jarret has as a big-city dweller. He has no place to look—at least locally—for love. Even if he went online to date, he recognizes that few women would be willing to relocate to his family farm, particularly if doing so meant making a major career

• understand current and recent trends involving Canadian couples and families • identify patterns of cou-

sacrifice. Most women that he grew up with are now married or have moved away;

pled living and practices of

he spent his early 20s building his career, and once he was ready for a serious rela-

parenting

tionship there seemed to be nobody left. Recognizing his limited time and options, Adam has hired a matchmaker to help him find a life mate. She actively searches for potential matches across the province, and he has spoken to some via phone. If he hits it off with a potential match, they will plan to meet in person. His criteria for a future mate—down-to-earth, practical, preferably religious, and attractive—suggest an open

• understand how routes toward forming couples and families may change in future years

heart and mind, but he recognizes that his geographical isolation will be a big hurdle. Sources: Charleyboy (2015); Hutchinson (2011). Paraphrased from the sources.

While you may not identify with the romantic challenges that Jarret or Adam face, likely you have, at some point, found yourself at a similar crossroads of desires, constraints, change, and continuity. This chapter is organized around the central idea that there is change, but also considerable continuity, in how we seek intimate partners NEL

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and form families. It also emphasizes that, although many social theorists use metaphors of abundant choice to describe options for intimate lives and family formation today, our choices are bounded by constraints on micro and macro levels and patterned along socio-demographic lines. Factors, including gender, ethnicity, sexuality, socio-economic status, age, citizenship, and (dis)ability, have predictable and often durable influences on our choices and trajectories. On the one hand, the study of coupling and forming families in recent decades shows startling change in the timing and patterns of relationship and family formation: many new ways of finding a partner have developed (notably online dating sites and mobile dating apps); marriage happens later and is often preceded or even replaced by cohabitation; same-sex marriage is legal in Canada and nearly two dozen other countries; couples or singles are forming smaller families, doing so later than ever, and choosing among a growing set of options for forming families. Many people are also opting out of coupled living and parenting altogether. On the other hand, many men and women throughout the West continue to value and aspire to long-term coupling and parenthood, seeing them as capstones in a longer-than-ever transition to adulthood (Hull, Meier, & Ortyl, 2010). Thus, we are witnessing more of a shifting timetable and expanded repertoire in the realm of couple and family formation than a new set of desires and practices. We are also seeing an uncoupling of marriage and parenthood from definitions of adulthood: whereas youth in the 1950s and 1960s saw a permanent relationship (marriage) and parenthood as tantamount to adulthood, youth now identify major adult markers as a complete education, financial independence, a full-time job, and the ability to support a family (Furstenberg, Kennedy, McLoyd, Rumbaut, & Settersen, 2004). Our crossroads of continuity and change is aptly described as a decline in regulative traditions in personal life, which are significant, repeated practices that constrain actions from the outside (e.g., laws or threats of social exclusion surrounding marriage), and retention of meaning-­ constitutive traditions, which are important and repeated practices that give meaning to our lives (e.g., participation in marriage motivated by recognition of its symbolic value) (Gross, 2005). 32

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Choice, Insecurity, Challenges: Theoretical Conversations Recent theoretical conversations about coupling and forming families have cohered around three major themes. The first strand of discussions points to the growing options for both men and women in intimate and family life. Over the past 50 years, we have witnessed the advent of the individual female biography: women in the West face less cultural pressure to reproduce, and birth control options as well as increased participation in higher education and paid work have encouraged explorations of new lifestyle options. Further, new technologies such as online dating tools are enabling greater sexual agency among women (Kaufmann, 2012). But while it is exciting that both men and women are experiencing a steady shift toward “democratization” of the personal sphere, a lack of clear-cut expectations leaves ample room for misunderstandings between couples. The impermanence of today’s “pure relationships,” which are founded on the expectation that couples will stay together only so long as they are mutually fulfilled, is also a source of stress (Giddens, 1992) (see also Chapters 1 and 2). Along with being founded on individual choice, most relationships in the West are also based primarily on love—at least initially—as opposed to economic or political considerations; this shift is historically recent, having become popular only over the past four centuries (Coontz, 2005). That said, research on enduring relationships reveals that while love is now a significant basis, and the centrality of romantic love to relationships is emphasized in popular culture (Essig, 2014; Illouz, 1997), other factors such as mutual acceptance, open communication, and cooperative financial management can become more important at various points in the life course (Cohen, Geron, & Farchi, 2010; ­Pillemer, 2012). Macro-level economic and political shifts have also brought uncertainty and fragility to intimate life. Thus, a second line of discussion addresses how growing economic precarity and complex life courses have made forming couples and families more challenging (Bauman, 2000, 2003). In step with a general trend toward globalization and deindustrialization since the 1970s, income gulfs between haves and havenots have deepened, educational requirements for jobs have become inflated, and temporary, contractual, and

FA M I LY F O R M AT I O N S A N D L I V I N G A R R A N G E M E N T S

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part-time work have grown relative to permanent and unionized positions (Banting & Myles, 2013; Myles & Myers, 2007). This “new insecurity,” which is an outgrowth of the political ideology of neo-liberalism, and which focuses on privatization and reduced government spending (see also Chapters 5 and 6), lays a poor foundation for romantic and family life because it creates tremendous tension between the rootedness needed for intimate relationships and family formation, and the political and economic imperative to be flexible (McGee, 2005; Pugh, 2015). As a result, relationships and families suffer, are foregone, or are delayed (Silva, 2013). A third focus in theoretical conversations centres on impacts of changes in gender relations on intimate and family life. These discussions acknowledge shifts toward greater gender equality in heterosexual couples while highlighting enduring inequalities that disadvantage women in their experiences of partnering and forming families, particularly in terms of housework and child-care arrangements (e.g., Jamieson, 1999). These theorists view the state and its lagging policy changes as major culprits in an incomplete revolution (Esping-Andersen, 2009) toward gender equality. In particular, sociologists voice concerns over limited or non-existent policies for paternity leave in many countries across the West, as well as limited and inconsistent workplace policies intended to support families, such as flexible work hours and on-site daycare facilities (e.g., Boychuk, Mahon, & McBride, 2015). Governments have increasingly sought to “offload” responsibility for creating family-friendly policies to private enterprises and civil society, but the latter do not or cannot always pick up the slack (Mahon & Brennan, 2011).

Major Theoretical Perspectives and Conceptual Frameworks As with other areas in the sociological study of families, couple and family formation can be examined through various sociological frameworks (for a comprehensive overview, see Chapter 2). Frameworks include structural functionalism, which views couples and families as systems of interdependent parts working together to ensure stability; critical and social conflict approaches that focus on family inequalities and the connectedness of macro-level structures NEL

CHAPTER 3

such as the economy and political system to everyday family lives; and feminist, gender-focused, and queer approaches that examine inequalities and their roots. Queer approaches seek to highlight gender inequalities by problematizing three major elements of inquiry: the subjects being researched, those who are doing the research, and the process of inquiry itself. Critical, gender-focused research often adopts an intersectional approach, whereby other sources of (dis)advantage are examined alongside gender. As “everyday” events that most often happen in dyads and small groups, couple and family formations are frequently studied through qualitative interpretive approaches that propose that the importance and meaning of events and rituals emerge out of our interactions. Finally, some sociologists approach this area of research through interdisciplinary conceptual frameworks, such as the life course perspective. The approach is interested in assessing multiple dimensions of well-being—social, mental, and physical.

Routes Toward Couplehood Coupling has evolved in recent decades while retaining many of its central practices and its important place in the lives of younger adults. Although the transition from courting in private home contexts to dating in the public sphere was one of the institution’s biggest shifts in the past century (Coontz, 2005), technology’s impact on coupling appears to be the major gamechanger over the past two decades. Sociologists define courting as a formal process of supervised interactions between individuals in a potential couple: historically, a man had to obtain permission from the woman’s family (especially the father) and the interactions took place in the woman’s home (Ward, 1990). Dating, by contrast, is a less formal process of getting to know a potential partner and building intimacy; it is often carried out in public and not usually mediated by family. Although dating is typically seen as a process leading to a more stable or permanent relationship, some may see it as chiefly or purely recreational. Before World War II, men would court by “calling” on women with calling cards and spending supervised time with them. Calling rituals gave way to non-supervised dating activities such as going for walks, sharing a meal, or seeing a movie, and while dating couples in the postwar years were S ee k ing I ntimacy, F orming Families

33

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Total Both sexes

35,851,774

Male

17,776,719

Female

18,075,055

Single Both sexes

14,245,619

Male

7,587,028

Female

6,658,591

Married 13,824,345

Male

6,968,467

Female

6,855,878

Separated Both sexes

823,273

Male

368,556

Female

454,717

Living common law Both sexes

3,302,055

Male

1,695,031

Female

1,607,024

Widowed Both sexes Male

1,782,053 360,632

Female

1,421,421

Divorced Both sexes Male

1,874,429 797,005

Female

1,077,424

TABLE 3.1 Canadian Population by Marital Status and Sex, 2015 Source: Statistics Canada (2016). http://www.statcan.gc.ca/ tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/famil01-eng.htm.

expected to refrain from sexual intercourse, social historians note that premarital sex and pregnancy were not uncommon (Kedgley, 1996). Between the end of World War II and the early 1990s, meeting a partner through friends and family and at community socials such as weekend dances were dominant routes to dating and couplehood; meeting through school and at church, meanwhile, was becoming less common. Since the mid-1990s, the popularity of Internet-mediated dating has surged: it now accounts for roughly 20 percent of heterosexual and nearly 70 percent of same-sex couple formation (Rosenfeld & Thomas, 2012). While Internet-based 34

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© merc67/Shutterstock

Both sexes

Internet-media dating has surged in recent years.

dating has not eclipsed friends and social venues as a method of finding a mate—particularly among young adults—it has been a huge benefit for those who face a thin dating market, notably heterosexuals in their mid-30s and beyond as well as gays and lesbians of all ages. Not everybody facing a thin dating market uses the Internet as a mediated dating method, however. Offline dating services are also growing in popularity. (See “Moving Back Offline? The Growth of Matchmaking Services as a Response to Internet Dating” in A Closer Look.) They tend to attract clients of above-average socio-economic status given the higher costs involved. They also attract clients who are very serious about finding a life partner. Major reasons for using matchmaking services include being frustrated with unsuccessful online dating, wanting more honesty and discretion than Internet dating often offers, and having time and career constraints that leave little time for dating (Knudson, 2014). Some offline services cater to individuals from particular ethnic or religious groups, or clients with physical, intellectual, or learning disabilities. Introductions and marriages arranged by family members are also common in certain ethnic groups, such as the Indo-Canadian community, but can prove complex as they often involve a collision between a culture of arranged introductions and Western ideals of love (Davé, 2012; Netting, 2006).

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A CLOSER LOOK M  oving Back Offline? The Growth of Matchmaking Services as a Response to Internet Dating Since the turn of the millennium, personalized offline dating services have become increasingly popular across North America. In my own research, I have explored which social forces—from the perspective of matchmakers and their clients—have been driving this trend, and have asked matchmakers and heterosexual clients to evaluate how effective they find the matchmaking model as compared to other forms of meeting potential partners. In Canada, most of these matchmaking services are centred in major cities with populations over 500,000 and serve predominantly urban, white, Canadian-born clients with postsecondary educations and white-collar occupations. Many, however, will also work with clients living in rural or remote locations. Since clients pay an average of just under $3,000 for personalized introductions to potential partners and ongoing date coaching, it is no surprise that most clients make more than $100,000 and belong to Canada’s highest income quintile. Clients in my study ranged in age from 21 to 92 years, with most clustering in their 30s, 40s, and 50s; some were divorced or widowed, and some were looking to marry for the first time. The economic barriers to working with a matchmaker are likely disappointing to many potential clients, but those who can afford the services report high levels of success and satisfaction. Matchmakers said that, on average, one half of their clients marry someone that they have met though the service, and most clients require a maximum of three introductions before pairing off into a long-term

Despite the diverse paths we can take toward couplehood, it is reassuring that most research points to no significant differences in relationship happiness based on method of meeting (e.g., Rosenfeld & Thomas, 2012). That said, social inequalities are nonetheless (re) produced through dating practices. Gender differences exist in heterosexual dating, whereby women tend to invest more in relationships and often report becoming sexually active before they feel ready (Bibby, 2001), and ethnic exclusion persists in dating, despite macro-level growth in ethnic diversity (Robnett & Feliciano, 2011). Many social settings—including college and university campuses—remain hostile to same-sex dating, and people with disabilities face stigma and a general lack NEL

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relationship. One matchmaker said that in over a decade of matching, all but one couple she had matched were still together. Aside from the high success rates, what did matchmakers and clients find most beneficial about the matching model? Both parties emphasized that matchmaking offers a refreshing alternative to Internet dating: it’s more efficient than sifting through hundreds or thousands of online dating profiles; it’s safer—particularly for women; and it greatly eliminates opportunities to misrepresent oneself, since the matchmaker meets all clients in person before matching them. Matchmakers and clients, especially women, also spoke positively about how the matchmaking model provides a space for traditional gender roles that have been challenged by Internet dating to flourish. Whereas online dating has enabled men to move into “lazier” roles, such as texting or emailing versus calling potential dates, and has promoted a “kid in a candy store” mentality of focusing on superficial compatibility and date quantity over quality, my research subjects emphasized how matchmaking encourages men’s active leadership in pursuing a woman and promotes opportunities for connections based on deeper compatibility. Women clients enjoyed the empowerment of being able to hire a matchmaker, but they also enjoyed the opportunity to “sit back” and be courted by commitment-minded men while avoiding much of the ageism and superficiality of online dating.

of resources for forming and sustaining relationships. Socio-economic status also affects dating outcomes, such that individuals with more economic, social, and cultural capital have more resources to help them find a mate, and they tend to experience more social support for their relationships once they are formed (Sassler & Miller, 2015). (See “Mediated Dating Methods on Reality TV Shows” in In the Media.) As dating and (re) coupling gain popularity in older age cohorts, it is also becoming evident that age—particularly as it intersects with gender—is connected to discrimination against older women (McWilliams & Barrett, 2014). Technology’s role in relationship formation also raises concerns about safety and authenticity. With S ee k ing I ntimacy, F orming Families

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IN THE MEDIA Mediated Dating Methods on Reality TV Shows Offline matchmaking services have attracted a lot of attention through reality television shows over the past decade. And while the programs profile agencies geared toward different target clientele, they all point to the usefulness of the services when singles face thin dating markets. Bravo’s The Millionaire Matchmaker, which ran for eight seasons, is perhaps the best known show about arranged introductions. Host Patti Stanger, a third-generation American matchmaker, focuses on matching wealthy clients with a net worth of at least $1 million with other singles based on overall compatibility. Most paying clients are men in their 30s and up whose success and commitment to demanding careers have left little time or opportunity to meet a partner. However, though the show is highly entertaining, its emphasis on high-SES (socio-economic status) clients makes it less relevant to “everyday” daters. The BBC series, Arrange Me a Marriage, shows how the matchmaking model can work for clients from a broader range of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. Aneela Rahman, a Glasgow-based matchmaker of Pakistani background who is the product of a successful arranged marriage, teaches men and women in their 30s and 40s to leverage local social capital to find a mate. By applying the

online dating’s prolonged emphasis on “frontstage” behaviour (Goffman, 1959), it becomes easier to misrepresent oneself and misguide potential partners; online dating can also turn violent, both in online dimensions (e.g., through cyber bullying and stalking) and as encounters move offline. Further, technologies used in sustaining long-distance relationships, such as online chat and video platforms, invite questions about the long-term viability of relationships enabled and sustained through them. Although couples may rate their long-distance dating relationships as highly satisfying, findings suggest a danger of over-romanticizing them, and many relationships dissolve when they shift from long distance to local (Stafford & Merolla, 2007). Sociologists have also noticed that dating has begun—at least in part, and particularly among younger age cohorts—to be replaced by the more casual practice of hooking up (Armstrong, Hamilton, & England, 2010). These commitment-free encounters, which 36

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principles of “Asian arranged marriage” to her mostly British clientele, Rahman gets to know clients’ families and friends, and involves them in the process of searching for a client’s match. Rahman sees her approach as a logical alternative to popular but haphazard strategies of meeting other singles: “For many non Asians meeting someone is quite random, in a bar or club—but you wouldn’t buy a house or car drunk so why would you expect to find a life partner like that?” For singles with physical, intellectual, and learning disabilities, dating can be particularly difficult and traumatic as they face stigma and a general lack of resources catering to their dating needs. Slice’s The Undateables offers intimate portraits of young daters with disabilities, and the families and dating agencies that help them meet other singles. Through agencies such as England’s Stars in the Sky, young adults meet other singles and receive extra support catered to each dater’s individual challenges. The show demonstrates the crucial role that these clients’ families play in supporting their quest for love; it also conveys that society still views many individuals with disabilities as fundamentally undateable. Sources: Arrange Me a Marriage (2007); The Millionaire Matchmaker (2015); The Undateables (2015). Paraphrased from the sources.

sometimes involve intercourse, highlight the sexual double standard inherent in heterosexual coupling. On the one hand, young women who participate in hookups express less emotional and sexual satisfaction than women in ongoing, monogamous relationships; on the other hand, some women opt out of relationships and into hookup culture because they find that the demands of relationships are incompatible with their student responsibilities, and can often involve power inequalities and abuse. Research findings on hookups underscore the need to keep questions of (in) equality at the centre of studies of couple formation.

Patterns in Coupled Living How a couple formalizes a relationship is a decision influenced by many factors including age, sexual orientation, economic resources, and religious and cultural beliefs. Marriage continues to be the most

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popular form of coupled living in Canada, making up 45 percent of the population aged 15 and older in 2016 (Statistics Canada, 2017). However, Census data from 2006 revealed for the first time that married people were outnumbered by other Canadians (“Married people outnumbered,” 2007). Since 2005, marriage has been an option for same-sex couples in Canada, too; in 2016, nearly half of same-sex couples were married, with the rest living common law (Statistics Canada, 2017). Cohabitation, however, is growing in popularity relative to marriage and accounted for 21 percent of unions in the same year (Statistics Canada, 2017). Whereas the number of married couples in Canada has risen by 20 percent over the past three decades, it has more than quadrupled for common-law couples. Rates of cohabitation are particularly high in Québec, where 40 percent of the province’s couples cohabit (Statistics Canada, 2017). Those who live common law in Canada tend to be younger, less religious, Canadian born, and francophone; some see it as an alternative to marriage, and particularly among younger cohorts it functions as a precursor to marriage. In an international perspective, Canada’s proportion of cohabitants is lower than those of the Scandinavian nations, where roughly one-fifth to one-third of couples cohabit, but it is higher than that of the United States, where about 1 in 10 couples lives common law (Ambert, 2012). Gross’s ideas about the retention of meaningconstitutive traditions (2005) may account—at least in part—for marriage’s continued appeal in the face of alternatives. A recent American poll shows many respondents (88%) saying that marriage represents an important expression of love and almost as many respondents (81%) saying it is an indication of lifelong commitment (Pew Research Center, 2013). International comparative research also reveals a strong correlation between marriage and happiness across developed nations, even when controlling for socio-economic status, health, and gender. While cohabitants report being happier than single people, on average, they are not as happy as married people (Stack & Eshleman, 1998). Despite marriage’s apparent benefits, it can also reveal or exacerbate social inequalities: increasingly, married Canadians have higher socio-economic status and educational attainment than their single and cohabiting counterparts (Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, 2014). And although same-sex couples can now legally marry, many eschew the institution because of its heteronormativity (Hudak & Giammattei, 2010). NEL

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Some gay and lesbian couples do not want to marry because marriage has historically symbolized heterosexual privilege and power imbalances. We must also be careful not to assume that cohabitation’s growth in popularity is an indication of a more equitable arrangement. While it may offer a helpful opportunity to testdrive a relationship without the formal commitment of marriage, it is a more fragile arrangement—especially among younger cohabitants, where nearly two-thirds of Canadian partnerships dissolve in the first five years; it typically involves weaker role demands and higher rates of infidelity (Thornton, Axinn, & Teachman, 1995). To date, research on heterosexual cohabitation also suggests that women gain less from the arrangement in terms of emotional stability and self-esteem, and cannot always bargain with their partner to transition the relationship to marriage (Ambert, 2005). It is impossible to talk about patterns in coupled living without acknowledging the growing trend, in Canada and throughout the West, to live solo. Nearly 30 percent of Canadian households now comprise one person, and roughly 10 percent of the population never marries or lives common law (Statistics Canada, 2011b). Although factors such as economic instability and rising educational attainment have contributed to delays in coupling, and pushed the average age at first marriage to 29 for women and 31 for men (Employment and Social Development Canada, 2011), a significant proportion of today’s singles live solo voluntarily and beyond young adulthood. For those who choose the single lifestyle, freedom and the ability to focus on one’s career are major benefits. Many individuals, however, find themselves excluded from coupled living due to poverty or joblessness, high job demands, incarceration, geographic isolation, and demographic gender imbalances (Cohen, 2015). Social contexts hostile to same-sex relationships may also make open coupling impossible for some. Whether singlehood happens voluntarily or involuntarily, it still carries some stigma, particularly for women, despite its increasing social acceptance. An intermediate or sometimes “compromise” arrangement between single and partnered living, living apart together (LAT), is a less common but rather innovative coupling form whereby a couple lives in two separate dwellings, perhaps in another city, another region of the country, or a few blocks away (see also Chapter 4). Seven percent of Canadian couples reported living apart together in 2011, with 31 percent of young adults aged 20 to 24 and 17 percent of those S ee k ing I ntimacy, F orming Families

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50 45 40 Percentage

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2001 Men 2001 Women 2011 Men 2011 Women

30 25 20 15 10 5 0 15 to 20 to 25 to 30 to 35 to 40 to 45 to 50 to 55 to 60 to 65 to 70 to 75 to 80 to 85 19 24 29 34 39 44 49 54 59 64 69 74 79 84 years years years years years years years years years years years years years years years and over Age Group

FIGURE 3.1

Percentage of the Population Aged 15 and Over Living Alone by Age Group, Canada, 2001 and 2011

Source: Statistics Canada (2015). http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-312-x/2011003/fig/fig3_4-2-eng.cfm.

aged 25 to 29 in LAT arrangements. Among those aged 30 to 59, the percentage varied from 3 to 5 percent. Whereas most younger LAT couples said they eventually wanted to live with their partner, less than one third of those 60 and over did. The younger couples’ desire to graduate from a LAT arrangement to living together was also correlated with LAT relationships of shorter duration, lasting an average of 2.3 years and typically explained as a temporary relationship compromise stemming from constraints such as study and employment circumstances (Statistics Canada, 2013). Research into motivations for living apart together among older couples highlights the centrality of choice—not constraints—in their decisions to do so, and the tendency of their LAT arrangements to endure over longer periods. These couples also tend to have been in at least one long-term marriage or cohabiting partnership before, and frequently decide to live apart as a means of protecting personal independence within the relationship (Funk & Kobayashi, 2014).

Practices of Committed Relations Within the growing array of options for coupled living, there are also diverse practices of committed relations. Monogamy, meaning the practice of being 38

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in an intimate relationship with one other person— whether heterosexual or same-sex—is the dominant relationship form in Canada and the only legal form of marriage. Homogamy, meaning the practice of pairing with someone based on elements of similarity, is also normative, as is endogamy, meaning partner selection within one’s own status group, such as one’s religion or social class. Serial monogamy refers to a succession of monogamous, but often short-lived relationships, such as during periods of dating. Some Canadians, instead, practise non-monogamy in the context of committed relationships. Open relationships and open marriages are consensual, non-monogamous arrangements wherein one or both partners may be sexually involved with one or more individuals outside the primary relationship. The arrangement may involve the inclusion of outside individuals on a temporary or casual basis (sometimes termed “swinging”), or may involve more enduring arrangements. The success of these non-normative relationship forms rests in the complex negotiation of sexual and emotional boundaries and in careful efforts to ensure that the needs of both partners in the primary relationship are met (Cook, 2005). Polygamous relationships, in which an individual takes on more than one legal spouse, are not permitted in Canada, but cases of polygamy

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have also not been successfully prosecuted in recent decades. For instance, in 2009, two polygamist members of a Mormon breakaway sect in Bountiful, British Columbia, were unsuccessfully charged because laws against polygamy were deemed inconsistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Keller, 2011). Polyamorous or polyfidelitous arrangements are consensually non-monogamous and involve more than two people; they frequently have romantic and sexual dimensions, but do not necessarily involve sexual intimacy between all individuals involved (see also Chapter 2). In the case of polyfidelitous relationships, there is no sexual involvement with individuals outside the original group, and there are clearly established guidelines for who is intimate with whom, and when. Although “poly” arrangements likely exist across the country in a variety of forms, there are no official statistics on their prevalence and minimal research has been done to examine dynamics within them.

Forming a Family—Or Not When Giddens spoke optimistically about a general shift toward greater choice and equality in intimate life, he proposed the term “plastic sexuality” (1992) in reference to women’s historically recent ability to separate sexual activity from childbirth. Indeed, Canada’s fertility landscape can be summed up as “smaller families, older moms.” In 2015, the total fertility rate was an estimated 1.59 children per woman, making Canada 184th of 224 nations (“Country comparison: Total fertility rate,” 2015); in 2011, the average age at first birth for women was 28.5 years, and the overall average age for giving birth was 30.2 years—the oldest on record. In 1966, by comparison, women were typically 23.7 years old at first birth, and the overall average age for childbearing was 28. Our fertility rate has not been above replacement rate since 1971, meaning that the population has not grown at a rate capable of replacing itself without growth through immigration (Statistics Canada, 2011b). Discourses on family formation are also changing. Although choosing not to reproduce is still met with some stigma for both women and men, a shift is underway in mainstream culture and social science research to recognize the term childfree, and the choice it implies, as distinct from “childless” (which implies NEL

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a normative expectation to want children). Whereas many prior studies have conflated the two terms, it is hoped that differentiating them will give us a clearer picture of the role of choices and constraints in family planning, and will empower those who deliberately opt out of forming families (Blackstone, 2014). Those who remain childfree have, on average, higher SES and greater career demands; they are also less religious and are more heavily clustered in urban areas.

Options and Challenges for Including Children Most often, children become part of families through conception and are raised by one or both biological parents. That said, conception is not always possible without the help of medical interventions such as assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), and roughly 12 to 16 percent of Canadian women of reproductive age suffer from infertility, defined as an absence of conception after one year of regular intercourse without contraception (Bushnik, Cook, Hughes, & Tough, 2012). Because women’s peak fertility years are also key years for education and career development, and women’s fertility declines drastically as they approach age 40, those who have delayed childbirth by choice or circumstance may use medical interventions to boost their likelihood of conception. In 2009 and 2010, 15 percent of couples aged 18 to 44 who were trying to become pregnant sought medical assistance with conception; generally, these couples were childless, had above-average SES, and included a female partner aged 35 or older. Nearly one half of the couples used fertility-enhancing drugs, and one in five couples resorted to ARTs such as in vitro fertilization. About 30 percent sought other treatments like surgery (Bushnik et al., 2012). Treatment costs can be prohibitive, however, and are not always covered by provincial healthcare plans. (See “Fertility Preservation and Technology: Gendered Dimensions” in Intersections.) Same-sex couples and individuals choosing to parent solo may also be directly or indirectly involved in medical interventions that enable conception of a child they will parent. Surrogacy, an arrangement in which a woman carries a pregnancy for (an) intended parent(s) and may also serve as egg donor, is yet another option for individuals or couples, whether heterosexual or same-sex, wishing to form a family. S ee k ing I ntimacy, F orming Families

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domestic and international adoptions continue to evolve, adoption is a long-standing practice in the Canadian context and, consequently, is a more established research area in the sociology of families.

Options in Practices of Parenting As with our diversity in patterns of coupled living, Canada is also home to various practices of parenting. Nuclear families, consisting of two heterosexual parents and their child(ren), are the most common family pattern; in 2011, 67 percent of children under age 15 lived with married parents, and 17 percent lived with cohabiting parents. Lone-parent families accounted for 16 percent of families, of which 79 percent were headed by women. Less than 1 percent of Canadian children were living with other relatives or non-­ relatives (Statistics Canada, 2011b). Of dual-parent households, a minority are blended families with children from more than one prior family unit, and blended families are particularly common among same-sex families (Statistics Canada, 2011a). While it is a well-documented finding that children raised in single-parent households—particularly those headed by a female—are more likely to live in poverty and have access to fewer resources, research suggests that regardless of whether a child is raised in a single- or dual-parent context, or whether couples in dual-parent contexts are married or cohabiting, the most important factor in the child’s well-being is that the home is harmonious and supportive (Ambert,

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As with ARTs, costs can be prohibitive, and surrogacy support services recommend budgeting around $75,000 for the process. Since ARTs have been available to Canadians only for the past 40 years—with newer technologies developing constantly—and the growth of surrogacy options is also recent (Bennett, 2014), studying their impact on family formation is a new and exciting area of sociological research. A further option for family formation is adoption, wherein an individual or couple permanently assumes the parenting of and legal responsibility for someone else’s biological infant or older child. Adoption can be domestic or international; it can also be closed, meaning that the birth parent(s) and adoptive parent(s) never meet or know one another’s identity; or open, meaning that both parties know each other and have some form of contact. Most adoptions today are open adoptions, and while the choice of adoption style is deeply personal, research suggests that a child’s sense of security in an adoptive family is more influential for well-being than the extent of contact with any birth parent(s) (Wrobel, Ayers-Lopez, Grotevant, McRoy, & Friedrick, 1996). Domestic adoptions are regulated at the provincial or territorial level, and international adoptions involve coordination between provincial or territorial governments and the federal level. Particularly for international adoptions, would-be parents must be wary of potential fraud and prepared to deal with paperwork, delays, travel and legal expenses of at least $25,000, and potentially complex health issues in adoptive children, who may have been exposed to conditions that contribute to developmental, emotional, or social problems. It is not uncommon for the adoption process to take several years (“International adoption,” 2014). Domestic adoption is typically cheaper and more straightforward, but there are still legal procedures to follow, wait times, and potential delays. It is thus important for prospective parents to be realistic and open-minded about the process. Today, both public adoption processes and private adoption agencies are increasingly open to working with same-sex couples, as well as singles (including men) who wish to parent solo. There are also no upper age restrictions for adopting in Canada; in fact, grandparents are adopting their own grandchildren at a growing rate and forming skip-generation families. For international adoptions, however, some countries will not work with same-sex parents (“Myths and realities,” 2015). Although legal issues surrounding

Gay parents practise families in a multitude of ways, just as parents who are straight do; they can, however, face more stigmatization.

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2005). Fewer studies to date have concentrated on single fathers and same-sex parents, but these growing research areas aim to develop understandings of parenting in non-normative arrangements. The comparatively minimal amount of research done on these family forms reflects the fact that men have traditionally made up a small (but now growing) fraction of single-parent families and that families headed by same-sex parents have gained only limited social acceptance in recent decades (Ambert, 2012). Because lone-parent fathers are expected to be solo primary caregivers and sole economic supporters for their family, they face competing pressures to act both like mothers and like traditional men. Large-scale data analysis shows that they often spend less time on child care than do single mothers, much of which is connected to their work schedules, but some of which appears to be attributable to cultural gender norms (Hook & Chalasani, 2008). Same-sex parents disrupt traditional expectations about parenting, too, albeit differently (see also

Chapter 12). Families headed by two moms or two dads require constant role negotiation, and thus “queer” heteronormative notions of parenting by revealing the often rigid expectations that we have of women and men in heterosexual parenting situations (Halberstam, 2012). Even though heterosexual single parents of both genders face stigma, it is more pronounced for same-sex parents, who must confront unfounded assumptions about negative developmental impacts of their parenting practices (Pennington & Knight, 2011). Regardless of how Canadians parent, we must be careful not to presume that their “choices” are divorced from structural factors (Mahon & Brennan, 2011). The extent of state and employer-based provisions for maternity, parental and adoption leave, the cost and availability of subsidized daycare programs, extended healthcare plans that cover ARTs and adoption costs, and national programs for live-in caregivers all have an impact on family planning processes and how families parent after the arrival of a child. As governments change, families must adapt accordingly.

INTERSECTIONS FERTILITY PRESERVATION AND TECHNOLOGY: GENDERED DIMENSIONS It seems like the 21st century is the era of women having it all: love-based marriages, control over reproductive choices and timing, maternity and adoption leave policies that are decent in international perspective, and workplace cultures and legislation that offer more opportunities for women to excel and be treated equitably. But women’s biology has not changed alongside society, and women’s fertility windows remain limited and overlap with prime years for completing education and launching careers. Thanks to scientific advances, however, women can take preventive measures to preserve their fertility before their reproductive windows close. In 2012, “preventive” egg freezing was reclassified from an experimental to a standard medical procedure, and a growing number of women are electing to have their eggs extracted and frozen indefinitely until they wish to conceive. On the one hand, the procedure is celebrated as an “insurance policy” against infertility, and women who have undergone the procedure speak positively about the peace of mind it has given them. The procedure comes at a cost, though—financially, personally, and socially. Financially, cryopreservation costs a minimum of $10,000, excluding the cost of storing the frozen eggs and subsequent egg or embryo transfer to a woman. And while Facebook and Apple now cover freezing costs for female employees, with other major corporations likely to follow suit, coverage is far from common in North American workplaces. The costs involved have even spurred an egg freezing financing industry to spring up; it is likely no coincidence that some of these lenders, like EggBanxx, are owned at arm’s length by large pharmaceutical companies and promote the egg freezing lifestyle through informational cocktail parties. Stepping back from the glamour of EggBanxx parties and the promise of beating the biological clock, it is important to ask whether the cultural promotion and workplace coverage of egg freezing costs really constitute freedom, or are, instead, an attempt by workplaces to harness maximum productivity and time from their female employees while avoiding the much harder work of making the workplace friendly to employees with families. Further, we must consider how the costs involved threaten to divide women who can and cannot afford the procedure. Source: Bennett (2014). Paraphrased from the October 15 edition of Time magazine, http://time.com/3509930/ company-paid-egg-freezing-will-be-the-great-equalizer/.

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CHAPTER SUMMARY In Canada today, as in the West more generally, couple and family formations are characterized by more options than ever, and by growing social acceptance of the expanding range of options. At the same time, individuals, couples, and families still face notable constraints connected to socio-demographic factors such as gender, age, SES, and sexual orientation, and processes of couple and family formation contribute to the (re)production of social inequalities. In terms of couple formation, individuals in thin markets—such as older adults and people with disabilities— face bigger barriers to finding a partner. For family formation, same-sex couples, women nearing the end of their reproductive windows, those who struggle to balance family desires with work demands, and those for whom the costs associated with forming families (e.g., adoption fees or use of ARTs) are prohibitive, are among the most disadvantaged. Across socio-demographic groups, individuals also face uneasy collisions of tradition and change: coupling and forming a family remain normative desires and living arrangements, but major social changes such as Internet-based dating and economic precarity have altered how individuals achieve these goals. Finally, while some theoretical perspectives focus on the meaning or social functions of coupling and family formation practices, this chapter has stressed the need to also acknowledge theoretical perspectives that look at the inequalities embedded in forming couples and families, and the importance of addressing both research agendas by using a variety of research methods. In the coming years, to address changes and inequalities associated with couple and family formation, cultural discourses and social policies will need to realign themselves with the types of relationships that people are choosing to form. Moving forward, how might sociologists best explore and interrogate experiences of couple and family formation? On a macro level, large-scale quantitative analyses—guided by a structural functionalist framework—can illuminate how changes in family forms affect other social trends, and vice versa. They can also work fruitfully with critical and social conflict approaches to reveal the uneven impact of changes across different demographic groups, such as assessing how technology affects couple formation in different age groups. On a more micro scale, qualitative methods such as ethnographic and interview-based research, often done from feminist, queer, and interpretive approaches, are ideal for demonstrating nuances in lived experiences. Critical and social conflict perspectives are also useful for highlighting power dynamics in these micro contexts and are equally valuable in textual analyses of family-related discourses. The life course perspective can draw from various theoretical traditions to illustrate the interplay of macro- and micro-level social forces on well-being in family contexts.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. How have new technologies like the Internet influenced how you and your friends meet potential romantic partners? 2. Do you feel that hooking up is replacing dating among young adults? What impacts does “hookup culture” have on young adults? 3. What will the long-term effects of Canadians’ low fertility rates be on society?

APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. Think about your romantic life as compared to that of people in your parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Do you feel that Giddens’s theory about the democratization of personal life is accurate? How so? 42

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2. Compare how structural functionalist, social conflict, and symbolic interactionist theories might be used to study young adults’ dating practices. 3. How should social policies adjust to the trend of more Canadians living alone? 4. Weigh the advantages and disadvantages of ARTs such as egg freezing for individuals and couples wishing to form a family.

FURTHER RESOURCES “Flying Solo,” CBC’s Doc Zone with Ann-Marie MacDonald. www.cbc.ca/doczone /episodes/flying-solo. This Canadian-focused documentary examines the rising trend toward people living alone and questions the social consequences. Paycheck to Paycheck: The Life and Times of Katrina Gilbert, an HBO documentary film. www.hbo.com/documentaries/paycheck-to-paycheck-the-life-and-times-of-katrinagilbert. This documentary follows a single mom who earns a minimum wage and struggles to support her family. “Love, Inc.,” TEDx Talk with Laurie Essig. www.tedxvienna.at/watch/love-inc-howromance-and-capitalism-could-destroy-our-future-laurie-essig-tedxvienna. Sociologist Laurie Essig examines how romance and capitalism are intertwined, and how capitalism shapes our expectations and experiences in intimate life. Monogamish, a Dan Savage film. https://mangu.tv/film/monogamish-the-film. Internationally syndicated relationship advice columnist and LGBT activist Dan Savage directs a documentary about meanings and practices of monogamy amid cultural change. “What One Family Looks Like Today: Three Partners and Kids under One Roof,” The Globe and Mail. www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/what-family-looks-like-today-three-partners-plus-kids-under-one-roof/article17341865/?page=all. This March 6, 2014, newspaper article by Leah McLaren profiles the dynamics of a polyamorous family in Ontario.

KEY TERMS adoption: a process and practice wherein an individual or couple permanently assumes the parenting of and legal responsibility for someone else’s biological child (p. 40) assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs): medical interventions intended to enable or increase the likelihood of conception (p. 39) blended family: a family consisting of a couple and their children from the current relationship as well as previous relationships (p. 40) childfree: a term implying one’s choice to not have children (p. 39) cohabitation: a legally recognized arrangement where two people who are not married live together in an intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis (p. 37) conception: the act of conceiving a child by fertilizing an egg with sperm (p. 39) courting: formal, supervised introductions and interactions between a potential couple, for which a man historically had to obtain permission from the woman’s family (p. 33) NEL

CHAPTER 3

critical and social conflict approaches: a group of theoretical approaches that focus on social inequalities and the connectedness of macro-level structures to aspects of everyday lives (p. 33) dating: a process of getting to know a potential partner and building intimacy that is less formal than courting, often carried out in public, and not usually mediated by family (p. 33) endogamy: partner selection within one’s own status group, such as one’s religion or social class (p. 38) fertility rate: the number of births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 in a given region during a calendar year (p. 39) homogamy: the practice of pairing with someone based on elements of similarity (p. 38) hooking up: a casual, commitment-free sexual encounter that may or may not involve intercourse (p. 36) incomplete revolution: an unfinished transition, in the West, toward gender equality in couples and families; it is said to be incomplete because our changing lives far outpace resistant institutions. (p. 33) S ee k ing I ntimacy, F orming Families

43

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individual female biography: the tendency, over the past 50 years in the West, for women to have greater sexual and personal agency that has enabled new lifestyle options (p. 32) infertility: an absence of conception after one year of regular intercourse without contraception (p. 39) in vitro fertilization: an assisted reproductive technology wherein fertilization occurs manually by combining an egg and sperm in a laboratory dish, and then transferring the embryo to the uterus (p. 39) life course perspective: an interdisciplinary conceptual framework that brings together insights from varied disciplines, including psychology, gerontology, and history, to look at how individual and family life courses are shaped by macro-level forces (p. 33) living apart together (LAT): the practice of being together in a long-term or permanent intimate relationship while maintaining separate dwelling places (p. 37) lone-parent family: a family headed by one adult (p. 40) marriage: the legally or formally recognized union of a man and a woman (or, in some jurisdictions, two people of the same sex) as partners in a relationship (p. 36) meaning-constitutive traditions: an important, repeated practice that gives meaning to one’s personal life (e.g., participation in marriage motivated by recognition of its symbolic value) (p. 32) monogamy: the practice or state of being sexually exclusive to one partner (p. 38) neo-liberalism: a political ideology focused on privatization, reduced government spending, and individual responsibility for personal and family welfare (p. 33) non-monogamy: the practice of having two or more sexual partners at a time (p. 38) open relationship: a consensual, non-monogamous arrangement wherein one or both partners may be sexually involved with one or more individuals outside the primary relationship (p. 38) polyamorous arrangement: a consensually non-monogamous arrangement involving more than two people which often has romantic and sexual dimensions, but does not

necessarily involve sexual intimacy between all individuals involved (p. 39) polyfidelitous arrangements: a consensually non-mono­ gamous arrangement similar to a polyamorous arrangement, but without sexual involvement with any individuals outside the original group (p. 39) polygamous relationship: an arrangement in which an individual takes on more than one legal spouse (p. 38) qualitative interpretive approaches: a group of theoretical approaches that come out of symbolic interactionist theory and constructionist approaches which propose that the importance and meaning of events and rituals emerge out of our interactions (p. 33) regulative traditions: a significant, repeated practice in personal life that constrains actions from the outside (e.g., through laws or threats of social exclusion) (p. 32) replacement rate: the fertility rate needed for a population to replace itself over time (p. 39) serial monogamy: the practice or state of being sexually exclusive to a series of partners in quick succession (p. 38) sexual double standard: a code or set of principles governing sexual behaviour that applies stricter standards to one group (women) than another (p. 36) skip-generation family: a family in which grandparents raise their children, and the children’s parents are absent from the household (p. 40) social, and cultural capital: valuable social resources and cultural knowledge that contribute to individuals’ upward social mobility (p. 35) structural functionalism: a theoretical framework that views society as a system of interdependent parts working together to ensure stability (p. 33) surrogacy: an arrangement in which a woman carries a pregnancy for (an) intended parent(s) and may also serve as egg donor (p. 39) thin dating market: dating demographics wherein potential mates are scarcer (e.g., heterosexuals in their mid-30s and older as well as gays and lesbians of all ages) (p. 34)

REFERENCES Ambert, A.-M. (2005). Cohabitation and marriage: How are they related? Ottawa, ON: Vanier Institute of the Family. Ambert, A.-M. (2012). Changing families: Relationships in context (2nd Canadian ed.). Toronto, ON: Pearson. Armstrong, E. A., Hamilton, L., & England, P. (2010). Is hooking up bad for young women? Contexts, 9(3), 22-27. Arrange me a marriage. (2007). Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008ftqn Arranged marriage show for BBC. (2007, October 30). Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi /entertainment/7069165.stm Banting, K., & Myles, J. (2013). Inequality and the fading of redistributive politics. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. 44

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Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (2003). Liquid love. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Bennett, J. (2014, October 15). Company-paid egg freezing will be the great equalizer. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/3509930/company-paid-egg-freezing-will-be-the-great-equalizer Bibby, R. W. (2001). Canadian teens: Today, yesterday, and tomorrow. Toronto, ON: Stoddart. Blackstone, A. (2014). Childless … or childfree? Contexts, 13(4), 68–70. Boychuk, G., Mahon, R., & McBride, S. (2015). After ’08: Social policy and the global financial crisis. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. Bushnik, T., Cook, J., Hughes, E., & Tough, S. (2012). Seeking medical help to conceive. Health Reports, 23(4) (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 82-003-X). Charleyboy, L. (2015, July 21). The highs and lows of dating while Indigenous. New Fire [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from CBC Radio www.cbc.ca/radio/newfire/the-highs-and-lows-of-datingwhile-indigenous-1.3152695 Cohen, O., Geron, Y., & Farchi, A. (2010). A typology of marital quality of enduring marriages in Israel. Journal of Family Issues, 31(6), 727–747. Cohen, P. N. (2015). The family: Diversity, inequality, and social change. New York, NY: Norton. Cook, E. (2005). Commitment in polyamorous relationships (Unpublished master’s thesis). Regis University, Denver, CO. Coontz, S. (2005). Marriage, a history: How love conquered marriage. New York, NY: Penguin. Country comparison: Total fertility rate. (2015). In Central Intelligence Agency (Ed.), The world factbook. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook /rankorder/2127rank.html Davé, S. (2012). Matchmakers and cultural compatibility: Arranged marriage, South Asians, and American television. South Asian Popular Culture, 10(2), 167–183. Employment and Social Development Canada. (2011). Family life—Marriage. Retrieved from http://well-being.esdc.gc.ca/misme-iowb/[email protected]?iid=578 Esping-Andersen, G. (2009). The incomplete revolution: Adapting welfare states to women’s new roles. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Essig, L. (2014, December). Love, Inc.: How romance and capitalism could destroy our future [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.tedxvienna.at/watch/love-inc-how-romance-and-capitalism -could-destroy-our-future-laurie-essig-tedxvienna Funk, L. M., & Kobayashi, K. M. (2014). From motivations to accounts: An interpretive analysis of “living apart together” relationships in mid- to later-life couples. Journal of Family Issues, 37. doi: 10.1177/0192513X14529432 Furstenberg, F. F., Jr., Kennedy, S., McLoyd, V. C., Rumbaut, R. G., & Settersen, R. A., Jr. (2004). Growing up is harder to do. Contexts, 3(3), 33–41. Giddens, A. (1992). The transformation of intimacy: Sexuality, love & eroticism in modern societies. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York, NY: Doubleday. Gross, N. (2005). The detraditionalization of intimacy reconsidered. Sociological Theory, 23(3), 286–311. Halberstam, J. J. (2012). Gaga feminism: Sex, gender, and the end of normal. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Hook, J. L., & Chalasani, S. (2008). Gendered expectations? Reconsidering single fathers’ child-care time. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70(4), 978–990. Hudak, J., & Giammattei, S. V. (2010). Decentering heteronormativity in “marriage” and “family” therapy. In J. Ariel, P. Hernandez-Wolfe, & S. Stearns (Eds.), AFTA Monograph Series: NEL

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Expanding our social justice practices: Advances in theory and training (pp. 49–58). Washington, DC: American Family Therapy Academy. Hull, K. E., Meier, A., & Ortyl, T. (2010). The changing landscape of love and marriage. Contexts, 9(2), 32–37. Hutchinson, C. (2011, October 31). Cultivating a relationship: It’s not easy finding a partner when living in rural Sask. The Saskatoon Express, p. 4. Illouz, E. (1997). Consuming the romantic utopia: Love and the cultural contradictions of capitalism. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Institute of Marriage and Family Canada. (2014). The marriage gap between rich and poor Canadians. Ottawa, ON: P. Cross & P. J. Mitchell. International adoption. (2014). Canada Adopts! Retrieved from http://www.canadaadopts.com /adopting-in-canada/international-adoption Jamieson, L. (1999). Intimacy transformed? A critical look at the “pure relationship.” Sociology, 33(3), 477–494. Kaufmann, J.-C. (2012). Love online. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Kedgley, S. (1996). Mum’s the word: The untold story of motherhood in New Zealand. Auckland, NZ: Random House. Keller, J. (2011, March 29). A polygamous society is always wrong, lawyer tells landmark trial. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia /a-polygamous-society-is-always-wrong-lawyer-tells-landmark-trial/article589432 Knudson, S. (2013). Crash courses and lifelong journeys: Modes of reading non-fiction advice in a North American audience. Poetics, 41(3), 211–235. Knudson, S. (2014, March). Outsourcing love amidst the “new insecurity”: Offline matchmaking as a response to (un)changing institutions. Paper presented at the meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association, Portland, OR. Mahon, R., & Brennan, D. (2011). State structures and the politics of childcare: Australia and Canada. Politics & Gender, 7(2), 286–293. Married people outnumbered for first time: Census. (2007, September 12). CBC News. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/married-people-outnumbered-for-first-time-census-1.647751 McGee, M. (2005). Self-help, inc.: Makeover culture in American life. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. McWilliams, S., & Barrett, A. E. (2014). Online dating in middle and later life: Gendered expectations and experiences. Journal of Family Issues, 35(3), 411–436. Myles, J., & Myers, K. (2007). Introduction: Who gets what and why? Answers from sociology. American Behavioral Scientist, 50(5), 579–583. Myths and realities. (2015). Retrieved from Adoption Council of Canada http://www.adoption.ca /myths-and-realities Netting, N. (2006). Two-lives, one partner: Indo-Canadian youth between love and arranged marriages. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 37(1), 129–146. Pennington, J., & Knight, T. (2011). Through the lens of hetero-normative assumptions: Re-thinking attitudes towards gay parenting. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 13(1), 59–72. Pew Research Center. (2013). Online dating & relationships. Washington, DC: A. Smith & M. Duggan. Pillemer, K. (2012). 30 lessons for living: Tried and true advice from the wisest Americans. Independence, KY: Thorndike Press. Pugh, A. (2015). The tumbleweed society: Working and caring in an age of insecurity. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press.

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Robnett, B., & Feliciano, C. (2011). Patterns of racial-ethnic exclusion by Internet daters. Social Forces, 89(3): 807–828. Rosenfeld, M. J., & Thomas, R. J. (2012). Searching for a mate: The rise of the Internet as a social intermediary. American Sociological Review, 77(4), 523–547. Sassler, S., & Miller, A. J. (2015). The ecology of relationships: Meeting locations and cohabitors’ relationship perceptions. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 32(2), 141–160. Silva, J. M. (2013). Coming up short: Working-class adulthood in an age of uncertainty. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Stack, S., & Eshleman, J. R. (1998). Marital status and happiness: A 17-nation study. Journal of Marriage and Family, 60(2), 527–536. Stafford, L., & Merolla, A. J. (2007). Idealization, reunions, and stability in long-distance dating relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 24(1), 37–54. Statistics Canada. (2011a). Portrait of families and living arrangements in Canada (Catalogue No. 98-312-X-2011001). Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2011 /as-sa/98-312-x/98-312-x2011001-eng.cfm Statistics Canada. (2011b). Fertility: Fewer children, older moms. Canadian Megatrends (Catalogue No. 11-630-X). Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2014002-eng. htm Statistics Canada. (2013). Living apart together. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca /pub/75-006-x/2013001/article/11771-eng.htm Statistics Canada. (2015). Percentage of the population aged 15 and over living alone by age group, Canada, 2001 and 2011. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2011 /as-sa/98-312-x/2011003/fig/fig3_4-2-eng.cfm Statistics Canada. (2016). Population by marital status and sex. Retrieved from http://www.statcan. gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/famil01-eng.htm Statistics Canada. (2017). 2016 Census Topic: Families, households and marital status. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/rt-td/fam-eng.cfm The millionaire matchmaker. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.bravotv.com/the-millionairematchmaker The undateables. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.slice.ca/the-undateables Thornton, A., Axinn, W. G., & Teachman, J. D. (1995). The influence of school enrollment and accumulation on cohabitation and marriage in early adulthood. American Sociological Review, 60(5), 762–774. Ward, P. (1990). Courtship, love, and marriage in nineteenth-century English Canada. Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Wrobel, G., Ayers-Lopez, S., Grotevant, H. D., McRoy, R. G., & Friedrick, M. (1996). Openness in adoption and the level of child participation. Child Development, 67(5), 2358–2374.

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CHAPTER 4 Living Arrangements

With a baby on the way, Will Stroet and his wife, Kim The, realized that their two-bedroom condo—which doubled as a workspace—simply wasn’t going to be sufficient. Fortunately, the couple received an offer that was too good to pass up: an invitation from Stroet’s parents, Bill and Marion, to move in.

© Hallgerd/Shutterstock © Ken Burns/iStockphoto.com

Karen Kobayashi and Mushira Mohsin Khan

Their daughter, Ella, is now three-and-a-half. Four years since they laid down roots in a duplex in the Vancouver neighbourhood of Kitsilano, they’re all still there: grandparents, parents, and child, together under one roof. “I never imagined in my lifetime I would be able to marry the man I loved and

L E AR NI NG O B J E C TI V E S

have a family. And I have that,” said Raphael Alyman, a Montréal father of two.

After you have read this chapter, you will be able to

Alyman and Alain Audet have been together almost 14 years. They adopted their

• identify the similarities and

first child in 2003 when he was nine months old. When the law changed in Québec in 2004, they got married. Two years later, they adopted their daughter. “We wanted our kids to feel that their parents were the same as, and recognized the same way, other kids’ parents were recognized,” Alyman said.

differences in the experiences of married and cohabiting families in Canada • understand diversity in the

“We wanted them to feel like, ‘My family is as legitimate as yours.’ That’s why we

experiences of single-parent

got married—for the kids.”

and two parent–headed

Sources: La Rose (2013). Under one roof: Multigenerational family living can offer added comforts at home, The Canadian Press; CBC News. Quoted and excerpted from the November 9, 2012 edition of CBC News, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ swell-of-same-sex-families-ushering-in-the-new-normal-1.1204886.

families in Canada, paying particular attention to straight and queer couples with and without children • identify new(ish) innovations in contemporary living arrangements, highlighting blended families, living apart together (LAT) relationships, and multi-generational or extended families

48

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• examine the rise of living alone as a living

• develop an appreciation for and an understanding

arrangement and the reasons for its emergence

of the diverse methodological approaches, both

in Canada

quantitative and qualitative, used to study continuity and change in living arrangements over time

Over the past few decades, the living arrangements of Canadians have changed significantly. There are fewer of us marrying, more of us cohabiting, more of us raising children in single-parent or same-sex households, and an unprecedented number of individuals living alone (see Table 4.1). New(ish) family formations have emerged, as well: Canadians are living apart together (LAT), blending families, and living in multi-generational households with kin and non-kin. As sociologists of the family, we are interested in the reasons for these changes over time. In this chapter, we will explore the prevalence and etiology of contemporary trends in living arrangements in Canada, paying particular attention to the roles that demographic and legal changes have played in this domain. Social, cultural, and political factors will be discussed: in particular, women’s labour force participation, immigration, aging, and the introduction of new federal legislation on marriage. We will discuss, for example, questions like these: Has the increasing diversification of the Canadian population in terms of immigrant status—one of five Canadians is now foreign born—influenced the trend toward multi-generational living arrangements in large cities? Has the aging of the baby boom cohort played a role in the rise of LAT relationships? To what extent did the

CENSUS FAMILY

2006

legalization of same-sex marriage in 2005 under the Civil Marriage Act have an impact on the marriage rate in Canada? These are all important and timely questions that will be interrogated here.

Marriage and Cohabitation Although married couples remain the predominant family structure in Canada at 65.8 percent, their share has decreased over time (Statistics Canada, 2017). And while the divorce rate in Canada is also on the decline, the downward trend in the proportion of married couples can be attributed in large part to recent increases in common-law couple and lone-parent families. Between 2006 and 2016, the proportion of common-law couples grew almost 12 percent and lone-parent families rose 5.6 percent compared to only a 2.9 percent increase for married couples (Statistics Canada, 2017). Interestingly, for lone-parent families, the growth was higher for single father–headed than for single mother–headed families (7% versus 5.2%). And, for the second time, the number of common-law couple families (1,753,920) was greater than the number of lone-parent families (1,612,805); specifically, common-law couples represented 17.8 percent

2011

Number

Percentage

Total Census families

8,896,840

Couple families

7,482,775

PERCENTAGE CHANGE 2011–2016

2016

Number

Percentage

Number

Percentage

100.0

9,389,700

84.1

7,861,860

100.0

9,840,730

100.0

4.8

83.7

8,227,925

83.6

4.7

Married

6,105,910

68.6

6,293,950

67.0

6,474,005

65.8

2.9

Common-law

1,376,865

15.5

1,567,910

16.7

1,753,920

17.8

11.9

Lone-parent families

1,414,060

15.9

1,527,840

16.3

1,612,805

16.4

5.6

Female parents

1,132,290

12.7

1,200,295

12.8

1,262,340

12.8

5.2

281,775

3.2

327,545

3.5

350,465

3.6

7.0

Male parents

TABLE 4.1

 istribution (Number and Percentage) and Percentage Change of Census Families by Family Structure, Canada, D 2006 to 2016

Source: Statistics Canada (2017).

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L ivin g A rran g ements

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Children Couples with children living at home made up a smaller share of all Census families in 2017: 42.7 percent of families were couples with children, while 40.9 percent were couples without children. This widening of the gap between couples with and without children was first observed in 2006. Fertility rate declines and the rise in the number of lone-parent families have contributed to the trend of smaller families in Canada today. Canadians are having fewer children, with the average number of children per family down from 2.7 in 1961 to 1.1 in 2016, a trend that has significant implications for labour force participation and the care of older adults. 50

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© Dreamfilm

of all families while lone-parent families accounted for 16.4 percent (Statistics Canada, 2012). Recently, as introduced in Chapter 2, theorists such as Giddens (1992), Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2013), and Bauman (2003) have argued that as societies continue to evolve, becoming more individualistic, loosely defined, and fluid, our intimate relationships are undergoing massive structural changes. Giddens’s (1992) notion of the pure relationship implies that a new relationship based upon mutual benefits and equality has emerged. He suggests that a key feature of late modernity and postmodernity has been the disengagement of sex and intimacy from reproduction, resulting in a form of flexible, or plastic, sexuality which is free from the more traditional social norms around coupledom. Similarly, Bauman (2003) describes the tensions inherent in democratization and security in intimate relationships resulting in what he refers to as “liquid love.” Demographers and family sociologists (see, for example, Amato, 2000; Fincham & Beach, 2010) have also pointed out that declining marriage rates, the postponement of marriage, the increasing rate of divorce, increases in cohabitation, and the social acceptance of childbearing among cohabiting couples have made marriage one of several legitimate options for forming intimate partnerships in the West (Helms, Supple, & Proulx, 2011). Despite these shifts in thinking about marriage, however, Helms et al. (2011) concludes that given the empirical evidence, marriage continues to maintain a symbolic importance in contemporary society and generates much public interest and debate: “Simply put, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, marriage continues to matter” (p. 233).

Phil Hanley, the Vancouver-based comedian, with his parents in a still from the CBC documentary Generation Boomerang. Phil lived with his parents as an adult.

For young adults between the ages of 20 and 34, more than one in three live with their parents, a proportion that has been increasing since 2001. Members of this group, referred to in the sociological literature as the Boomerang Generation, have delayed their launch from the nest for reasons tied to parents’ continued provision of financial, emotional, and physical resources (Mitchell, 2007).

Same-Sex Families Although same-sex couples have been a part of the Canadian family landscape for many decades, they have been “counted” only recently. The 2011 Census was the first in history to record a five-year period in which same-sex marriage was legal in Canada. In 2005, same-sex marriage legislation was given approval in Parliament. In 2016, there were 72,880 same-sex couple families in Canada, up from 64,575 in 2011, representing a 60.7 percent increase in five years. Of those, 24,370 were same-sex married couples and 48,510 were same-sex common-law couples. As a percentage, the share of married same-sex couples is 33.4 percent, up from 16.9 percent in 2011, and for same-sex common-law couples, there has been an 11.4 percent increase since 2011, slightly lower than the 11.9 percent increase for opposite-sex common-law couples. Same-sex couples were more likely to be male (51.9%) than female (48.1%) in 2016 (Statistics Canada, 2017). Same-sex families in Canada are less likely (at 12%) to have children at home than opposite-sex couples (51.1%), though same-sex female couples are more likely to have children than their male same-sex

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counterparts. Female couples made up four-fifths of same-sex couples with children. What aspects of family life might we expect to be different within a same-sex couple family? Despite periodic claims to the contrary, research overwhelmingly suggests that there is no compelling evidence in favour of parental sexual orientation as a predictor of quality parenting (Perrin, Cohen, & Caren, 2013). Tasker (2005) found, for example, that there was little or no difference in the experiences of family life between the children of gay or lesbian parents and the children of heterosexual parents. Indeed, Goldberg (2012) has suggested that gay and lesbian parents may be doing a better job at parenting than their heterosexual counterparts, in part, because of a heightened awareness around the duties of parenthood given their non-normative life course decisions on mate selection and family formation (see also Chapter 12). Tasker (2005), however, cautions us that children who are raised in same-sex families may possess a keener awareness about variation in family forms, homophobia, and heterosexism and that it is important for clinical practitioners and social workers to take these factors into account when discussing family issues with children of gay or lesbian parents. (See “Those Who Make History Don’t Always Do So by Choice,” in Intersections.)

Lone-Parent Families

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The proportion of lone- or single-parent families has grown dramatically in North America. In 2016, about 81.3 percent of all lone-parent families were headed by

Research suggests that there is little or no difference in the experiences of family life between the children of gay or lesbian parents and the children of heterosexual parents. NEL

INTERSECTIONS THOSE WHO MAKE HISTORY DON’T ALWAYS DO SO BY CHOICE Over the last quarter-century, many same-sex couples in Canada have fought for equal rights to marry and raise families. In turn, their sons and daughters have also broken new ground as the first wave of children of gay and lesbian couples. Many of those children are now in their 20s, and behind them, their ranks are growing, especially in urban centres like Toronto. They’re still a small minority, but today’s toddlers and preschoolers being raised by two moms or two dads are much more likely to see families like theirs in playgrounds and classrooms. “Something warms my heart about them all running around,” says Sadie Epstein-Fine, 21, who grew up in Toronto with two moms and a large supportive network of family and close friends. “There really is safety in numbers.” At the same time, she says, it’s important for people to recognize that kids like her have their own distinct identities, “because so often we’re attached to [the identities of] our parents.” … ROBBIE BARNETT-KEMPER “Traditional” might not be the first word that comes to mind when describing a family headed by two moms. But Robbie Barnett-Kemper says his childhood was shaped by plenty of traditions. For starters, there was the family meal most nights, a ritual that by most accounts is falling by the wayside in many modern households. “One of the greatest gifts my parents gave me was the conversation at the dinner table,” says Robbie, 21, who lives in east-end Toronto…. His mothers were among the first lesbian couples married after Ontario gave same-sex marriage the go-ahead in 2003. The following year, when it was being challenged in the Supreme Court of Canada, 12-year-old Robbie wrote an affidavit that was read aloud as the panel considered whether to uphold his parents’ right to marry. “Now other kids can’t say that I don’t have a real family,” he wrote…. A 2011 survey of high-school students by Egale Canada found that most heard anti-gay comments on a daily basis and that many kids with queer parents felt unsafe. Robbie doesn’t recall being teased or

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ZAK HIGGINS It’s been a while since Zak Higgins was in the spotlight. As the son of a lesbian couple at the forefront of the fight for parental rights, he was no stranger to cameras and interviews in his early years. Now 21, Zak remembers being a preschooler and building a Lego tower over and over as a television crew filmed him…. Zak, who’s straight and single at the moment, says he’s been more influenced by his mothers’ loving longterm relationship than by their gender. He’s proud of their courage and determination, but he doesn’t feel compelled to take a public stand. “I fully support (equality and rights) but don’t know if it’s my fight,” he says. “It’s their fight.” Not long ago, the Chrises [his parents] popped in to visit him at work. His boss came out to meet them and offered feedback any mom would be tickled to hear. Something about a good kid, great work ethic. In other words, his parents raised him right. Source: Gordon, A. (2003). Quoted and excerpted from the August 16, 2003 edition of The Toronto Star, http://www .thestar.com/life/2013/08/16/growing_up_with_samesex _parents.html. Reprinted with permission - Torstar Syndication Services.

a female, representing 15.6 percent of all Census families in Canada. The proportion for male-headed, loneparent families was 3.6 percent. In the United States, single-parent families accounted for 27.3 percent of all families (Vespa, Lewis, & Kreider, 2013). The challenges of raising children within loneparent families are immense. For example, when lone mothers are unable to find affordable housing, poverty is perpetuated, thereby creating disadvantages 52

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Living Alone More and more Canadians are opting to live alone than in the past. In fact, according to the 2016 Census, there are now more people living alone in Canada than there are couples with children. One-person households have tripled in proportion since 1961, making up almost 28.2 percent of all homes, a change especially notable in Québec. For older adults, while women were almost twice as likely to live alone than men in 2016, the percentage

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ostracized. He always knew his situation was unusual but there were other kids with non-traditional and blended families. He does remember that hearing casual derogatory cracks like “that’s so gay” would provoke him to talk back and bring up the fact that he was being raised by two moms…. Robbie describes his parents as a source of inspiration. “Being in a house with two mothers who are involved in their occupations and so passionate, it really sets you up as a child.” They taught him to stand up for what he believes, and told him they loved him every day. How can any parent do better than that, he says. It’s what he’ll remember when he’s a dad….

for themselves as well as their children (Gazso & McDaniel, 2010) (see Chapter 6). Kerr and Beaujot (2002) found that low income had a significant impact on childhood difficulties in lone-parent and stepfamilies, but not in intact families, or families in which all children are the biological or adopted children of both parents. According to McQuillan and Belle (2001), single-father families may not be as economically disadvantaged as single-mother families; nevertheless, their income levels continue to lag behind those of two-parent families. Quinless (2013), in her study on Indigenous lone-parent families, however, found that there are multiple predictors of poor outcomes in children raised by single parents, namely, the age of the parent, the number of children, whether one lives on or off the reserve, education, employment, and income. Further, research often tends to overlook or underestimate the importance of culturally interrelated systems that may act as a buffer for lone parents and their children. This finding can be attributed, in part, to the strong kinship bonds and communitarian values and solidarity within many Indigenous groups.

The proportion of single-parent families has grown dramatically in North America over the past decade.

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of older females living alone is on the decline. In their study, Milan, Bohnert, LeVasseur, and Pagé (2012) attributed this change to the fact that men are living longer than in the past, increasing the likelihood that older adults will live as a couple for a longer period. Using data from the 2008 General Social Survey, Vézina (2012) found that compared to those who lived in a couple, adults who lived alone had smaller family networks and fewer acquaintances. Further, although they had about the same number of close friends, they were in more frequent contact with their friends. Living alone has many challenges, especially for an older adult; however, the author found that factors such as owning one’s home, living in a less populated area, and participating in organized activities may result in developing a good-quality support network.

New Innovations in Living Arrangements In contemporary Canadian society, there is no normal or typical family formation to speak of. The era of the nuclear family—a married heterosexual couple with two or more children—is long gone. In its place is a myriad of family forms and living arrangements: collective responses by Canadians to shifting social, economic, cultural, and political realities. The multi-generational family, the same-sex married couple with children, the step-, or blended, family … these emergent formations and living arrangements reflect the many ways in which Canadians are innovating “family.”

Step–, or Blended, Families Step-, or blended, families in Canada were recorded for the first time in 2011. Compared to children aged 0 to 14 living in intact families, children living in stepfamilies accounted for a smaller proportion of children living in Census families, 9.8 percent versus over 85 percent. Simple step-families, in which all children are the biological or adopted children of one and only one married spouse or common-law partner, represented slightly more than one half of stepfamilies with children, while complex step-families, comprised of at least one child of both parents as well as at least one child of one parent only, accounted for the other 50 percent. Although increasing divorce rates over the past four decades have been the main reason for the emergence NEL

of this family form, it is important to remember that stepfamilies are not a homogeneous group and that there are differences across families with respect to conjugal history, both between partners and in family composition (Vézina, 2012). Further, issues relating to the roles of parents and siblings, the economic impact of reconstituting a family, and the development of children who grow up in this type of family can affect the daily life of stepfamily members, Vézina (2012) reports. Allen (2011), for example, found that there is ambiguity surrounding roles within the family; the U.K. report discusses issues and inquiries around language, such as how a stepchild should address a step-parent. As you can imagine, this confusion may be magnified in situations where the biological parents are also a part of the child’s life (e.g., having “two mothers” or “two fathers”). (See also “Census Canada 2011: Stepfamilies Becoming the New Normal in Canada” in In the Media.) The sharing of children at special events such as Christmas, Hanukkah, and Ramadan may become a source of conflict and stress within the family (Allen, 2011). In her qualitative study, Crohn (2006) found that stepdaughters described stepmothers alternatively as “my father’s wife,” “a peer-like girlfriend,” “an older friend,” “a type of kin,” or “like another mother.” In her research on individual adjustment to stepfamily living in Canada, Gosselin (2010) found that role ambiguity within the family, that is, a lack of consensus around who “belongs” to the stepfamily, may lead to disagreements and conflict. Research also suggests that adolescents may feel resentment when they are left out of the decision-making process and are merely informed that their parent is getting remarried (Cartwright, 2010). Further, the educational, cognitive, emotional, and behavioural outcomes of children living with a step-parent may be poorer than those with two married biological parents (Artis, 2007). On the other hand, children raised in blended families may develop strong interpersonal and problem-solving skills as they learn to adjust to a new living arrangement. A blended family arrangement may also provide them with more responsible and caring adults as well siblings in their lives.

Living Apart Together Living apart together (LAT) relationships involve two people in a long-term intimate relationship who live in separate households (Duncan, Phillips, Carter, Roseneil, & CHAPTER 4

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IN THE MEDIA Census Canada 2011: Stepfamilies Becoming the New Normal in Canada Slide over Homer and Marge Simpson, the Brady Bunch– style family is taking hold in Canadian households. With a step and a skip, the Canadian family as we know it is taking another leap into new territory, according to new 2011 Census data released Wednesday by Statistics Canada…. Indeed, the Brady Bunch–style household isn’t just found on television in Canada, and the traditional family of the Simpsons is slipping in popularity…. Blended families are slowly becoming the national norm—especially in Quebec and among same-sex couples…. “We know that families have been blending for a long time,” said Nora Spinks, CEO of the Vanier Institute of the Family. “As divorce rates go up, it is anticipated there will be a corresponding increase in the number of stepfamilies because by and large as some of the other numbers show, adults in Canada tend to partner.”

Stoilova, 2014; Levin, 2004) (see also Chapter 3). Consider this hypothetical example: Scott, a 72-year-old retired physician, and Grace, a 69-year-old widow, have been romantically involved with each other for the past 10 years. Scott is divorced and lives alone in a single-bedroom apartment in a quiet suburb of Victoria, British Columbia. Grace lives three blocks down the street from him with her two dogs in a two-bedroom condo. The couple meets every evening for dinner. They go out for a movie every Saturday. Although they live in separate homes, their friends know them as a “committed couple.” Recently, when Scott came down with the flu, Grace took care of him, cooking his meals for him, doing his laundry, and driving him to his medical appointments. Scott and Grace are what family researchers refer to as a “living apart together (LAT) couple.” Recent demographic trends suggest that approximately 6 to 10 percent of adults in Europe, North America, and Australia are in non-cohabiting intimate relationships (Stoilova, Roseneil, Crowhurst, Hellesund, & Santos, 2014; Strohm, Seltzer, & Cochran, 2009). Given the increasing popularity of LAT relationships as an alternative to more traditional living arrangements over the past decade, research interest in this phenomenon has grown concomitantly (Stoilova et al., 2014). Despite the increasing prevalence of 54

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Even though there is divorce, there is a high likelihood that couples will re-partner, she said, further expanding the constellation of families in Canada. Having Census data on blended families for the first time not only gives researchers a comprehensive benchmark, it helps the legions of families going through what’s often a tumultuous process, she said. “This does help people who are going through it to feel less alone,” she said. As blended families become the norm, she said, they’re also far more accepted and better understood. Source: Fekete (2012). Quoted and excerpted from the September 19, 2012 edition of The National Post, http:// news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/step-families-becoming-the-new-normal-in-canada-2011-census. Material republished with the express permission of The National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.

LAT relationships in the Canadian population, however, there has been remarkably little research done in Canada, notwithstanding the fact that these partnerships have important implications for policy and research definitions of the family as well as for theoretical development in the sociology of the family. Exceptions include analyses of the 2001 and more recently the 2011 General Social Survey data (Milan & Peters, 2003; Turcotte, 2013), which suggested that between 7.4 and 8.4 percent of Canadians “live apart together,” but that the phenomenon was more common among young adults (who may still be living at home). For younger adults, LAT arrangements may reflect more transitory dating relationships as opposed to those in which living apart is a long-term lifestyle choice. The latter is more common among mid-life and older adults: almost 60 percent of persons aged 60 years and older who lived in a LAT arrangement in 2011 did not intend to live with their partner in the future, and 37 percent stated their choice was motivated by a desire to remain independent (Turcotte, 2013). Compared to younger LAT couples, older LAT couples tended to report longer average relationships, were more likely to have been in previous partnerships, and were more likely than younger couples to reside in the same neighbourhood as their partner.

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LAT relationships can be linked to broader changes in families and intimate relationships in Canada and other industrialized countries over the last 50 years, including declining family sizes, increasing life expectancy, rising economic prosperity, increasing female labour force participation, institutionalized individualism, and increasing potential for divorce and separation, leading to greater diversity in family structures and formations, and increases in “non-traditional” family and relationship forms (Beck & Beck Gernsheim, 2001; Karlsson & Borell, 2002; Levin, 2004; Strohm et al., 2009). Individual decisions to avoid cohabiting with an intimate partner may range widely along the continuum of “choice” and “constraint” and vary according to the unique meanings that individuals attach to romantic relationships (Stoilova et al., 2014). For example, they may reflect a desire to preserve independence, privacy, and time alone, as well as freedom from gendered duties—especially among older, re-partnered women (Duncan, 2015; Haskey & Lewis, 2006; Karlsson & Borell, 2002). Other factors may include what Duncan, Carter, Phillips, Roseneil, and Stoilova (2012) refer to as “negative preferences,” such as a desire to avoid the practical difficulties involved in cohabiting (Haskey & Lewis, 2006; Karlsson & Borell, 2002; Levin, 2004), an attempt to avoid re-creating the conditions of previously unsuccessful relationships (Haskey & Lewis, 2006; Levin, 2004), and a desire to preserve familiar situations or existing family and social relationships (Gierveld & Merz, 2013; Or, 2013; Upton-Davis, 2015). Moreover, baby boomers are more likely than previous cohorts to live apart together (Gierveld, 2004). Indeed, in Canada, while only 2 percent of the population 60 years and older was involved in a LAT relationship in 2011, this represented an increase from 2001 (Turcotte, 2013). With the aging of the Canadian population, an increase in mid- to later-life LAT relationships has important implications for care exchanges in couples that do not share households (Gierveld, 2015). LATs, relative to cohabiting relationships, are believed to be less rooted in structural commitments between partners: “ties that imply a relationship has to continue because of joint investments that have been made,” such as shared homes or finances, mutual social networks, specialized divisions of labour in the home, or the institution of marriage (Borell & Karlsson, 2003, p. 58). Instead, commitments in LAT partnerships appear to depend primarily on mutual exchanges of NEL

emotional support, intimacy, satisfaction, and moral ties. Further, the degree of flexibility inherent in LAT relationships may shape interpretations of commitment; for some LAT partners, their relationship is akin to a marriage and entails a similar level of commitment, whereas others view their relationship as an arrangement that guarantees them the possibility of leading an independent life (Karlsson, Johansson, Gerdner, & Borell, 2007). Because they tend to lack structural commitments, LAT relationships may be viewed as a manifestation of a form of partnership interpreted as more voluntary and based on emotional closeness, relational quality, and personal fulfillment rather than obligation. For others, however, both sentiments, that is, the sense of autonomy as well as the deep bonds of commitment, may exist simultaneously. Indeed, as Haskey and Lewis (2006) conclude, some forms of LATs may reflect Giddens’s concept of the pure relationship “whereby two individuals stay together for so long as the partnership delivers enough satisfaction to each party” (p. 38). Despite the increasing social acceptability of (and considerable media interest in) non-traditional partnerships, in many ways, these relationships are still seen as deviant (and as lacking commitment) by outsiders because they are non-traditional. As such, discussion or talk about LAT relationships can be viewed as including “accounts” and “justifications” (Scott & Lyman, 1968): responses to potentially negative judgments of behaviour that seek, for example, to neutralize the behaviour, assert its positive value, deny injury, and so on. As Scott and Lyman note, “every account is a manifestation of the underlying negotiation of identities” (1968, p. 59). Clearly, living apart together involves considerable emotional negotiation, reflexivity, and personal agency (Duncan, 2015).

Multi-generational or Extended Families The aging of the Canadian population has resulted in the “verticalization” of the family through the creation of a beanpole family structure, that is, families with few members in each generation but with more generations alive at any one time (Bengtson, 2001). Given marital instability and increases in divorce rates, the nuclear family is on the decline (Bengtson, Rosenthal, & Burton, 1990; Krull, 2014). As Krull (2014) points out, “the traditional nuclear family is a social institution facing stiff competition” (p. 293). The verticalization of the family due to increased longevity and CHAPTER 4

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declining fertility rates in Western countries means that the number of across generation ties, for example, between grandparents and grandchildren, has increased, and the number of within generation ties, for example, between siblings, has decreased, underscoring the importance of intergenerational exchange and social support in the context of the family (MULTILINKS, 2012). A smaller family size also implies that the average person will now have only one sibling at the most, as compared to four or five in the past. The aging of the population, increasing household costs, and evolving family ties have resulted in the rise of the multi-generational household, that is, a living arrangement in which three or more generations of a family live under the same roof (see also Chapter 13). According to the 2016 Census, there were 403,810 of these multi-generational households in Canada (2.9% of all private households) (Statistics Canada, 2017). Further, approximately 5 percent of Canadian children under the age of 14 shared their home with a grandparent or great-grandparent, up from 3 percent in 2001. In 2011, the year that the most recent Census data for this information was available, 9 percent of Indigenous children lived in multi-generational households, as compared to 4 percent of nonIndigenous children. And children of immigrants were nearly twice as likely as Canadian-born children to live in multi-generational households (Battams, 2013). Ng, Northcott, and Abu-Laban (2007) found that older immigrants were more likely than their Canadian counterparts to live in homes that belonged to their adult children. Indeed, many adults have set up accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in their homes for their parents. These units, also known as “granny flats” or “in-law suites,” are especially designed for older adults, allowing them to navigate their space with minimum assistance (Ng et al., 2007). The benefits of multi-generational living are manifold. Older parents who live with their adult children and grandchildren can provide care to the youngest generation, thereby helping members of the “middle generation” who may have trouble finding affordable child care (Ng et al., 2007). Grandparents also act as a vehicle for cultural transmission, or the passing of cultural artifacts from one generation to the next, within ethno-racial families (Khan & Kobayashi, in press). The Vanier Institute of the Family (2013) reports that, of the approximately 6.3 million grandparents in Canada, almost 50 percent are under the age 56

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of 65, many are still employed, and, most important, the majority provide support (financial as well as care provision) to their families. Further, of the approximately 44 percent of Indigenous grandparents in Canada who are actively involved in the lives of their grandchildren, most share a household with their children and/or grandchildren (Baines & Freeman, 2011). Indeed, research strongly indicates that older adults are more likely to provide help than to receive it (Kohli, 2004). In Spain, for example, maternal grandmothers are actively involved in the lives of their children, taking care of their preschool-aged grandchildren, dropping off and picking them up from school, and preparing meals for them (Hank & Buber, 2009). From the perspective of adult children, multigenerational living may facilitate the provision of care to older parents. About 24 percent of caregivers who provided care to their parents in 2012 reported that they lived with their parents (Turcotte, 2013). However, the exchange of support within families is also contingent upon age, the health of the grandparent, and life course factors (Rossi & Rossi, 1990). Hank and Buber (2009), for example, found that the childcare support parents provided to adult children was limited to the infancy and early childhood stages of their grandchildren. Leung and McDonald (2007) have highlighted the benefits of multi-generational living in their study on immigrant Chinese women in Toronto, but they have also cautioned that “caregiving and care receiving experiences can involve a high level of reciprocity,” but only if the older parents are able and healthy (p. 19). In their analysis of data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), Mahmood, Chaudhury, Sarte, and Yon (2011) also found that while life satisfaction was higher for older immigrants who co-resided with their adult children, self-rated health was lower. Treas and Mazumdar (2002) have pointed out that conflicts may arise in immigrant families when migrant parents or grandparents and their native-born children or grandchildren have differing understandings of filial obligation vis-à-vis support and care. The personal and social advantages of living in a multi-generational household are numerous, and yet, living together under one roof requires making considerable compromises and adjustments for all family members involved. The intergenerational stake hypothesis (Bengtson & Kuypers, 1971) argues that parents typically have a more positive view of

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the parent–child relationship than their children do. In an era of individualization and democratization of relationships, interpersonal relationships may be characterized by a certain degree of ambivalence, or the “mixed” positive and negative feelings between parents and children (see Chapter 13). Families, therefore, may constitute both close emotional relationships as well as conflictual ones (Antonucci, 2001). Clearly, as the theory of intergenerational solidarity (Bengston, Marti, & Roberts, 1991) maintains, cross-generational

cohesion is strengthened when families reconstitute and (re)adjust their lives and often their living arrangements to accommodate the changing needs of family members (Silverstein & Litwak, 1993). Indeed, from a life course perspective, such an approach allows us to focus on generational interdependence, or the exchange of contributions in the form of transfers of income, childcare support, personal assistance, and emotional support between different generations living in the household.

CHAPTER SUMMARY In this chapter, we have provided insights into the changing nature of living arrangements and family formation in Canada. Canadians today live in varied arrangements: some alone; some in small families; some in large families; some with kin; and some with non-kin. The reasons for these arrangements are also diverse and reflect individual and collective choices and structural constraints. New innovations in family formation, such as living apart together, a phenomenon observed in both young and older age cohorts, are linked to both choice and constraint factors that vary in their importance over the life course. This distinction is a salient one as it underscores the changing needs and interests of Canadians in the context of intimate relationships as they age. The trend toward multi-generational living is also influenced significantly by cultural obligations, emotional choices, and economic constraints. As discussed, it is a more common experience in immigrant families, particularly in the early stages of migration and settlement. As the population continues to diversify along age, socio-economic, marital status, sexual orientation, ethnocultural, and immigrant lines, so, too, will the living arrangements of Canadians. This diversity is a hallmark of Canadian society and further reflects our increasing acceptance of and commitment to upholding the rights of all individuals to live and thrive in a family formation of their choice. In particular, Canada continues to set an important example for other countries in the political arena as its policies evolve to reflect the changing needs and experiences of all Canadians.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. How would you define a blended family? What does such a family look like? 2. What are some of the factors that may have contributed to the rise of non-marital cohabitation in Western society? 3. What are some key features of a LAT arrangement? What might be some advantages and disadvantages of such arrangements? 4. What are some challenges of living in a same-sex family?

APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. How do you think Giddens’s concept of the pure relationship can help us understand emergent family forms such as the blended family, the multi-generational household, or a LAT arrangement? 2. Why do you think more people are choosing to live alone in Canada? NEL

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3. Imagine a multi-generational household. Which family members might make up this household? How might they be related to each other? What kinds of family practices might they engage in?

FURTHER RESOURCES “Our House, It’s a Demographic Feat: How Multigenerational Family Living Is Changing the Face of Canadian Households,” National Post. http://news.nationalpost.com/life/ourhouse-its-a-demographic-feat-how-multigenerational-family-living-is-changing-the-faceof-canadian-households. The 2013 newspaper article provides an interesting discussion on the growing trend of multi-generational living in Canada and the associated familial and real-estate advantages of this type of living arrangement. “Toronto Couple Fights Back after Birth Photo Used in Campaign against Same-Sex Parenting,” CBC News. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/programs/metromorning/birth-photo-1.3469789. This 2016 article tells the story of two Toronto dads who met their baby seconds after his birth while the birth mother looked on. The couple is now fighting back against some politicians in Europe who are using their picture to campaign against same-sex parenting. “Single Mom Assumptions Get a Reality Check,” Canadian Family. www.canadianfamily. ca/parents/relationships/single-mom-assumptions-get-reality-check. A single mom, Benita Aalto, challenges assumptions around parenting.

KEY TERMS ambivalence: the “mixed” positive and negative feelings between parents and children (p. 57) beanpole family structure: families with few members in each generation, but with more generations alive at any one time (p. 55) Boomerang Generation: young adults who live with their parents for reasons tied to parents’ continued provision of financial, emotional, and physical resources (p. 50) complex step-families: families in which at least one child is of both parents as well as at least one child is of one parent only (p. 53) cultural transmission: the passing of cultural artifacts from one generation to the next, within ethno-racial families (p. 56) generational interdependence: the exchange of contributions in the form of transfers of income, childcare support, personal assistance, and emotional support between different generations living in the household (p. 57) intact families: families in which all children are the biological or adopted children of both parents (p. 52) intergenerational exchange: mutual interdependence and support exchanges between two or more generations (p. 56) intergenerational stake hypothesis: suggests that parents typically have a more positive view of the parent–child relationship than their children do (p. 56)

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liquid love: coined by Zygmunt Bauman, the neologism describes the flexibility as well as the tensions inherent in democratization and security in intimate relationships (p. 50) Living apart together (LAT) relationships: relationships involving two people in a long-term intimate relationship who live in separate households (p. 53) multi-generational household: a living arrangement in which three or more generations of a family live under the same roof (p. 56) pure relationship: according to Giddens, a new form of intimate relationship based upon mutual benefits and equality that has emerged in the modern and postmodern era (p. 50) role ambiguity: a lack of consensus around who “belongs” to the stepfamily (p. 53) Simple step-families: families in which all children are the biological or adopted children of one and only one married spouse or common-law partner (p. 53) theory of intergenerational solidarity: the theory that states cross-generational cohesion is strengthened when families reconstitute and (re)adjust their lives and often their living arrangements to accommodate the changing needs of family members (p. 57)

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REFERENCES Allen, G. (2011). Early intervention: The next steps: An independent report to Her Majesty’s government. London, UK: Department for Work and Pensions and Cabinet Office. Amato, P. R. (2000). The consequences of divorce for adults and children. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(4), 1269–1287. Antonucci, T. C. (2001). Social relations: An examination of social networks, social support and sense of control. In J. E. Birren, & K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging (5th ed., pp. 427–453). New York, NY: Academic Press. Artis, J. E. (2007). Maternal cohabitation and child well-being among kindergarten children. Journal of Marriage and Family, 69, 222–236. Baines, D., & Freeman, B. (2011). Work, care, resistance, and mothering: An Indigenous perspective. In C. Krull & J. Sempruch (Eds.), A life in balance? Reopening the family–work debate (pp. 67–80). Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. Battams, N. (2013). In it together: Multigenerational living in Canada. Transition, 43(3), 11–13. Bauman, Z. (2003). Liquid love: On the frailty of human bonds. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2013). Distant love. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2001). Individualization: Institutionalized individualism and its social and political consequences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bengtson, V. L. (2001). Beyond the nuclear family: The increasing importance of multigenerational relationships in American society. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 63, 1–16. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2001.00001.x Bengtson, V. L., & Kuypers, J. A. (1971). Generational difference and the developmental stake. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 2(4), 249–260. Bengtson, V. L., Marti, G., & Roberts, R. E. L. (1991). Age group relations: Generational equity and inequity. In K. Pillemer & K. McCartney (Eds.), Parent–child relations across the lifespan (pp. 253–278). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bengtson, V. L., Rosenthal, C., & Burton, L. (1990). Families and ageing: Diversity and heterogeneity. In R. H. Binstock & L. George (Eds.), Handbook of ageing and social sciences (3rd ed., pp. 263–287). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Borell, K., & Karlsson, S. (2003). Reconceptualizing intimacy and ageing: Living apart together. In S. Arber, K. Davidson, & J. Ginn (Eds.), Gender and ageing: Changing roles and relationships (pp. 47–62). Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press. Cartwright, C. (2010). An exploratory investigation of parenting practices in stepfamilies. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 39(1), 57–64. CBC News. (2012, November 8). Swell of same-sex families ushering in “the new normal.” Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/swell-of-same-sex-families-ushering-in-the-new-normal1.1204886 Crohn, H. M. (2006). Five styles of positive stepmothering from the perspective of young adult stepdaughters. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 46(1–2), 119–134. doi:10.1300/J087v46n01_07 Duncan, S. (2015). Women’s agency in living apart together: Constraint, strategy and vulnerability. The Sociological Review, 63(3), 589–607. Duncan, S., Carter, J., Phillips, M., Roseneil, S., & Stoilova, M. (2012). Legal rights for people who “live apart together”? Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 34(4), 443–458. Duncan, S., Phillips, M., Carter, J., Roseneil, S., & Stoilova, M. (2014). Practices and perceptions of living apart together. Family Science, 5(1), 359–368. Fekete, J. (2012, September 19). Step-families becoming the new normal in Canada: 2011 Census. National Post. Retrieved from http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/ step-families-becoming-the-new-normal-in-canada-2011-census NEL

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Fincham, F. D., & Beach, S. R. H. (2010). Marriage in the new millennium: A decade in review. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72, 630–649. doi:10.1111/j.1741–3737.2010.00722.x Gazso, A., & McDaniel, S. (2010). The risks of being a lone mother on income support in Canada and the United States. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 30(7/8), 368–386. Giddens, A. (1992) The transformation of intimacy: Sexuality, love and eroticism in modern societies. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Gierveld, J. (2004). Remarriage, unmarried cohabitation, living apart together: Partner relationships following bereavement or divorce. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 236–243. Gierveld, J. (2015). Intra-couple caregiving of older adults living apart together: Commitment and independence. Canadian Journal on Aging, 34(3), 356–365. Gierveld, J., & Merz, E. M. (2013). Parents’ partnership decision making after divorce or widowhood: The role of the (step)children. Journal of Marriage and Family, 75(5), 1098–1113. Goldberg, A. E. (2012). Gay dads: Transitions to adoptive fatherhood. New York, NY: New York University Press. Gordon, A. (2013, August 16). Growing up with same-sex parents. Toronto Star. Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/life/2013/08/16/growing_up_with_samesex_parents.html Gosselin, J. (2010). Individual and family factors related to psychosocial adjustment in stepmother families with adolescents. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 51(2), 108–123. Hank, K., & Buber, I. (2009). Grandparents caring for their grandchildren: Findings from the 2004 survey of health, ageing, and retirement in Europe. Journal of Family Issues, 30(1), 53–73. doi:10.1177/0192513X08322627 Haskey, J., & Lewis, J. (2006). Living-apart-together in Britain: Context and meaning. International Journal of Law in Context, 2, 37–48. doi: 10.1017/S1744552306001030 Helms, H. M., Supple, A. J., & Proulx, C. M. (2011). Mexican-origin couples in the early years of parenthood: Marital well-being in ecological context. Journal of Family Theory and Review, 3, 67–95. Karlsson, G. S., & Borell, K. (2002). Intimacy and autonomy, gender and ageing: Living apart together. Ageing International, 27(4), 11–26. Karlsson, G. S., Johansson, S., Gerdner, A., & Borell, K. (2007). Caring while living apart. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 49(4), 3–27. Kerr, D., & Beaujot, R. (2002). Family relations, low income and child outcomes: A comparison of Canadian children in intact, step and female lone parent families. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 43(2):134–152. Khan, M. M., & Kobayashi, K. M. (in press). Negotiating sacred values: Dharma, karma, and kinwork among migrant Hindu women. In P. Dossa & C. Coe (Eds.), Transnational aging and kinwork. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Kohli, M. (2004). Intergenerational transfers and inheritance: A comparative view. Annual Review of Gerontology & Geriatrics, 24, 266. Krull, C. (2014). Investing in families and children: Family policies in Canada. In D. Cheal & P. Albanese (Eds.), Canadian families today: New perspectives (pp. 292–317). Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. La Rose, L. (2013). Under one roof: More Canadians living in multigenerational households. CTV News. Retrieved from http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/under-one-roof-more-canadians -living-in-multigenerational-households-1.1526712 Leung, H. H., & McDonald, L. (2007). Chinese women who care for aging parents in three generational households: Immigrant experiences. Asian Journal of Gerontology & Geriatrics, 2(1), 15–22. Levin, I. (2004). Living apart together: A new family form. Current Sociology, 52(2), 223–240. 60

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Mahmood, A., Chaudhury, H., Sarte, A., & Yon, Y. (2011). A comparative study on the effect of housing characteristics and living arrangements on well-being of immigrant and nonimmigrant older adults in Canada. Housing and Society, 37(2), 25–52. McQuillan, K., & Belle, M. (2001). Lone-father families in Canada, 1971–1996. Canadian Studies in Population, 28, 67–88. Milan, A., Bohnert, N., Levasseur, S., & Pagé, F. (2012, September). Living arrangements of seniors. Census in Brief (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 98–312-X2011003). Milan, A., & Peters, A. (2003, Summer). Couples living apart. Canadian Social Trends (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 11-008), 2–6. Mitchell, B. (2007). The boomerang age. Chicago, IL: Aldine Transaction. MULTILINKS. (2012). How demographic changes shape intergenerational solidarity, well-being, and social integration: A multilinks framework. Retrieved from http://www.multilinksproject.eu Ng, C. F., Northcott, H. C., & Abu-Laban, S. M. I. (2007). Housing and living arrangements of South Asian immigrant seniors in Edmonton, Alberta. Canadian Journal on Aging, 26(3), 185–194. Or, O. (2013). Midlife women in second partnerships choosing living apart together: An Israeli case study. Israel Studies Review, 28(2), 41–60. Perrin, A. J., Cohen, P. N., & Caren, N. (2013). Responding to the Regnerus study: Are children of parents who had same-sex relationships disadvantaged? A scientific evaluation of the no-differences hypothesis. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, 17, 327–336. Quinless, J. M. (2013). First Nations teenaged female lone parent families in Canada: Recognizing family diversity and the importance of networks of care. The International Indigenous Policy Journal, 4. doi: 10.18584/iipj.2013.4.1.12 Scott, M. B., & Lyman, S. M. (1968). Accounts. American Sociological Review, 33, 46–62. Silverstein, M., & Litwak, E. (1993). A task-specific typology of intergenerational family structure in later life. The Gerontologist, 33(2), 258–264. Statistics Canada. (2017). Census in Brief: Portrait of children’s family life in Canada in 2016 (Catalogue No. 98-200-X). Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement /2016/as-sa/98-200-x/2016006/98-200-x2016006-eng.cfm Statistics Canada. (2017). Families, households and marital status: Key results from the 2016 Census (Catalogue No. 11-001-X). Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien /170802/dq170802a-eng.htm Stoilova, M., Roseneil, S., Crowhurst, I., Hellesund, T., & Santos, A. C. (2014). Living apart relationships in contemporary Europe: Accounts of togetherness and apartness. Sociology, 48(6), 1075–1091. Strohm, C., Seltzer, J. A., & Cochran, S. D. (2009). Living apart together relationships in the United States. Demographic Research, 21, 178–214. doi: 10.4054/DemRes.2009.21.7 Tasker, F. (2005). Lesbian mothers, gay fathers and their children: A review. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 26(3), 224–240. Treas, J., & Mazumdar, S. (2002). Older people in America’s immigrant families: Dilemmas of dependence, integration, and isolation. Journal of Aging Studies, 16, 243–258. doi: 10.1016/ S0890-4065(02)00048-8 Turcotte, M. (2013, March). Living apart together. Insights on Canadian Society (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 75-006-X). Upton-Davis, K. (2015). Subverting gendered norms of cohabitation: Living apart together for women over 45. Journal of Gender Studies, 24(1), 104–116. Vanier Institute of the Family. (2013). In it together: Multigenerational living in Canada. Transition, 43(3), 11–13. NEL

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Vespa, J., Lewis, J. M., & Kreider, R. M. (2013). America’s families and living arrangements: 2012. Current Population Reports (P20-570). Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. Vézina, M. (2012). Being a parent in a stepfamily: A profile. (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 89-650-C). Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-650-x/89-650-x2012002-eng.htm Wong, B. (2016, August 1). This is the most heartbreaking part of raising a blended family. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry /why-this-too-shall-pass-should-be-your-stepfamilys-motto_us_568efc30e4b0c8beacf67cdd

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Chapter 5 The Outcomes of Incomes: Family Insecurity or Security in Insecure Times Kate Bezanson

Chapter 6 Managing Low Income in Families: The Importance of Institutions and Interactions Ingrid Waldron and Amber Gazso

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ow family members sustain themselves—feed, clothe, and house themselves and others—forms the foundation for Part 3 of this book. The emphasis here is on the practices related to surviving and thriving in Canadian families today. How these family practices are shaped by wider political and economic processes, as well as discourses about family life, including the distribution of responsibilities for income security vis-à-vis the state, market, family, and community, is underscored in Chapters 5 and 6. In Chapter 5, Bezanson explores how families create income security in the current Canadian context. She considers how family income security differs depending upon gender, race/ethnicity, and class, as well as how inequalities in the household are shaped by larger social forces, such as an unequal labour market, questionable social policy transfers, and gendered discourses about

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PART 3

Surviving and Thriving

women’s employment. Her discussion of neo-liberalism, in particular, highlights the reasons why families must exercise and incorporate innovation in managing their members’ everyday needs. In Chapter 6, Waldron and Gazso turn the focus to how low-income families manage to “get by” in the current neo-liberal social policy context. Drawing on their own research, they focus on how families are creative in developing networks of social support, including formal and informal supports, to offset their experiences of low income. Akin to Bezanson’s chapter, their research is situated in a larger understanding of how income inequality is widening in Canada. However, whereas Bezanson considers family efforts to achieve income security across a diverse range of families, Waldron and Gazso narrow the focus to families already experiencing insecurity.

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CHAPTER 5

Kate Bezanson

Nearly half of Albertans say they’re living paycheque to paycheque, while most have not saved enough for retirement, a Canadian Payroll Association survey finds. Its National Payroll Week report, released Wednesday, found 81 per cent of

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The Outcomes of Incomes: Family Insecurity or Security in Insecure Times

Albertans surveyed have put aside one-fourth, or less, of what they will need in retirement—“making Alberta the province with the most employees substantially under-saving for retirement.” “Certainly the numbers reflect that the economy was not as strong as it was previously and so some people are more pessimistic about the future and their future as employees,” said Frank Lilley, a member of the Canadian Payroll Association board. “This year there’s more people concerned about the economy. There’s just a general feeling that things aren’t going to get better in the near term.” The survey found 66 per cent of Alberta respondents think they will need more than $1 million in savings when they leave the workforce, highest of all provinces. Only 36 per cent expect the economy to improve over the next year. The report said economic optimism averaged 61 per cent in Alberta over the past three years. It also found 48 per cent of Albertans say it would be difficult to meet their financial obligations if their paycheque was delayed by a single week and 25 per cent say that they probably could not come up with $2,000 if an emergency arose within the next month…. Source: Toneguzzi (2015). Quoted and excerpted from the September 9, 2015 edition of The Calgary Herald, http://calgaryherald.com/business/local-business/nearly-half-of-albertans-living-paycheque-to-paycheque. Material republished with the express permission of Calgary Herald, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.

L E AR NI NG O B JE C T I V E S After you have read this chapter, you will be able to: • recognize how family composition relates to family security/insecurity today • understand how paid work and income have changed over time for families • deconstruct neo-liberal discourse around parenting as a choice • explain how intensive mothering affects women’s labour market experiences

During the 2015 federal election campaign, families held centre stage. Political party platforms promised to “help families get ahead” (New Democratic Party, 2015, n.p.), provide “help that works for modern Canadian families” (Liberal Party of Canada, 2015, n.p.), and “protect our economy and help families” (Conservative Party of Canada, 2015, n.p.). Policy proposals included diverse visions for child care and child NEL

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© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

tax credits, home renovation tax credits, extended parental leaves, and investments in student loans and savings plans. Although a focus on families is common in elections, this all-party focus underlined an explicit political recognition that support is needed because income from labour markets alone is insufficient to sustain most families. Moreover, it acknowledged that the work of caring for people, especially children, is costly and requires investment. In 2016, Canadians continued to live through the effects of the 2008 global recession. Though its implications varied by region, many Canadians faced economic uncertainty as the Canadian dollar hit record lows and global oil prices plunged. With significant ongoing budget deficits, many provincial governments pursued “austerity” or social spending reduction policies. Moreover, as incomes stagnated, in 2015 Canadian household debt hit record levels. The housing market remained overheated with interest rates at historically low levels, causing finance ministers and the Bank of Canada governor to repeatedly warn of potential problems ahead when interest rates rise (“Bank of Canada,” 2015). Although the Canadian labour market was more insulated than its American counterpart throughout what came to be known as “the great recession,” the overall unemployment rate remained well above where it was before the 2008 crash and increased in the second half of 2015. In the first leaders’ debate of the 2015 election, Thomas Mulcair, leader of the federal New Democratic Party, summarized the situation facing families in Canada: “Incomes are flat-lining and household debt is skyrocketing” (Parkinson, 2015). This chapter explores the insecurities facing contemporary Canadian families and begins to

“Incomes are flatlining and household debt is skyrocketing.”— Thomas Mulcair, leader of the federal New Democratic Party, first leaders’ debate, 2015 (Source: Canadian Press)

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deconstruct how people do—or do not—put together the necessities of life. It shows that what I call “household insecurity” is experienced by some more than by others, and is divided along lines of gender and family form and racialization. But it also considers the ways in which social policies can foster greater equality—in employment, in caregiving, and in income. Moments of economic crisis can also be moments of change, and new and innovative thinking about incomes, social policy, and caregiving may have positive outcomes for families in Canada.

Theorizing and Contextualizing Families and Insecurities Ideas about what constitutes a family vary widely and change over time. In Canada, a cultural ideal of middle-class, two-parent nuclear domestic life continues to hold a powerful appeal, despite the reality that this ideal is often out of step with lived experience. The most traditional version of this ideal—the stereotypical 1950s usually white male-breadwinner/female caregiver version—was a historical anomaly (Coontz, 1992; Seccombe, 1992). Despite this, its social and psychological appeal persist and often frame how public policies are developed and how people measure achievement and success in their lives. As the contributors to this collection show, people in Canada live in diverse household configurations: twoparent (heterosexual or queer), couple, blended and single-person households, boomerang arrangements (adult children living with parents), single-parent households, and multi-generational/extended family forms, among others (see, for example, Chapter 4). Some of these family forms “fit” more closely with aspects of the dominant cultural ideal of families, especially in that some family forms afford people a higher standard of living. For example, two-income households tend to fare economically better than single mother-led households (Statistics Canada, 2016). Gender and racialization often structure who matches with dominant ideas about families. These axes affect the quality and type of employment as well as earnings. Multi-generational and extended kinship responsibilities for children are common for some Indigenous families. Not conforming to the dominant nuclear family form has translated into children being put into foster care (Blackstock & Trocmé, 2005) (see also Chapter 7). NEL

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Being aware of and deliberately challenging our own assumptions about what families are and what they should be is an important starting point; from here, we begin to understand that families are dynamic. They live, love, struggle, fall apart, and come together in concert with a complex tapestry of history, economic forces, cultural aspirations, and political decisions. For many, the business of gathering the things they need to survive and thrive is made harder because of trends in the labour and housing markets and in the Canadian economy more generally. To make sense of how diverse families construct a living in Canada today, the theoretical approach that guides this chapter is informed by critical political economy. This approach begins from a macro level by considering the social, political, and economic contexts in which families live (see also Chapter 2). It asks how factors such as work, gender, and race interact to shape people’s choices, opportunities, and living conditions. In other words, its questions are much like these: Who gets jobs with good pay and job security, and who does not? Who absorbs unpaid caregiving work? Who lives in wealthy neighbourhoods, in poor neighbourhoods, on reserves, and why? But critical political economy also asks micro-level, interpersonal questions. It incorporates feminist political economy and asks: What happens in families? How do families take money that comes in and transform it into the things they need? Who makes those decisions, how, and why? What are the costs to families, community, and society when the work of social reproduction falls apart? Critical political economy is in conversation with other approaches to the study of families. It builds on materialist approaches because its origins and allegiances are often found in Marxist and socialist theories. Its questions are economic, though not exclusively so. It is concerned with the micro level of interpersonal dynamics and processes, but does not adopt a symbolic interactionist approach. It is influenced by important developments in family theory about doing family and deploys qualitative analyses in an effort to understand how families negotiate their social locations in everyday life, asking whether such negotiations have patterns that generalize across dimensions such as class, race, gender, and sexuality. Fictive kin also features in the theoretical orientation as an important corrective to narrow, historically and culturally unnuanced understandings of family forms. Finally, critical political economy is in conversation with understandings of NEL

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families as situated in late modernity. Because it asks political and economic questions as its entry point, it seeks to understand the ways in which economic and political processes of individualization translate at the personal level. For the purposes of this chapter, the theoretical approach can be summarized in this way: who gets what, in what amounts, under what conditions, and what forces affect this distribution?

A Word about Families and Households Families and households are not always the same thing, and their presence together can be confusing. Household refers to those who share a home. Families fit into relationships of marriage/common-law unions, kinship, including fictive kinship, and adoption. The term families can leave people out legally and in terms of who gets access to resources and decisions. In this chapter, the term families is most commonly used, but the term households is used in reference to managing income insecurities to signal that such insecurities characterize every household form.

In/Securities: Families, Incomes, and Work Just as families and family forms are varied and have changed over time, so, too, has paid work and the income and security it provides. In examining changes between the heterosexual nuclear family of the 1950s and 1960s, and the landscape of today, several important trends are noteworthy and explored here: 1. Changing employment. For many, jobs are more precarious now than in the past. More are part time or contract based, and lacking the workplace benefits and retirement investments that characterized the more secure, long-term, and full-time work that was standard in the 1950s and 1960s (Vosko, 2010). 2. Changing incomes. Where, in the past, a single full-time income was typically enough to support a family, it is increasingly the norm for Canadian families to require two adult earners to make ends meet whether or not there are young children at home. Increased labour market work does not diminish the unpaid caregiving work traditionally absorbed by women, who often continue to

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act as primary caregivers regardless of their labour market attachments. 3. Changing expectations. Assumptions around gender, paid work, and motherhood, particularly the modern, middle-class ideal of intensive motherhood, affect women’s labour market participation and increase role strain. 4. Changing costs. Lower overall earnings than previous generations coupled with higher costs for housing and education and few social supports like child care cause many families to experience a generational squeeze. 5. Changing political landscape. The neo-liberal framework that has come to dominate both policy and mindset in public discourse has individualized responsibility for finding solutions to work-life balance difficulties. It ignores social location and privilege as factors in income security and shifts discussions away from collective solutions by positioning success and stability as related exclusively to individuals making “good choices” and being “personally responsible.” Social location, however, benefits some families greatly at the expense and insecurity of others.

Incomes, Jobs, and Precarious Work When we think of incomes, we often think mainly of incomes from jobs. For most families, incomes come principally from paid employment. But incomes also come from other areas, including tax and income redistribution—that is, those with more income pay higher tax and those with less income have some tax credit or income redistributed to them. For example, as Table 5.1 shows, in 2013, two-parent families with a median market income of $92,600 saw an after-tax income of $85,000, where single mother-led families with a median market income of $25,200 saw an increase in after-tax income to $39,400 in the same year after accounting for government income supports, tax credits, and transfers. Market income includes earnings, pensions, and income from investments and other sources (Statistics Canada, 2015, July 8). Despite the importance of tax and transfer-based income redistribution in Canada, over the last 20 years, earnings have become increasingly unequal, and the top 1 percent of earners now receive 14 percent of all income (Yalnizyan, 2010). Practising family life amid deepening income inequality is a new(er) reality for Canadian families. In fact, an analysis by the Broadbent 68

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Institute (2012, p. 3) showed that, after taking inflation into account, “there was no increase in the incomes of the bottom 60% of families” between 1982 and 2004, and most of the income gains flowed to the wealthiest families in Canada, disproportionately favouring the top 1 percent (Broadbent Institute, 2012, p. 3). The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) notes that the “top 10% of Canadians have after-tax incomes at least 4.2 times greater than the bottom 10%” (cited in Broadbent Institute, 2012, p. 4). But perhaps most illustrative of the extent of income inequality among Canadian families is the incidence of poverty among children. In 2015, Statistics Canada (2015a, p. 2), reported that 16.5 percent of children 17 and under lived in families with low incomes. Children in two-parent families lived subject to a low income-rate of 12.8 percent. Of those living in a lone-parent, femaleheaded family, 42.6 percent lived subject to a low incomerate. Risks of poverty and lower income accrue from social location: being a woman, a recent immigrant, a racialized person, an Indigenous person, or a person with a disability vastly increases the likelihood of poverty and low income (see also Chapter 6). The sluggish recovery from the recession of 2008 deepens risks of poverty. Yet numbers can obscure as much as they can reveal and aggregate numbers can hide the social and economic processes hemming the options available to people. If incomes from jobs are an important, although not always singular, source of money for families, then the character, distribution, and security of those jobs merit investigation. One important characteristic of Canada’s current labour market is the prevalence of precarious work: contract, part-time, temporary, and lower paying jobs. Such jobs generally lack benefits and also include self-employed individuals with no employees. Precarious work is sometimes referred to as the “new norm in employment relationships” (Vosko, 2000). Table 5.2 shows the most conservative estimate and interpretation of precarious employment in Canada; the Broadbent Institute (2012, p. 3) asserts that “only two thirds of workers today—and even fewer women and racialized workers—hold the full time, permanent jobs which provide a measure of security.” Moreover, one-quarter of Canadians work in low-paid jobs earning $13 per hour or less (Broadbent Institute, 2012; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2011). A “colour-coded labour market” (Block & Galabuzi, 2010) can be seen when “one in five racialized families NEL

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GOVERNMENT TRANSFERS (2012)

29,400

9,400

22,600

25,200

92,500

83,300

30,900

72,500

50,400

700

17,000

1,500

10,400

4,400

3,600

26,300

6,800

5,300

Income Statistics by Selected Family Types, 2012 and 2013

Source: Statistics Canada (2015, July 8).

F  too unreliable to be published

TABLE 5.1

28,600

Non-seniors

27,500

Persons not in an economic family 25,300

39,400

Female lone-parent families

Seniors

85,400

77,600

Non-senior families

Two-parent families with children

52,800

72,300

53,400

Senior families

Economic families

Economic families and persons not in an economic family

MARKET INCOME (2012)

INCOME TAX (2012)

AFTER-TAX INCOME (2013)

MARKET INCOME (2013)

GOVERNMENT TRANSFERS (2013)

INCOME TAX (2013)

3,100

400

2,100

F

13,600

11,700

3,200

9,800

6,300

29,800

25,700

28,200

39,400

85,000

77,100

52,500

72,200

53,500

30,000

10,400

23,100

25,200

92,600

82,800

29,900

72,600

50,600

600

17,000

1,600

11,000

4,300

3,600

26,600

7,000

5,300

3,300

700

2,400

F

13,400

11,700

3,100

9,800

6,400

median (2013 median (2013 median (2013 median (2013 median (2013 median (2013 median (2013 median (2013 constant dollars) constant dollars) constant dollars) constant dollars) constant dollars) constant dollars) constant dollars) constant dollars)

AFTER-TAX INCOME (2012)

1976 Temporary employment

1989

1997

2007

2011

2014

–

6.5*

9.4

11.0

11.6

11.3

Self-employed, no employees

6.3

7.2

10.7

10.3

10.5

10.5

Total precarious employed

–

13.7

20.1

21.3

22.1

21.8

TABLE 5.2 Percentage of Workers in Precarious Employment (Total Employed, All Classes of Workers, Age 15+) Source: Statistics Canada CANSIM tables 282-0080 and 282-0012, cited in Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario (2015, p. 24).

lives in poverty compared to one in twenty non-racialized families” (Broadbent Institute, 2012, p. 3). The situation is especially challenging for immigrants and for Indigenous people. One in four Indigenous children lives in poverty (Wilson & Macdonald, 2010). Indeed, according to the 2011 National Household Survey, * the national median annual income for a full-time worker was $50,699, while for a racialized worker, it was $45,128 and for an Indigenous full-time worker, it was $41,684. In addition to a labour market that is increasingly precarious, with some experiencing that precarity and insecurity more acutely, working time is also a variable in families’ lives. Those working full time often work more than full time. According to Duxbury and Higgins (2012), almost two-thirds of Canadians work more than 45 hours a week, which represents a 50 percent increase over the last 20 years. They also note that despite efforts to increase work-life balance policies by some employers, flextime arrangements have dropped by one third in the past 10 years. Indeed, a significant proportion of workers report work-life conflict as a source of continuing, ongoing stress (Duxbury & Higgins, 2012). (See “Generation Squeeze: Addressing Age and Inequality” in Intersections.)

Dual Earner-Female Carer and Other Family Forms Unlike previous generations where a male breadwinner and female caregiver model was common, today in families where there are two adults, a dual

earner-female carer model is fairly normative in Canada, as two earners are usually needed to ensure an adequate standard of living (see Bezanson, 2010; Fraser, 2013). Unlike countries such as the United Kingdom where a one-and-a-half earner with female carer model dominates, in Canada, most women, including mothers with young children, are employed and most for more than part-time hours. However, their labour market attachments do not erase the time and effort needed to care for children, the ill, those with disabilities, and older adults. Although there is some emerging congruence, or coming together, of shared responsibilities for unpaid work and caregiving between men and women, women tend to retain the primary role. Single-parent families encounter significant challenges in meeting their paid work and caregiving obligations (see also Chapter 6). Most lone-parent households in Canada (8 of 10 in 2016) are single mother led. In 2016, 19.2 percent of children aged 0 to 14 lived in a lone‑parent family, 81.3 percent lived with their mother, and 18.7 percent with their father, although the number of children living with a lone father is growing. (Statistics Canada, 2017). Thus, single mothers raise children in poverty in much larger numbers: in 2011, 105,830 had after-tax income of less than $14,999 while only 21,015 single father-led households had incomes in that range. Single-mother families have less income, earning a median after-tax income of $40,520 in 2011, while single-father families earned a median after-tax income of $50,607 (Statistics Canada, 2012).

Gender, Motherhood, and Labour Market Participation Parenting is fraught terrain, and motherhood is particularly so. Discourses around “good motherhood” circulate in Canadian society, and they are often contradictory, nostalgic, and divisive. As is the case for families, there is an idealized vision of who mothers are and what they should be. The American-styled “mommy wars” that pit mothers who work outside the home against those who do not is less present in Canada, in part, due

* The voluntary 2011 National Household Survey, a replacement for the mandatory long-form census, is used here. It is not a robust reflection of national trends over time and should be interpreted with some caution; however, this data provides some insights into the distribution of income across various characteristics.

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INTERSECTIONS GENERATION SQUEEZE: ADDRESSING AGE

© Cathy Thorne

AND INEQUALITY

Good mothers are to have it all—and do it all. At least that is the ideology of intensive mothering.

to the presence of more robust systems of job-guaranteed, income-replacing maternity leave. Yet ideas about “doing it all and having it all” abound, and, in particular, ideas about what has come to be called intensive mothering (Hayes, 1996) have set a classed, coupled, and often racialized normative standard for motherhood practices. Intensive mothering “is the expectation that mothers should give of themselves and their resources unconditionally, including but not limited to mothers’ time, money, emotional support and love” (Hayes, 1996, p. 112) (see also Chapter 12). This cult of the good mother, according to French feminist Elisabeth Badinter (2011), increasingly requires mothers to breastfeed on demand and for longer periods of time, forego pain medication in birth, respond to infant and children’s needs immediately, use cloth diapers, and make baby foods. This intensive mothering, which requires at least two adults to be practised if one is to be so given over to a child, is a kind of “voluntary servitude” that, Badinter argues, replaces the patriarchal husband with the child as master of the house. Such aspirational mothering practices have effects on women’s labour market attachments. They also are promoted in various ways by healthcare professionals, educational institutions, and the media, including in psychological literature that ties intensive parenting with superior child brain NEL

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Generation Squeeze is an awareness campaign driven by multiple scholars, service providers, and community organizations. It creates awareness of the challenges faced by persons mostly in their 20s to 50s because people within these generations can face far different social and economic everyday realities than older generations. Here are two examples of the campaign’s solutions aimed at reducing generational inequity. 5 THEMES TO REDUCE THE TIME AND MONEY SQUEEZE 1. Rein in costs (both tuition and housing prices are double what they were a generation ago); 2. Make it easier to find good jobs (because while market forces, and […] life choices greatly affect […] ability to find good work, so too does government policy in a host of areas including education and training, business development, domestic and international trade, etc.); 3. Boost household incomes (because younger generations cope with lower wages and skyrocketing costs by working more, but still require time away from paid work, like after the birth of a child); 4. Free up time to spend with family (because often we try to adapt to rising costs and lower wages by taking on even more work or by going back to school, which leaves less time to start a family or spend time with the family we have); and 5. Make it easier to save for retirement (because on top of rising costs and lower wages, younger Canadians are less likely to find jobs with generous pensions; and there’s no guarantee we’ll experience the rapid growth and compound interest enjoyed by ­previous generations). 5 THEMES TO ENSURE A PROSPEROUS FUTURE FOR ALL GENERATIONS 1. Give a better start to Canada’s children (because […] Canada ranks near the bottom of OECD countries for investments in early childhood development); 2. Use non-renewable resources better (because once they’re gone, they’re gone);

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3. Ensure we don’t use renewable resources faster than earth’s systems can renew them (because younger Canadians should have as much access to things like clean water, good soil, wood and wild fish as previous generations); 4. Ensure we don’t dump wastes faster than earth’s systems can safely absorb them (because sometimes the damage is irreversible or the cleanup more expensive than our children can afford); 5. Use taxpayers’ money better (because […] younger Canadians are facing a public debt that has nearly tripled, environmental debts […] spiraling out of control, and a decreased overall standard of living).* *Source: Generation Squeeze (2014). Quoted and excerpted from http://www.gensqueeze.ca/research_themes.

development. This kind of investment parenting can rarely be achieved and can be a tool that punishes women, particularly poor women, who cannot conform to its standards.

Neo-liberalism, Choices, and Moral Registers of Work Some ideas creep into our everyday lives and are so present in so many areas that we fail to question them or often even notice them. Neo-liberalism, a word that refers to a particular kind of capitalism, is one of those ideas. It has its roots in the writings of 19th-century British and Scottish economic thinkers such as John Stuart Mill, and was resurrected owing, in large part, to both the writing of Viennese scholar Friedrich Hayek and to the work of University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman (Bezanson, 2006; Harvey, 2005). At first, an academic conversation about removing the state from the regulation of the economy (or, put another way, free markets create free people), the ideas and practices of neo-liberalism became very real in Latin America in the 1970s and in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1980s, before spreading to most countries, including Canada, by the 1990s. What is the problem for families with this neoliberal approach? First, neo-liberalism profoundly alters economies, jobs, and the availability of social programs and supports, increasing security 72

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for some families while drastically reducing it for others (Bakker & Gill, 2003; Bezanson, 2006). Second, neo-liberalism is not just in the realm of the economic; it filters into everyday practices through an emphasis on individualism and individual responsibility, blaming those with little power for their powerlessness and judging their poverty and struggle to be the consequence of a failure to try (Ferge, 2000). And this kind of thinking, or discourse, works. Because it is repeated in government policy, in workplace practice, in ideas about motherhood or parenting or school attainment, it has a hegemonic quality—that is, it is accepted as common sense. In 2008, many nations, including Canada, experienced what came to be known as the “great recession.” A consensus has emerged that the chief cause of this near-global economic meltdown was deregulated markets, a hallmark of the neo-liberal project (Piketty, 2014). It was worsened by a social safety net that in Canada had been deeply eroded. Canada quickly sunk into austerity approaches, cutting government spending in an effort to balance budgets (Doern & Stoney, 2014). Neo-liberalism proved very adaptable, though; since 2008, it has become easier to claim again that the problem facing economies is too much government intervention and that if government would get out of the way, businesses could create jobs. Yet as we have seen, the kinds of jobs that have come to dominate are not jobs that provide adequate wages for families, nor are they marked by security, predictability, or supports such as pensions. One of the most pernicious effects of neo-liberal thinking has been an emphasis on “choice” that goes hand in hand with individualist (as opposed to collectivist) thinking (Brown, 2006). When it comes to families, the choice discourse is particularly robust and pivots rapidly back to ideas about good motherhood or parenting. It goes something like this: • “You chose parenthood so you should not complain that you have not advanced in your career.” • “The state should not provide or support the creation of childcare spaces in centres. You should not choose to have children you cannot afford.” • “It is your choice to stay home with your baby. If you are poor, it is because you chose not to work.” This kind of individualization and choice logic is often hard to argue against, but its bases are false. NEL

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© Danny Shanahan/The New Yorker Collection/The Cartoon Bank

Families struggle to put together the necessities of life, and child care, in particular, can be the cost that guarantees labour market exit for the lower income earner, often the mother. Moreover, the idea that good care can be purchased on the market for a low cost is often a misnomer. High-quality care is—and should be—expensive. Governments use the language of choice regularly. For example, the Harper government initially named its $100-a-month taxable transfer to families with young children the “Choice in Childcare Allowance” (see Bezanson, 2015). Beyond the choice conversation in neo-liberalism exists a deeper one about judgment and morality. It tells people who are structurally already positioned to be more vulnerable—by virtue of their race/ethnicity, gender/gender identity, sexual orientation, poverty, or ability—that if they just try harder (make affirming life choices), meditate more (make better health choices), eat better foods (make better food choices), or stop worrying and whining (make positive mental health choices), they will find some kind of material or monetary reward. For families advantaged by neoliberalism, this leads to a false perception that their relative success is readily available to all that pursue it. For disadvantaged families already weighted down with debts, this culture of blame individualizes responsibility and obscures that these “good choices” are often unavailable to them. They are left, then,

Managing the demands of paid and unpaid work can be a constant juggling act for some mothers. NEL

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with choices between bad options rather than real choices between equally good options.

In/Securities: Families, Social Policies, and Transfers The social, political, and economic landscape in which Canadian families live is complex. In this chapter, we have alluded to the fact that certain policies, such as those around child care, employment, and affordable housing, are important for families and their wellbeing. The picture of family security and insecurity is about more than just the kinds of jobs people have or the time they take away from them to care for dependent others. In previous discussion, we have seen that social, fiscal, and tax policies play a significant role in equalizing incomes. We turn now to an exploration of some key policies that frame the options and opportunities available to families in Canada. Canada has no coherent family policy. At best, we have a patchwork approach that varies between provinces and territories; the various policies that are in place to help families usually exist in isolation from one another, even contradicting one another. There are a number of reasons for this incoherence, but the chief explanation is the kind of decentralized federalism that characterizes the nation. Provinces and territories, according to our Constitution, are charged with the social responsibilities of health, welfare, education, care of the poor, the environment, and so on. The federal government rarely steps in to create national programs, such as the Canada Pension Plan or Employment Insurance. Most often, any program with a national flavour is cost shared, with the federal government transferring some money to the provinces to administer, though this transferring of funds can vary significantly by region. For family policy, this means that available supports are determined by where you live. Nowhere is this more evident than in Québec, a province that pursues active, coordinated family policy (see also Chapter 9). A quick exploration of Québec’s social supports to families is illustrative. In an article on maternity and parental benefits, McKay, Doucet, and Mathieu (2016) open with a consideration of a family that has just had a baby. They find that if the family lives in Québec, they will have income replacement at 70 to 75 percent of their salary as maternity/parental

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leave. The same family living in Alberta, however, would not qualify for any benefits. In Québec, they would have access to $7-a-day child care; in Ontario, they would face wait lists and, assuming they secured a place, would pay, on average, $45 a day (Friendly, Grady, Macdonald, & Forer, 2015a). Canada wide, high-income families can and do take advantage of live-in caregiver programs, some of which are government sponsored. Québec and Manitoba (to a lesser but increasing extent) are outliers in family policy in Canada. For families, the patchwork of policies available to almost all Canadians includes limited supports for child care (typically a tax credit given only after a family has spent up to $8,000 on child care), a child tax benefit (a national benefit delivered via the tax system [now called the Canada Child Benefit]), employment insurance maternity/parental leave (assuming the parent qualifies), and a host of other micro credits and transfers delivered through the tax system (see Bezanson, 2015). (See “Maternity/Parental Leave Coverage through Employment Insurance” in A Closer Look.) Canada is called a residualist welfare state because supports are given as a last resort, after families have exhausted their personal, market, and sometimes charity resources. There are a number of other income transfer programs that also bolster people in times of economic need. For example, regular Employment Insurance (EI), which is paid for by employees and employers, can be claimed (as a percentage of wages) for a period of time following a layoff; however, although most pay

into it, almost 60 percent of Canadians do not qualify for EI (see Statistics Canada, 2013). Social assistance, often called “welfare,” is delivered provincially/territorially and tends to be hard to get, meager, and poses significant hurdles to access (see Chapter 6). Depending on social location, it can be particularly challenging to get, keep, and gain meaningful support; it is often experienced as punitive by those who don’t readily conform to the ideal of the nuclear white heterosexual family form (Varma & Ward, 2014). Social policies and transfers are sometimes structured in such a way that certain people who are already well positioned benefit from them. For example, those who enjoy full-time, standard employment qualify for Employment Insurance benefits (regular and maternity/parental). Those in secure, well-paying jobs are also more likely than those in non-standard or service jobs to have employer-sponsored top-up plans that increase income while on maternity/parental leave. Those with disposable incomes who can afford to pay daycare fees up front receive tax credits for their payments when they file at the end of the year. Those without such incomes often attempt to secure subsidies that are difficult to access and come with conditions, or seek informal care that is cheaper but, in some cases, of poor quality. A good example is the Family Tax Cut. The former Harper government (2006–2015) introduced legislation that allowed couples to share income and the associated tax burden. The higher-income earner (usually a man) could transfer some of his income on his income tax return to his spouse (usually a lower-income earner) so both would pay a lower

A CLOSER LOOK M  aternity/Parental Leave Coverage through Employment Insurance ...In 2013, 77.0% of all recent mothers (those with a child aged 12 months or less) had insurable employment.... Québec, which has the Québec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP), had the second-highest share of recent mothers with insurable employment (91.2%) and the highest share of insured recent mothers receiving maternity or parental benefits (97.8%).… The QPIP, which was introduced in 2006, had a major impact on the number of fathers who claimed or intended

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to claim parental benefits. The proportion of fathers in Québec who took or intended to take parental leave has tripled since the introduction of the plan, from 27.8% in 2005 to 83.0% in 2013. Outside of Quebec, 12.2% of recent fathers claimed or intended to claim parental leave in 2013. Source: Statistics Canada (2015, January 19). Quoted and excerpted from The Daily, “Employment Insurance Coverage Survey, 2013.” http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/150119/dq150119b-eng.htm.

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marginal tax rate. Not only did the benefits of this tax cut go almost exclusively to high-earner families, but it also transferred liability for the tax to the lower earner without ever giving her access to the income (Bezanson, 2015; Philipps, 2011).

The Outcomes of Incomes: Managing Household In/Securities Returning to our theoretical lens outlined above, we can see that families work hard to translate their incomes into the necessities of life. They may have to work hard to meet with social workers and advocate for themselves to get better benefits when receiving social assistance. They may combine multiple part-time jobs. (See “Hard-Working Educated People Can Still End Up in Poverty” in In the Media.) They struggle to secure adequate and affordable child care. They coupon and travel to different stores, spend more time in meal preparation, give up leisure time, move to cheaper housing often farther from supports or work, and often rely on family and friends in ways that are not always reciprocal,

potentially damaging relationships they need in their lives (see Bezanson, 2006; see also Chapter 6). They do this in a context that makes it easier for those who look more like the idealized family, and they do this in a context that sets high standards for parents. The work of ensuring the necessities of life on a daily and generational basis is called social reproduction (see also Chapters 2 and 13), and it is often (but not always) women’s work associated with family life. We recognize its features most easily when it falls apart: when children are taken into care because their parents cannot provide for them or when the effects of failing to invest in households and communities becomes patent and we see escalating levels of conflict or crime. Depleted household infrastructures have consequences, and we recognize these when they reach their breaking points (Rai, Hoskyns, & Thomas, 2014). Social policy, including labour market policy, can and at times does make the difference in the work of social reproduction. What does this mean? It means that the work can be done by multiple actors: parental daily care can and is provided in homes, but it can be supplemented by centre-based child care provided by the market or the state; people can be cared for post-surgery at home by loved ones, but nurses can assist with daily visits paid for by extended healthcare or public healthcare; housing can

IN THE MEDIA Hard-Working, Educated People Can Still End Up In Poverty There’s a face behind every statistic and sadly, Shelley Sauve could be the poster woman for the province’s working poor. The university-educated, single mother of two works as many as five part-time jobs at once to put food on the table and clothes on the backs of her teenage boys and give them a decent place to live.... “There are myths out there that poor people deserve it, or they’re lazy or there are life circumstances out there that they can control, that make a difference. I’m here to prove that hard-working, educated people can still end up in poverty. I’m a single mom trying to raise two wonderful teenage boys on not enough money to even survive,” Sauve said following Tuesday’s release of the national and provincial poverty report cards.... Sauve spoke to reporters gathered to hear the dismal results of the report cards, that show one in 3.5 children in Manitoba is living in poverty and that we have the highest

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rate of child poverty in two-parent households in the country. The rate in single parent households is 61 per cent.... She ran through what a family of three needs to survive for a month, and even on the low end estimate of just over $2,000 a month, she said she’d have to work 65 hours a week at a minimum wage job to make it. None of this takes into account unexpected expenses, or the fact that working so many hours means she doesn’t see her kids. “What a horrible choice for any parent whatsoever to either see and raise their children or provide for their basic needs of shelter, clothing, education and food,” she said. Source: Maxwell (2015). Quoted and excerpted from the November 24 edition of Metro News Winnipeg, http://www. metronews.ca/news/winnipeg/2015/11/24/_hard-working-educated-people-can-still-end-up-in-poverty--winn.html.

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be subsidized or loans can be given for home purchases to allow people to build assets or live at a lower cost. The work of social reproduction is messy and complicated. Most families struggle at various points to combine the resources they have—income, time, friend and family help, social services—in order to survive and (ideally) thrive. Some families fare better than others, especially when they have resources to purchase supports, such as care services or food preparation, or when they have skills to navigate complex and contradictory systems such as healthcare and welfare. Where families rely on public services such as home care or welfare, they often encounter first-hand the logic of neo-liberal individualism. This logic often

casts needs, such as those for income assistance or help with health or personal care, as suspect and more about people needing to “try harder” to earn income or find ways to care for a sick person. At the personal and the policy levels, the neo-liberal recipe for personal success is measured by “making good choices” and “making effort.” Yet social reproduction—work necessary for all people but delivered in different ways and with different levels of quality—is invisible, often without a defined beginning and end, and usually undervalued. It is thus often hidden from view, despite the work required, and considered less important than paid labour which is only one component of putting together the necessities of life.

CHAPTER SUMMARY Many families in Canada face considerable insecurity. Gender, family form, race or ethnicity, and immigration status, among other variables, affect everything from the quality and type of work available to the income it generates. They also thus affect risk of poverty. Yet at the same time as forms of precarious work expand and families look less like the typical 1950s male breadwinner-female caregiver form, expectations seem to have increased for parents. This is particularly the case for mothers who are tasked with conforming to an unrealistic and labour-intensive ideal of parenting. This ideal exists in a broader social policy and political context that often blames individuals for their failings, even if the sources of those failings, such as poverty, are structural. Individuals and families internalize this neo-liberal logic as having made poor “choices,” increasing the imbalances they experience between their roles as earners and as caregivers. As Canada faces an uncertain economic period, and as the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau embraces an economic approach that favours budget deficits, new investments in households to mitigate some insecurity are on the horizon. Sometimes, periods of economic crisis are opportunities for households and families. Changes like the scheduling of Parliament to make it more family friendly show a shift in policy thinking with work-life balance at the forefront. Potential new investments in what is termed “social infrastructure,” which may include renewing a system of national child care, may begin to even out the landscape of family policy across the country, giving more Canadians access to more coherent and supportive family policy.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. In what ways does neo-liberalism ignore social location as a factor in the relative success and security of families? 2. How does intensive mothering increase the pressure on families, particularly on single mothers? 3. How does the concept of choice assist in furthering arguments against establishing and funding state supports specifically aimed at families? 4. What are some of the generational impacts of failing to adequately support the work of social reproduction? 76

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APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. Compare the goals articulated by Generation Squeeze to your personal social location. Would you benefit from social policy in the areas described? 2. When considering new investments from government, what are the challenges to shaping policy that includes families in all their forms? 3. While income from labour markets is the major source of income for families, what other options exist to provide for and support the work of social reproduction? 4. What are some possible outcomes if the state’s support for social reproduction continues to be eroded through neo-liberal restructuring?

FURTHER RESOURCES Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. https://www.policyalternatives.ca. This social policy think tank conducts cutting-edge research on a range of areas, including on income inequality and families, and produces alternative budget analyses for federal and some provincial budgets. Broadbent Institute. www.broadbentinstitute.ca. This policy think tank undertakes research on a host of areas, including the ways in which social policy and the economy affect families. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. www.oecd.org. The OECD is an international economic and social policy organization that produces international comparative and country-specific reports on a range of topics, including families, income, social policy, and economic change.

KEY TERMS household: all those who share a home or permanent dwelling, regardless of relationships of direct kinship (p. 67) intensive mothering: the expectation that mothers devote themselves and their resources unconditionally to their children, including their time, money, emotional support, and love (p. 71) precarious work: labour market relationships characterized by work that is short term, part time, low paid, contract

based (impermanent), based on self-employment, and/or lacking in health benefits and retirement investment (p. 68) residualist welfare state: a welfare state in which state supports are given to families as a last resort; families are assumed to exhaust all other sources of support (e.g., family, community, and charity supports) before turning to the state. (p. 74) social reproduction: the work of ensuring the necessities of life on a daily and generational basis (p. 75)

REFERENCES Badinter, E. (2011). Le conflit: La femme et la mere. Paris, France: Flammarion. Bakker, I., &Gill, S. (Eds.). (2003). Power, production and social reproduction: Human in/security in the global political economy. London, UK: Palgrave. Bank of Canada says housing, debt threaten financial system. (2015, December 15). CBC News. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/stephen-poloz-economic-forecast-1.3365774 Bezanson, K. (2006). Gender, the state and social reproduction: Household insecurity in neoliberal times. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Bezanson, K. (2010). Child care delivered through the mailbox: Social reproduction, choice, and neoliberalism in a theo-conservative Canada. In M. Luxton & S. Braedley (Eds.), Neoliberalism and everyday life (pp. 213–240). Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. NEL

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Bezanson, K. (2015). Return of the nightwatchman state? Federalism, social reproduction and social policy in a conservative Canada. In K. Strauss & K. Meehan (Eds.), Precarious worlds: Contested geographies of social reproduction (pp. 25–44). Atlanta, GA: University of Georgia Press. Blackstock, C., & Trocmé, N. (2005). Community-based child welfare for Aboriginal children: Supporting resilience through structural change. Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, 24(12), 12–33. Block, S., & Galabuzi, G. (2010). Canada’s colour coded labour market: The gap for racialized workers. Ottawa and Toronto, ON: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Wellesley Institute. Broadbent Institute. (2012). Towards a more equal Canada: A report on Canada’s economic and social inequality. Ottawa, ON: Author. Brown, W. (2006). American nightmare: Neoliberalism, neo-conservatism and de-democratization. Political Theory, 34(6): 690–714. Canadian Press. (2015, August 7). Memorable quotes from the 1st leaders debate. Retrieved from http://globalnews.ca/news/2152991/memorable-quotes-from-the-1st-leaders-debate Conservative Party of Canada. (2006). Stand up for Canada: Conservative Party of Canada federal election platform. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes2006/leadersparties/pdf/ conservative_platform20060113.pdf Conservative Party of Canada. (2014). Middle class families better off with Harper. Retrieved from http://www.rnp-conservative.ca/2014/02/26/middle-class-families-better-off-with-harper Coontz, S. (1992). The way we never were: American families and the nostalgia trap. New York, NY: Basic Books. Doern, G. B., & Stoney, C. (2014). How Ottawa spends, 2014–15: The Harper government good to go? Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Duxbury, L., & Higgins, C. (2012). Revisiting work-life Issues in Canada: The 2012 national study on balancing work and caregiving in Canada. Ottawa, ON: Carleton University. Ferge, Z. (2000). What are the state functions that neoliberalism wants to eliminate? In A. Anaton, M. Fisk, & N. Holmstrom (Eds.), Not for sale: In defense of public goods (pp. 181–208). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Fraser, N. (2013). Fortunes of feminism: From state-managed capitalism to neoliberal crisis. London, UK: Verso. Friendly, M., Grady, B., Macdonald, L., & Forer, B. (2015a). Preliminary data: Early childhood education and care in Canada, 2014. Toronto, ON: Childcare Resource and Research Unit. Generation Squeeze. (2014). Our research themes. Retrieved from www.gensqueeze.ca /research_themes Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Hayes, S. (1996). The cultural constructions of motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Liberal Party of Canada. (2015). New plan for a strong middle class. Retrieved from https://www. liberal.ca/files/2015/10/New-plan-for-a-strong-middle-class.pdf Maxwell, D. (2015, November 24). Hard-working, educated people can still end up in poverty: Winnipeg mom. Metro News Winnipeg. Retrieved from http://www.metronews.ca/news/winnipeg /2015/11/24/_hard-working--educated-people-can-still-end-up-in-poverty--winn.html McKay, L., Doucet, A., & Mathieu, S. (2016, September) Parental-leave rich and parental-leave poor? Inequality in Canadian labour-market based leave policies. Journal of Industrial Relations, 58(4), 543–562. New Democratic Party. (2011). Giving your family a break: Practical first steps. Retrieved from http://xfer.ndp.ca/2011/2011-Platform/NDP-2011-Platform-En.pdf New Democratic Party of Canada. (2015). Budget 2015 must give middle class families a break. Retrieved from http://www.ndp.ca/news/budget-2015-must-give-middle-class-families-break 78

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Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2011). Divided we stand: Why inequality keeps rising. Paris, France: Author. Retrieved from www.oecd.org/els/social/inequality Parkinson, D. (2015, December 15). Canada’s household debt burden hits record high in third quarter. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com Philipps, L. (2011). Income splitting and gender equality: The case for incentivizing intra-household wealth transfers. In K. Brooks, A. Gunnarson, L. Philipps, & M. Wersig (Eds.), Challenging gender inequality in tax policy making: Comparative perspectives (pp. 177–194). Oxford, UK: Onati Press. Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the 21st century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario. (2015). The precarity penalty: The impact of employment precarity on individuals, households and communities—and what to do about it. Retrieved from https://pepsouwt.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/precarity-penalty-summary _final-hires_trimmed.pdf Rai, S. M., Hoskyns, C., & Thomas, D. (2014). Depletion: The cost of social reproduction. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 16(1), 86–105. Seccombe, W. (1992). A millennium of family change: Feudalism to capitalism in northwestern Europe. London, UK: Verso. Statistics Canada. (2012). Data tables. 2011 National Household Survey. Retrieved from https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/dt-td/index-eng.cfm Statistics Canada. (2013, May 23). Beneficiaries receiving regular income benefits by province and territory, sex and age—seasonally adjusted. The Daily. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/ daily-quotidien/130523/t130523a001-eng.htm Statistics Canada. (2015, January 19). Employment Insurance coverage survey, 2013. The Daily. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/150119/dq150119b-eng.htm Statistics Canada. (2015, July 8). Income statistics by selected family types, 2012 and 2013. The Daily. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/150708/t001b-eng.htm Statistics Canada. (2016). Women in Canada: A gender based statistical report (7th ed.). (Catalogue No. 89–503-X). Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada. Statistics Canada (2017, August 2) Census in Brief: Portrait of children’s family life in Canada in 2016. Ottawa, Statistics Canada. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/censusrecensement/2016/as-sa/98-200-x/2016006/98-200-x2016006-eng.cfm Toneguzzi, M. (2015, September 9). Nearly half of Albertans living paycheque to paycheque. Calgary Herald. Retrieved from http://calgaryherald.com/business/local-business /nearly-half-of-albertans-living-paycheque-to-paycheque Varma, K., & Ward, A. (2014). Social assistance fraud and zero tolerance in Ontario, Canada. Canadian Review of Social Policy, 70, 78–92. Vosko, L. (2000). Temporary work: The gendered rise of a precarious employment relationship. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Vosko, L. (2010). Managing the margins: Gender, citizenship and the international regulation of precarious employment. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Wilson, D., & Macdonald, D. (2010). The income gap between Aboriginal peoples and the rest of Canada. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Yalnizyan, A. (2010). The rise of Canada’s richest 1%. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Retrieved from https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports /rise-canadas-richest-1

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CHAPTER 6

Ingrid Waldron and Amber Gazso

Where there is affluence, there is poverty. Toronto is a Canadian city known for its diverse population, its attractions such as the CN Tower and Centre Island, its sports teams, its foodie culture, its neigh-

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Managing Low Income in Families: The Importance of Institutions and Interactions

bourhoods (e.g., Forest Hill, Kensington Market, the Junction, Little Italy), its green spaces, as the birthplace for internationally famous rapper Drake, and as the business and financial capital of Canada. Toronto is also known for being the child poverty capital of Canada: 28.6 percent of children live in low-income households. Child poverty rates are above 40 percent in 18 of its 140 neighbourhoods (Monsebraaten, 2015, n.p.). Children are poor because their parents are poor. How do low-income families manage to get by?

L E AR NI NG O B J E C TI V E S After you have read this chapter, you will be able to: • identify families that experience low income in Canada • understand families’ experiences of low income from

In Canada’s history and today, some families have always struggled to have enough money to manage their members’ needs. The struggle is partly attributable to, among other things, members’ age, gender, race, and ethnicity. Canada’s economic system of capitalism and the welfare state’s changing role in providing income support are further reasons that some families have difficulty making ends meet. Wealth is not equally shared among Canadians. According to data from the 2011 National Household Survey, * the wealthiest Canadians are men and white people, whereas racialized peoples—in particular, racialized immigrant women—are among the poorest (Scoffield, 2013). Over time, the wealthiest Canadians (the top 1%) have increased their wealth, whereas those with average or below-average household incomes have fared the same or worse (Yalnizyan, 2010). Meanwhile, the welfare state has steadily pulled back or changed its support for persons experiencing economic insecurity, particularly since the 1980s. In this chapter, we explore the experience of low income for some families. We will demonstrate how low income is mediated by intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, age, and other factors, and is socially * For the reasons noted by Bezanson in Ch 5 on p. 70, the data reported from this Survey are understood to require cautious interpretation.

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a feminist political economy perspective • understand low income as individually, interactionally, institutionally, and structurally constituted • undertake a critical analysis of low income as the product of multiple and intersecting social dimensions (e.g., race, gender, socio-economic status, and citizenship) that structure family lives within existing and stratified social hierarchies • appreciate how low-income families make ends meet by creating networks of social support NEL

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The Changing Demographics of Low Income Across Canada and within the province of Ontario, low income is experienced most often by lone-parent families, especially lone-mother families, immigrant families, racialized families, and Indigenous families (Ontario Ministry of Finance, 2013). The risk of longterm low income is also greater for these families. How has this changed over time? The feminization of poverty has been a consistent social problem in Canada. Women have always experienced greater income insecurity than men. According to the dominant nuclear family model of the late 19th century, most men worked for pay and many women did not, albeit this differed considerably with regard to race and ethnicity and social class (Kobayashi, 1994). If a woman did not have a husband to support her and perhaps her children or she had no skills to earn a living, she risked the experience

of low income. In the early 1900s, initially, Mothers’ Allowances were designed by governments to support mothers who were perceived as most deserving of income support: mothers who were widowed or deserted (Finkel, 2006). Today, lone-mother families are still the most impoverished (MacEwan & Saulnier, 2010; Saulnier, 2009; Statistics Canada, 2011), and between 2007 and 2011, this had not changed (Statistics Canada, 2013). What has changed, however, is that mothers’ rate of poverty, or the number of mothers who fall below the low income cut-off (LICO),* has decreased over time, especially from the high of 60.9 percent in 1997. This is largely because of their greater workforce participation, something we will return to later in this chapter. Séguin et al. (2012) conducted a longitudinal study of children in Québec whose parent(s) had incomes below the LICO or were social assistance recipients. They followed these children from ages 5 months to 10 years and found that about 7.3 percent of families remained in the low-income group between 1998 and 2008 and, thus, experienced chronic poverty. Even though the percentage of older adults living in poverty has fallen, from 29 percent in 1976 to 4.7 percent in 2007, single older women’s poverty remains a pressing problem. (See “It’s More Than the Feminization of Poverty” in A Closer Look.) In fact, the percentage of older adults experiencing poverty increased to

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and historically contextualized in ways that affect how diverse families manage it. Our theoretical approach is primarily feminist political economy. This approach adopts Marxist insights to focus on how the state, that is, government and governance (the political), interacts with markets, institutions, and actors (the economy), and both shape individuals’ material existence, their relations of production and reproduction, and their achievements of economic security (Clement, 2001; Luxton, 2006) As feminists, we focus only on conditions of income insecurity and how these are linked to the state-market-family nexus. And through primary research, we show how the neo-­ liberal discursive construction of poverty as an individual problem and the concurrent pullback of state support has led to creative approaches by families for managing their own and others’ income security. Indeed, the second half of this chapter is devoted to our primary research that reveals the actual strategies to manage low income and how these reflect responsibilities of families for their own welfare but include the use of community and state supports too.

Of all family compositions in Canada, lone-mother families are the most impoverished.

*The low income cut-off (LICO) (Statistics Canada, 2016a) is a threshold below which a family is likely to spend a larger portion of its income on food, shelter, clothing, and other necessities than the average family. The appropriate LICO (based on family and community size) is compared with the income of a family household to determine whether a family is low income. See Statistics Canada (2016a) for more information. NEL

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5.8 percent in 2008 and was attributed to the “deteriorating position” of specifically single older women, whose poverty rate jumped from 14.5 percent in 2007 to 17.1 percent in 2008 (Townson, 2009). Post-World War II, non-white families faced greater income insecurity than white families (Porter, 1965), a history tied to processes of colonialism (see also Chapters 7 and 11). Galabuzi (2006) refers to this as the racialization of poverty, a term that captures how processes of colonialism, migration, and assimilation, as well as practices of racism and sexism, have disadvantaged non-white and Indigenous persons. The outcomes have been greater underemployment, unemployment, and general income insecurity for racialized and Indigenous groups (Galabuzi 2006; Gray, 1997). Indeed, poverty experienced by Canada’s Indigenous peoples has been a consistent postwar social problem. Historical practices of colonialism, including the displacement of Indigenous peoples through treaties and their children through residential schools, are tied to higher unemployment rates of Indigenous people living on reserves compared to those living off-reserve (see Chapter 7). While some reserve communities have developed strong local economies, the socio-economic conditions of others result in the need for community members to rely on income support from the state (Papillon, 2015). Picot, Lu, and Hou (2009) observe that low-income rates are highest among new immigrants. Even immigrants who have been in Canada between

6 and 10 years are two to three times more likely to experience low income than native-born Canadians (Smith-Carrier & Mitchell, 2015). Among all children, low income has increased for immigrant children (Picot et al., 2009). Given earlier points made, it should be no surprise that immigrant women experience low income to a greater extent than immigrant men and that racialized immigrant women are among the poorest of the poor (National Council of Welfare, 2013). Economic disparities between immigrant men and women can be attributed to a number of factors. Among these is that men, as heads of their households, are more likely than women to be screened for occupational suitability and job readiness and, therefore, to hold accredited credentials in Canada (Grant & Oertel, 1998; Kazemipur & Halli, 2001; Pendakur & Pendakur, 1998). (See “Other Theoretical Explanations of Low Income” in A Closer Look .)

The Institutional Context From a political economy perspective, the institutions of the state, market, and family/household are irrevocably linked (Ó Riain, 2000). In this section, we consider how linkages among the welfare state, the labour market, the community, and the family are connected to low income in ways similar or different over time, thus attending to the themes of continuity

A CLOSER LOOK It’s More Than the Feminization of Poverty Several factors account for the feminization of poverty, such as women • engaging in childbearing and/or unpaid domestic labour • experiencing occupational segregation by gender and disparity in wages • reaching later life with fewer economic resources • losing economic capital after divorce • not being employed full time throughout most of their working life • not working enough to be eligible to receive full public pensions • living alone

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Rates of poverty are higher for racialized women, Indigenous women, and immigrant women. Therefore, there is strong reason to approach women’s poverty through a critical integrative lens: one that is intersectional, relational, and multidirectional, to account for and analyze when, where, and how feminization and racialization converge to produce low income for women. Sources: Gazso & Waldron (2009); Saulnier (2009).

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A CLOSER LOOK Other Theoretical Explanations of Low Income Several scholars provide explanations for low income that are different than a feminist political approach, the lens we use in this chapter. In his “culture of poverty” thesis, Oscar Lewis (1996) suggests that subcultures in society can be characterized by unique values, norms, and traits (e.g., family disorganization and attitudes of resignation) that create and maintain poverty. If these are reproduced over generations, this can be known as the “cycle of poverty.” Of all approaches, this is the least favoured among feminists for it perpetuates misleading stereotypes about the experience of low income and denies the agency of persons with low incomes. Elmelech and Lu (2004) adopt a rational choice or human capital theory. They examine how individuals’

and innovation in Canadian families that encapsulate this collection.

The Welfare State The welfare state as we know it today, consisting of social policies and programs to support the welfare of Canadians, was largely a post-World War II development. The Great Depression of the 1930s followed by World War II was a time of considerable social and economic unrest (Comacchio, 1999). Many Canadians were affected by the wider economic conditions. The sense that some risks—of unemployment, of poor health, even of aging—were collectively experienced largely became the impetus to the formation of what was then called Canada’s “social safety net.” The introduction of initial social policies to support families economically, such as Family Allowances, Unemployment Insurance, and social assistance, emerged from this sense of collective solidarity (Yalnizyan, 1994). However, even then, not all families were eligible for all income supports, including refugee families and Indigenous families on reserves. Ideas and practices of inclusion and exclusion shaped provisions of welfare state support for families. By the 1980s, some politicians and economists became concerned about the sheer cost, size, and sustainability of the welfare state (Rice & Prince, 2013). NEL

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inadequate cost-benefit calculations surrounding human capital accumulation (e.g., education and skills), labour market participation, and family dynamics predict their experiences of low income. Raphael (2007) highlights three major discourses used to explain poverty. These include community deficit/ responsibility, which sees the source of poverty in community deficits and inadequacies; individual deficit/ responsibility, which blames individuals for their own poverty; and structural/social exclusion that attributes poverty to unequal distribution of economic and social resources, which are exacerbated by public policy decisions. The latter of these discourses resonates most with our approach in this chapter.

The notion that risks of income security were collectively shared shifted toward the perspective that individuals were responsible for their own economic fate. The accompanying neo-liberal discourse meant that post-1980s restructuring eliminated, pulled back, or weakened income supports for families (see also Chapter 5). For example, social assistance benefit amounts were reduced through the 1990s in many provinces. Thus, the amount of social assistance income a single parent with one child (age 2) received in 2013 in Ontario was less than that which the same family received in 1986 ($19,040 and $19,565, respectively) (National Council of Welfare, 2014). Meanwhile, the before-tax low income cut-off for a family of two persons in a city of more than 500,000 people was $29,706 in 2013; families below this threshold are considered to experience low income (Statistics Canada, 2014). While restructuring has changed the composition of the welfare state, even from the postwar period onward, the state was never to replace individuals’ responsibility for their economic welfare and was always intended as a last resort of support. That this support was never to be above the monetary amount individuals could potentially earn from wages has been remarkably consistent. Further, it would be incorrect to present the picture that the welfare state has only shrunk. New benefits have been introduced to support Canadian families, including low-income M ana g in g L o w I nc o m e in Famili e s

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IN THE MEDIA Toronto Council Launches 20-Year War on Poverty—With Funding Feuds on the Horizon Toronto councillors unanimously launched a landmark 20-year war on poverty but acknowledged they will fight each other over how to fund it. With Councillor Pam McConnell’s rallying cry for equality of opportunity—“Never let it be said that it cannot be done”—ringing in their ears, all 40 councillors endorsed TO Prosperity: Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy. The 48-page report commits the city to 24 recommendations and 75 “actions.” . . . They include creating incentives for construction of low-income housing, expanding dental care for the poorest Torontonians, helping food banks provide nutritious meals and lobbying the province and Ottawa for help . . ..

families. For example, in 2006, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper introduced the Universal Child Benefit (UCB) aimed to minimally, but monetarily support all families with children under the age of 18. Canada’s newest Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, launched the Canada Child Benefit to replace the existing system of benefits, including Harper’s UCB, in 2016. What has changed, however, are the discourses underlying the funding, administration, and distribution of support to low-income families and so how and to what degree the welfare state intervenes in individuals’ lives. Notably, the shift in the conceptualization of individuals’ entitlement to support from the state has meant a curtailing of income benefit amounts that would permit a reasonable standard of living. As the article featured in In the Media illustrates, shifting discourses about funding and responsibility can make the reduction of low income especially challenging.

The Labour Market With the growth of capitalism, the income security of Canadians was and is distinctly tied to the economy. Politicians and policymakers have always assumed that individuals would work for wages in order to support themselves and their families. What is different today

The problem is clear—booming Toronto has a growing gap between rich and poor. One in five adults lives below Statistics Canada’s after-tax low-income measure, while one in four children live in poverty—the highest rate in Canada . . .. What is not clear is where city council will find the money to fulfil its commitments . . .. Source: Rider (2015). Quoted and excerpted from the November 4 edition of The Toronto Star, http://www .thestar.com/news/city_hall/2015/11/04/toronto-councillaunches-20-year-war-on-poverty-with-funding-feudson-the-horizon.html. Reprinted with permission - Torstar Syndication Services.

is that, like in other Western post-industrial societies, globalization has spurred on the increasingly transnational nature of economies (Ó Riain, 2000). The technological capability to communicate across borders and time zones, distribute capital, and move labour anywhere in the world is connected to how well Canadians fare economically. Scholars specifically have observed the rise of nonstandard or precarious employment, and employment that is contractual, without benefits, and low in pay (see, for example, Vosko, 2009). Compared to men, women are more likely to be employed in part-time or contractual positions in the service sector (Wilson, 2005). In 2011, 6.4 percent of Canadians who lived in households where the main income earner worked for pay at least 910 hours earned incomes that were less than their needs for food, clothing, and shelter (Employment and Social Development Canada, 2015). And the number of persons considered working poor, with incomes below Statistic Canada’s low income measure,* increased between 2006 and 2012 (Stapleton, 2015). This occurred despite the increase in minimum wage in Ontario and the 2006 Universal Child Benefit. Indeed, following the 2008 recession, the number of persons on Ontario Works, the social assistance program in Ontario, increased (Tweddle, Battle, & Torjman, 2015).

*Below 50 percent median-adjusted household income (see Statistics Canada 2016b).

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While globalization has transformed the labour market, gendered differences in employment have remained remarkably consistent. According to statistics released from the 2011 National Household Survey, lone mothers with children under age six are less likely to earn an income from employment than lone fathers (54.9% compared to 81.4%) (Statistics Canada, 2011). Moreover, there remain distinct differences in how much women earn compared to men. Although the gap between wages paid to women and men has decreased between 1981 and 2011, women still earn less than men. Whereas women aged 17 to 64 and employed full time earned 77 percent of what men earned in 1981, they earned 87 percent of what men earned in 2011 (Morissette, Picot, & Lu, 2013). The low income of immigrant families is also connected to their experiences in the labour market (Picot et al., 2009). In 1980, recent immigrant men earned 85 cents for every dollar earned by Canadian-born men; by 2005, they earned only 63 cents for every dollar earned by Canadian-born men. Income disparity has become worse for women. In 1980, recent female immigrants earned 85 cents for every dollar earned by Canadian-born women, but only 56 cents of every dollar in 2005 (Statistics Canada, 2008). Immigrant women are over-represented among workers who are poorly paid and experience precarious employment (Fuller, 2015). (See “Mothers, Racialization, and Poverty” in Intersections.) Recent immigrants to Canada experience what Banerjee (2009) calls an “earnings disadvantage.” The devaluation of educational credentials can mean that highly trained immigrants do not achieve employment in their respective fields (Fuller, 2015). Or, if they do become employed in their respective professions, they may earn less than their Canadian counterparts (Hum & Simpson, 2004). Racialized immigrants, however, face the most difficulty in achieving economically secure employment in Canada (Fuller, 2015). Galabuzi (2006) points to the failure of market-based approaches to address racial income inequality. Racialized groups in Canada suffer disproportionately from unemployment and underemployment, under-representation in well-paid jobs, and over-representation in low-income sectors of the labour market. Racialized Canadian-born and immigrant persons were more likely to be employed in insecure and low-paying jobs in call centres, security services, and janitorial services in 2006 (Block & Galabuzi, 2011). Both women and men earn less NEL

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INTERSECTIONS MOTHERS, RACIALIZATION, AND POVERTY In 2010, we conducted a study titled Meeting Mothers’ Needs: Mothers and the Racialization of Poverty in Toronto (Gazso, Waldron, & Noce, 2010). We found that mothers’ meeting of needs and their engagement in various social relations (e.g., child care and paid work) were challenged by the context of structural constraints imposed by the political and economic relations of the Canadian welfare state. Global capital restructuring played a key role in the “proletarianization” of some mothers within low-income and unstable sectors of the labour market. Racialized immigrant mothers experienced the interaction of conflicting policy regulations, specifically immigration and Ontario Works policy, as particularly troublesome and punitive. Mothers’ efforts to meet their own needs and those of their families were thereby deeply affected by intersecting political, economic, cultural, and global processes.

than their non-racialized counterparts. In a study of data from Statistics Canada’s Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, Banerjee (2009) found that both white and racialized immigrants had lower earnings than native-born whites in 1999. However, by 2004, white immigrants had earnings that nearly caught up with native-born whites, but racialized immigrants were still earning less. A concern for Banerjee (2009) is whether racialized immigrants will ever be able to earn wages that “catch up” with those earned by their Canadian counterparts in their lifetimes.

The Community As Finkel (2006) explains, private charities were a primary source of support for low-income families in the late 1800s under the British management of new colonies in Canada. Since the inception of the postwar welfare state, the assumption has been that individuals will turn to communities for social and material protection before state policy intervention (Finkel, 2006; Rice & Prince, 2013). For many families, this support is crucial. For example, when large groups of immigrants settle in ethnic communities, newcomers who are part of this group can find support within the community. M ana g in g L o w I nc o m e in Famili e s

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While the importance of community and nonprofit organizations for families in low income has remained consistent, we can observe some changes. Evans and Shields (1998) maintain that provincial governments continue to assume that family and community support will provide the necessary supports to individuals in low income when governments do not. In fact, Rice and Prince (2013) argue that federal and provincial governments have increased their reliance on contracting agencies to provide services since the 1970s. A problematic outcome of this reliance is that governments set the conditions and amount of funding that organizations can direct at a social problem such as low income. Indeed, community services providing care (e.g., child care, employment support programs, and newcomer services) have faced several years of successive cutbacks of funding from governments, resulting in widespread layoffs and a decline in volunteers (Evans & Shields, 1998). Some community organizations have observed a dramatic upswing in the number of families requiring support. According to the 2015 Hunger Count, foodbank use was 26 percent higher in 2015 than in 2008 (Food Banks Canada, 2015). Across Canada, 54 percent of all food banks experienced an increase in usage. Families with children represented 44 percent of all people who received food from food banks; this percentage was made up almost equally by single- and two-parent families (Food Banks Canada, 2015).

The Family or Household Scholarly understanding of the family as a basic institution in society, like the economy, assumes an emphasis on its structure and functions. As per the theorizing of George Murdock and later Parsons and Bales, the family is understood to serve specific functions, such as providing for dependants and socializing children. Feminist intervention has meant that today we also understand the institution of family as socially constructed (see also Chapter 2). Whereas Eichler (1997) has stressed the importance of critiquing the family as a monolithic structure, Smith (1993) reminds us that perceptions of the accuracy of the Standard North American Family are ideological. Such cautions are important because the institution of the family intersects with the institutions of the welfare state and the labour market. Any changes in the institution of the family coincide with the changing welfare state and the labour market, sometimes in tandem and sometimes out of sync. For 86

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example, social policies of the welfare state have always assumed a specific family structure or model in their design and administration, albeit there has been transition away from the nuclear family model (Gazso, 2009). Moreover, with the assumption that the welfare state will provide support to families only as a last resort, the expectation is that low-income individuals will first seek assistance from family. It is taken for granted that people will turn to other family members for support when they experience economic need. Some scholars have studied these support relations as intergenerational transfers. The concept captures the redistribution of resources or private transfers within and beyond the family; it includes inter- and intra-household exchanges to ensure the well-being of family members. Resources include physical assistance, household support, emotional and support relations, and monetary relations and flows. Intergenerational transfers underscore the importance of resource distribution for social inequality and social integration, and the relationship between private transfers (the family) and public transfers (the welfare state). In other words, in addition to supports provided within family, intergenerational transfers acknowledge the supports received from the community, the state, and friends and neighbours as integral because they affect the likelihood and amount of support that family members are able to provide (Kohli & Künemund, 2003; Schoeni, 1992). Recall that not all Canadian families are economically well off. We raise this point to remind you that sometimes family members cannot improve another’s economic situation. They can, however, make it more manageable. This idea is taken up in the next section where we shift the focus toward a micro-perspective on family. This perspective has been consistent among those qualitatively studying how people survive low income (see, for example, Bezanson, 2006; Edin & Lein, 1997; Gazso, McDaniel, & Waldron, 2016).

Managing Low Income: A Qualitative Research Study We now turn to findings from our own qualitative study of how diverse families in Toronto manage to provide and care for themselves in this institutional context by piecing together networks of social support, including support from governments, communities, and families or close relations (e.g., friends, neighbours). NEL

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Family Who Help Include Kin and Fictive Kin In our study, we invited respondents to define family as they saw it. Through this approach, we learned about our respondents’ subjective definitions of family and how these were informed by broader history, social context, culture, and specific changes experienced within family

lives. In 7 of our 20 families, initial participants referred us to fictive kin, or people who feel like family to them but who are not biological or marital relations. Eight families in our study were what we call “conventional”: all members interviewed were related to one another by blood or marriage. The remaining five families were a blend of kin and fictive kin relations. Significantly, we found that families that contained fictive kin relations emerged over time because of distinct life course events. Through shared experiences, people could consider non-blood or non-marital relations as family (see also Gazso & McDaniel, 2015; Gazso, McDaniel, & Waldron, 2016; McDaniel & Gazso, 2014).

More Than One Type of Support to “Get By” We were curious as to whether and how instrumental supports (e.g., financial or physical aid) and expressive supports (e.g., advice, guidance) were exchanged across the three sources of support—family, community, and government—and how such exchanges helped families to manage their low income. Because managing low income is personally challenging, it is not surprising that we found that family members relied on each other for both types of support. But beyond familial networks, we learned that community programs provided instrumental and expressive support, too. We also learned that government programs provided much needed financial

© Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

In 2009 and 2010, we interviewed 70 respondents, ranging in age from 16 to 81, from 20 multi-generational families. These 20 families ranged in size from two to seven members. We met members of each family through the initial participant, who was over age 16 and parenting a child or children. Among our 70 respondents, we interviewed more women than men. Each family member we interviewed had two children, on average. Of our initial 20 respondents, 12 relied on Ontario Works as their main source of income. Eight were not eligible for Ontario Works but were working for low wages. All remaining 50 family members differentially accessed some form of income support from government. These included Ontario Works, Employment Insurance, Canada Child Tax Benefit, Ontario Child Benefit, Toronto Child Care Fee Subsidy, Toronto Community Housing Subsidy, Old Age Security pension, and the Ontario Student Assistance Program. Our interviews covered such topics as the ways family relationships have changed over time, support given and received, and community experiences. In what follows, we discuss a small selection of the main findings of our research according to broad themes; there are considerable interconnections among these themes.* Where possible, we focus on a particular family to encourage appreciation for the complexity of each family’s support network and to highlight central findings. These “snapshots” are highlighted throughout the remainder of this chapter. (See “Shared Experiences: Snapshot on Family 17” in A Closer Look.) Note that given our method of qualitative data collection, our research findings are not generalizable beyond Toronto families (see also Chapter 2). However, the detail to which we attend to our findings invites consideration of how other families across Canada may have similar experiences.

The sharing of a meal also represents family members’ exchanges of expressive and instrumental support.

*This research was approved by the Research Ethics Review Board at York University, Toronto, in accordance with the Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS): Ethical Conduct. Pseudonyms have been assigned for all respondents in our presentation of findings. NEL

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A CLOSER LOOK Shared Experiences: Snapshot on Family 17 Family 17 includes Rochelle and her partner Patience, Rochelle’s mother Christine, Christine’s partner Barry, and friend Angela. Rochelle and Patience were co-parenting Rochelle’s infant daughter with foster parents when we met them. The Children’s Aid Society was involved in their lives because both Rochelle and Patience had a history of living on the street and using drugs. As Rochelle explains, their familial network evolved because of their shared experiences on the street as well as Rochelle’s sex work and becoming pregnant, and Rochelle and Patience’s seeking of community support. Their transition into housing, sobriety, and family life was not easy, however. As a lesbian couple, they faced discrimination. Yeah, well, we were, we’re recovering addicts. Ah, we lived on the street together, in and out of shelters for years. Ah, you know, and then we just decided . . .. Well, I was pregnant. So I said “what

support but only this support alone. No family could rely on government support alone. Table 6.1 lists all specific types of support given and received across the three sources: family, community, and government (see also Gazso, McDaniel, & Waldron, 2016).

Support Networks Differ Only Somewhat by Race and Ethnicity We were also curious as to whether social support networks to manage poverty might differ by race and ethnicity. In our final sample of 20 families, the majority of respondents had immigrated to Canada from East Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Northern Europe. Some of our respondents identified as Indigenous. Some families who immigrated had ties with people who immigrated earlier and so they had an easier time developing a familial support network. This was especially true for Chinese families when new arrivals joined a large, more established community of other migrants of similar background. We found that among Chinese families, support tended to be exchanged with immediate biological relations, younger and older. Sometimes, this support exchange could create 88

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am I doing, you know?” And, ah, we reached out to ah a government agency called Streets to Homes . . . . And the way they were looking at us . . . because here I am pregnant. And then she’s like “well, is that your friend?” I’m like “no, that’s my girlfriend.” And then they were just so ignorant, they were rude. Eventually, Rochelle and Patience ended up working with this organization and several others to transition off the street. Given all that has happened in their lives over time, their familial supports are perhaps fewer than those of families without a history of homelessness, addiction, or another trauma. Their sources of community support are extensive, however. And yet, of those few people named, Rochelle and Patience still count their own mothers as sources of support. Source: Unpublished, original data.

a generational burden (see Gazso, McDaniel, & Waldron, 2016). For example, in some families the adult children provided financial support to their parent (60+) who did not work but provided child care. This, we noted, reflected the cultural norm of filial piety. The adult children provided this support despite their own poverty. Across all Chinese families (six in total), transnational support to family in China is most often directed at parents and children rather than siblings. Family members who immigrated to Canada from the Caribbean had familial networks that included kin and fictive kin. We attributed this to how family members had not immigrated as a nuclear unit but rather as individuals or sets (e.g., one parent and child, or as siblings). These same families continued to exchange expressive and instrumental support with relatives in the Caribbean. It was not unusual for adult parents to immigrate to Canada but leave their children in the care of their own mothers or fathers. In contrast, Latin American and Eastern European families in our study tended to immigrate to Canada as nuclear family units. Expressive and instrumental support given and received was restricted to immediate family members in Canada. Among those families that included members who had resided in Canada for several generations, there were NEL

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Family (Informal) Supports Given

Family (Informal) Supports Received

Caregiving (e.g., children or older persons)

Caregiving (e.g., children or older persons)

Education

Child support payments

Entertainment

Church (religion)

Emergency support

Education

Emotional (e.g., affection, guidance)

Entertainment

Housework

Emergency support

Information

Emotional (e.g., affection, guidance)

In-kind support (e.g., cutting hair)

Housework

Material (e.g., clothing, food, furniture, toys)

Information

Money

In-kind support (e.g., cutting hair)

Translation

Material (e.g., clothing, food, furniture, toys)

Transportation

Money

Physical assistance (e.g., moving)

Translation

Recreation or play

Transportation

Volunteer (e.g., at church, community organization)

Physical assistance (e.g., moving) Recreation or play

Community (Formal) Supports Given

Community (Formal) Supports Received Caregiving (e.g., children or older persons) Education Entertainment Emergency support Emotional (e.g., affection, guidance) Information Material (e.g., clothing, food, furniture, toys) Child benefits Child support Translation

Volunteer (e.g., at church, community organization)

Transportation

Government (Formal) Supports Given

Government (Formal) Supports Received Enforcement of child support Emergency support Emotional (e.g., affection, guidance) Employment Insurance Housing (e.g., subsidized housing) Old Age Security pension Ontario Disability Ontario Student Assistance Program Ontario Works

TABLE 6.1

Summary of Informal and Formal Supports Given or Received

Source: Copyright 2016 from “Networks of Social Support to Manage Poverty: More Changeable than Durable,” Journal of Poverty (Online) by Amber Gazso, Susan McDaniel & Ingrid Waldron. Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis LLC, (http://www.tandfonline.com).

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only small racial/ethnic differences in the exchanges of instrumental and expressive support and the composition of support networks. Indigenous respondents, for example, did not limit their giving and receiving of support to relatives but with people who “feel like family” too. We interpreted the inclusion of fictive kin in their familial networks to be related to a shared experience of taking up urban residence far from reserve communities of origin. Generally speaking, white and Caribbean nuclear family units maintained exchanges of instrumental and expressive support within the immediate and extended units of relatives. (See “Community Matters: Snapshot on Family 10” in A Closer Look.) However, when distinct events transformed family relations (e.g., addiction, divorce, abuse), members were then more inclined to engage in exchange relationships with those who “feel like family.”

Community Organizations Provide Instrumental and Expressive Support Table 6.1 outlines the support given by and received through community programs. Here, we note the

significance of the instrumental and expressive support provided by community programs, including counselling, translation, and English as a Second Language training. Family members who migrated from China, for example, were able to connect with community-based programs within Toronto’s established community of East Asian immigrants. Doing this created opportunities to make friends and, over time, to pursue volunteering or job opportunities. In conventional immigrant families where family members immigrated as a unit, family members tended to rely on one another for sources of instrumental and expressive support rather than support from community organizations. We attributed this difference to how some immigrant families were from a particular country, such as Albania, that had a less established community in Toronto; these families had a more difficult time connecting to community support. This was similar in families whose members had immigrated through sponsorship. In contrast, family members who immigrated on their own but had few other members living in Toronto tended to rely on support from community organizations.

A CLOSER LOOK Community Matters: Snapshot on Family 10 Family 10 was one of the larger families in our study. It consisted of six members: Macy, her ex-partner Justin, her good friend Cadence, her mother Margaret, her grandmother Pat, and her sister Laurie. She was raising two children under age four as a lone mother on Ontario Works. In our interviews with Macy (21) and Pat (71), we learned that they credited each other as important sources of instrumental and expressive support. Macy could count on Justin to help with some costs in raising their children only sometimes. Justin did visit his children, but the relationship between Macy and Justin was somewhat strained because of Justin’s previously violent behaviour toward Macy. Macy did not consider her sister a good source of support and thought of her mother as only minimally supportive. Both Macy and Pat explained that Margaret’s own income insecurity was connected to the trauma created when her son, Macy’s brother, took his life at a young age. When asked about the strategies she uses to get by besides family support, Macy explained how she and a

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neighbour share food in order to stretch the weekly grocery budget a bit further. Oh, my neighbour we alternate nights where we make dinners, we do that a couple of times a week . . . we started becoming friends by our kids playing together so much and I said come over for dinner and then she said come over for dinner, so and we found that it really saves on groceries. Macy also relies on community support to put food on the table. Every second Thursday, there’s a community dinner, a community dinner . . .. So that helps with ends meet . . . Second Harvest [a food bank], every Wednesday, makes a food donation and sometimes it’s only a couple of apples, sometimes you get like bread, milk, eggs, everything . . . Source: Unpublished, original data.

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Putting it All Together: Managing Poverty From a Feminist Political Economy Perspective The everyday life management of low income is informed by intersecting political, economic, cultural, and global institutions: the state; the market; the community; and the family or household. Through qualitative research, we see first-hand how these institutions intersect to shape everyday interactio ns. Indeed, we find that while women and men are economic actors fully active in providing for themselves and their families, reciprocal and collaborative relationships, mutual support, social cohesion, and solidarity are significant aspects in the creative and resourceful ways in which families use informal and formal supports to manage low income. In other words, rather than characterizing the management of low income as individualistic—much as neo-liberal discourse would have us believe—our research prompts us to understand it as tied to the importance placed on reciprocal relationships, social interactions within families and with other institutions, and mutual support and care. In our finding of how low-income families make ends meet by creating networks of social support,

we also see how the very definition of family is changed. For many of the women in our study, gender dynamics and relations in the family and the household run counter to traditional familial norms that position men as the head of the household and women as the homemaker. We caution, however, that this inclusion of fictive kin relations is perhaps not all that innovative but simply an extension of family practices over time. People manage low income by simultaneously challenging gender roles and expectations and adapting cultural customs, traditions, and practices. Finally, coupling a macro and micro understanding of low income and how it is managed leads us to important insights. For example, in the first half of this chapter we highlighted the ways in which social, economic, and political inequalities among women serve to limit the autonomy and agency of women who fall into two or more “minority” categories. We found that especially racialized and immigrant women experience greater “proletarianization”: being employed within low-income and unstable sectors of the labour market creates greater challenges for managing low income than other women face. In the second half of the chapter, we see through qualitative interviews that such structural conditions make them more likely to rely on a wider array of informal sources of support.

CHAPTER SUMMARY In this chapter, we have introduced students to families that experience low income in Canada. We then explored how low income is connected to the institutional context. Using a feminist political economy (FPE) perspective, we learned about the changing role of the welfare state in supporting the economic security of families. We exposed the ways in which the labour market is not only structured by inequalities of gender, but also by inequalities of race, ethnicity, and citizenship that see racialized women (particularly racialized, immigrant women) most disadvantaged by occupational segregation by gender and gender wage gaps. We also learned about the increasing burden placed upon communities to pick up the slack created by reduced state support. Finally, applying the FPE perspective to our qualitative study allowed us to understand first-hand the specific ways in which women and families experienced and managed low income in the context of various structural constraints imposed by the political and economic relations of the Canadian welfare state.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. What are the reasons that women face greater likelihood of poverty? Why, in particular, do racialized, immigrant women face this experience? 2. Why is it useful to understand the relationships among the welfare state, the labour market, and the family or household in an analysis of low income? 3. What importance is there to acknowledging the different measures of low income that are used to try to capture poverty in Canada?

APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. Compare and contrast four different theoretical explanations of low income. How do they differ in their focus on the individual? 2. Reread the story of Macy in “Community Matters: Snapshot on Family 10” in A Closer Look. Name all of Macy’s sources of support. Now consider your own network of support. How is your support network different or the same? 3. What are some examples of instrumental and expressive support that are exchanged within low-income families? Compare these supports to those of your own family. Are there any kinds of instrumental and expressive support missing for low-income families?

FURTHER RESOURCES Campaign 2000. www.campaign2000.ca. The cross-Canada movement tracks how well governments have responded to the 1989 House of Commons resolution to end poverty by the year 2000. Caledon Institute of Social Policy. www.caledoninst.org. This research institute monitors and evaluates social policies for families. Four Feet Up, a documentary by Nance Ackerman This 2008 National Film Board film offers an intimate portrayal of growing up poor from the perspective of a child. Ontario Poverty Reduction Strategy. https://www.ontario.ca/page/realizing-our-potentialontarios-poverty-reduction-strategy-2014-2019. The province of Ontario has promised to administer a poverty reduction strategy.

KEY TERMS chronic poverty: a state of low income experienced by a person or group over an extended period (p. 81) feminization of poverty: women’s greater likelihood of experiencing low income when living singly or as a lone mother and without the financial support of a man (p. 81) filial piety: among Chinese children and adults, the practising of care, respect, and obedience toward one’s parents (p. 88) intergenerational transfers: resources transferred within and beyond the family to ensure the well-being of family members (p. 86)

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racialization of poverty: processes of colonialism, migration, and assimilation, as well as practices of racism and sexism, that create economic disadvantages for non-white and Indigenous persons and their families (p. 82) rate of poverty: the number of persons who fall below a low-income threshold (p. 81) Standard North American Family: a concept coined by feminist scholar Dorothy Smith to refer to the nuclear family but specifically how the nuclear family configuration is normalized and hegemonic; the standard by which other family configurations are evaluated against (p. 86)

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REFERENCES Banerjee, R. (2009). Income growth of new immigrants in Canada: Evidence from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics. Industrial Relations, 64(3), 466–488. Bezanson, K. (2006). Gender, the state, and social reproduction: Household insecurity in neo-liberal times. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Block, S., & Galabuzi, G.-E. (2011). Canada’s colour coded labour market: The gap for racialized workers. Toronto: Wellesley Institute and Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Retrieved from http://www.wellesleyinstitute.com/publications/canadas-colour-coded-labour -market-the-gap-for-racialized-workers Clement, W. (2001). Canadian political economy’s legacy for Sociology. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 26(3), 405–417. Comacchio, C. R. (1999). The infinite bonds of family domesticity in Canada, 1850–1940. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Edin, K., & Lein, L. (1997). Making ends meet: How single mothers survive welfare and low-wage work. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation. Eichler, M. (1997). Family shifts: Families, politics, and gender equality. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Elmelech, Y., & Lu, H.-H. (2004). Race, ethnicity, and the gender-poverty gap. Social Science Research, 33(1), 158–182. Employment and Social Development Canada. (2015). Financial security-low income incidence. Indicators of well-being. Retrieved from http://well-being.esdc.gc.ca/misme-iowb/.3ndic [email protected]?iid523#M_8 Evans, B. M., & Shields, J. (1998). “Reinventing” the third sector: Alternative service delivery, partnerships and the new public administration of the Canadian post-welfare state. Toronto, ON: Centre for Voluntary Sector Studies (CVSS), Ryerson University. Retrieved from http:// sectorsource.ca/resource/file/reinventing-third-sector-alternative-service-deliverypartnerships-and-new-public Finkel, A. (2006). Social policy and practice in Canada: A brief history. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier Press. Food Banks Canada. (2015). HungerCount 2015. Retrieved from https://www.foodbankscanada.ca/ hungercount2015 Fuller, S. (2015). Do pathways matter? Linking early immigrant employment sequences and later economic outcomes: Evidence from Canada. International Migration Review, 49(2), 355–405. Galabuzi, G.-E. (2006). Canada’s creeping economic apartheid: The economic segregation and social marginalization of racialized groups. Toronto, ON: Centre for Social Justice Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.socialjustice.org/index.php?page5canada-s-creeping-economic-apartheid Gazso, A. (2009). Reinvigorating the debate: Questioning the assumptions about and models of the “family” in social assistance policy. Women’s Studies International Forum, 31(2), 150–162. Gazso, A., & McDaniel, S. (2015). Families by choice and the management of low income through social supports. Journal of Family Issues, 36(3), 371–395. Gazso, A., McDaniel, S., & Waldron, I. (2016). Networks of social support to manage poverty: More changeable than durable. Journal of Poverty, 20, 441–463. doi:10.1080/10875549.2015.1112869 Gazso, A., & Waldron, I. (2009). Fleshing out the racial undertones of poverty for Canadian women and their families: Re-envisioning a critical integrative approach. Atlantis: A Women’s Studies Journal, 34(1), 132–141. Gazso, A., Waldron, I., & Noce, M. L. (2010). Meeting mothers’ needs: Mothers and the racialization of poverty in Toronto. Unpublished manuscript submitted to community partners.

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Rice, M. J., & Prince, J. J. (2013). Changing politics of Canadian social policy (2nd ed.). Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Rider, D. (2015, November 4). Toronto council launches 20-year war on poverty—with funding feuds on the horizon. Toronto Star. Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2015/11/04/ toronto-council-launches-20-year-war-on-poverty-with-funding-feuds-on-the-horizon.html Saulnier, C. M. (2009). Poverty reduction policies and programs: The causes and consequences of poverty: Understanding divisions and disparities in social and economic development in Nova Scotia (Social Development Report Series). Ottawa, ON: Canadian Council on Social Development. Schoeni, R. F. (1992). Another leak in the bucket? Public transfer income and private family support (Research Report No. 92-249). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Population Studies Center. Scoffield, H. (2013, September 13). National Household Survey: Richest are middle-aged, white men. Toronto Star. Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/09/11/national_ household_survey_richest_are_middleaged_white_men.html Séguin, L., Nikiéma, B., Gauvin, L., Lambert, M., Tu, M. T., Kakinami, L., & Paradis, G. (2012). Tracking exposure to child poverty during the first 10 years of life in a Quebec birth cohort. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 103(4), 270–276. Smith, D. (1993). The standard North America family: SNAF as an ideological code. Journal of Family Issues, 14(1), 50–65. Smith-Carrier, T., & Mitchell, J. (2015). Immigrants on social assistance in Canada: Who are they and why are they there? In D. Béland & P.-M. Daigneault (Eds.), Welfare reform in Canada: Provincial social assistance in comparative perspective (pp. 305–322). Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Stack, C. B. (1974). All our kin: Strategies for survival in a black community. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Stapleton, J. (with Kay, J.). (2015). The working poor in the Toronto region: Mapping working poverty in Canada’s richest city. Toronto, ON: Metcalf Foundation. Retrieved from http://metcalffoundation. com/stories/publications/the-working-poor-in-the-toronto-region-mapping-working-povertyin-canadas-richest-city Statistics Canada. (2011). National Household Survey (Catalogue No. 99-014-X2011048). Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/dt-td/Rp-eng.cfm?LANG=E&APATH= 3&DETAIL=0&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=0&GC=0&GID=0&GK=0&GRP=0&PID=107759 &PRID=0&PTYPE=105277&S50&SHOWALL=Yes&SUB=0&Temporal=2013&THEME= 98&VID=0&VNAMEE=&VNAMEF= Statistics Canada. (2013). Persons in low income before tax. Tables. Retrieved from http://www .statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/famil41c-eng.htm Statistics Canada. (2014). Low income cut-offs (1992 base) before tax. Retrieved from http://www .statcan.gc.ca/pub/75f0002m/2014003/tbl/tbl02-eng.htm Statistics Canada. (2016a). Low income cut-offs. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/ pub/75f0002m/2009002/s2-eng.htm Statistics Canada. (2016b). Low income measures. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/ pub/75f0002m/2015002/lim-mfr-eng.htm Townson, M. (2009). Women’s poverty and the recession. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Retrieved from https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/ publications/National_Office_Pubs/2009/Womens_Poverty_in_the_Recession.pdf Tweddle, A., Battle, K., & Torjman, S. (2015). Welfare incomes in 2014. Ottawa, ON: Caledon Institute of Social Policy. Retrieved from http://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/Detail/? ID=1086&IsBack=0

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Vosko, L. (2009). Managing the margins: Gender, citizenship, and the international regulation of precarious employment. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Wilson, S. J. (2005). Paid work, jobs, and the illusion of economic security. In N. Mandell (Ed.), Feminist issues: Race, class and sexuality (4th ed., pp. 226–246). Toronto, ON: Pearson Prentice Hall. Yalnizyan, A. (1994). Securing society: Creating Canadian social policy. In A. Yalnizyan, T. R. Ide, & A. J. Cordell (Eds.), Shifting time: Social policy and the future of work (pp. 17–71). Toronto, ON: Between the Lines. Yalnizyan, A. (2010). The rise of Canada’s richest 1%. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Retrieved from https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/ rise-canadas-richest-1

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SURVIVING AND THRIVING

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Chapter 7 Indigenous Families: Migration, Resistance, and Resilience Angele Alook

Chapter 8 Immigrant Families and Canada’s Changing Ethnoracial Diversity Mushira Mohsin Khan

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anada is a country in which Indigenous peoples have practised and continue to practise family life and cultural knowledge with the goal of passing down their knowledge and ways of life to younger generations. In the past, however, these efforts at intergenerational transmission were met with resistance. In the 1800s, European colonizers brought with them their own ideas about and practices of family, many of which were at odds with those of the Indigenous peoples. Fast-forward in time to the new millennium, to a nation where people from all over the world, immigrants and post-immigrants, each with their own meanings, practices, and processes of family, have now settled. This is the reality of contemporary family life in Canada. Part 4 of this collection features two chapters that explore how Indigenous and immigrant families have been and continue to be transformed through the social, cultural, and geographic processes of settlement and movement. Here, the focus is on continuity and change in family life for Indigenous peoples and immigrant families. In Chapter 7, Alook turns our attention to the experiences of young Indigenous adults and their families. She begins by calling attention to the fact that the families of First Peoples were dramatically transformed through European colonization. She then goes

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PART 4

Patterns of Indigeneity and (Im)migration

on to write about this history in the context of a discussion on the contemporary experiences of Indigenous families in Alberta. While Indigenous individuals’ relationships to the land are historically specific, she maintains, migration within Canada has also been part of this history. Through original research, Alook highlights the experiences of young Indigenous people who have moved from reserve to urban centres and back again, oftentimes more than once. In this chapter, she explores how Indigenous identity is preserved, despite the challenges of geographic mobility and historical and contemporary moments of oppression, largely through the maintenance of family and cultural relations. In Chapter 8, Khan discusses patterns of immigration across multiple racial and ethnocultural groups and time, noting that despite changes to immigration policy over time, the process remains a major source of constraint. Indeed, immigration, she argues, has and continues to be the source of some of the most significant settlement challenges that visible minority families face as intergenerational incongruence in the face of acculturation leads to conflict in families. Contemporary developments in family communication and intimacy as they pertain to transnational family dynamics are explored as new innovations.

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Indigenous Families: Migration, Resistance, and Resilience Angele Alook

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was attending a children’s birthday party, and I was sitting around with two other mothers. All three of us had left our community up north as teenagers to go to school in the city. All three of us had completed our postsecondary education and were all working in our chosen fields. We each had one young child under the age of 5. I realized all these similarities all at once, that our choice to pursue an education in our teens and early 20s had resulted in us finally experiencing motherhood in our early 30s. I began to share how my mother told me to come to terms with the fact that I may have only one child, given my age and career aspirations. So, I asked: “Do you think that’s true?” One mother didn’t agree and said, “Women are having children into their late 30s, even 40s, and I want to have another kid.” I replied: “Yeah, I guess you’re right. My mom also said that Native women in our community have healthy pregnancies into their late 30s.” We then started discussing the costs of child care and extracurricular activities, and timing a pregnancy around career goals. So, there you have it: educated, working Indigenous women trying to calculate when it was best to have a second child. As I later thought about this conversation, I thought of my relatives from the community that had their children in their late teens and early 20s—they didn’t have these types of conversations. I understood they had different, difficult conversations, about the struggle of having children at a young age, and oftentimes being lone parents with limited income. Nonetheless, one thing I have also learned is that in our community, motherhood is accepted no matter the age. Most traditional Indigenous cultures welcome children as blessings, and motherhood is an honoured role supported by extended family. These understandings have continued in Indigenous communities, but what has changed are women’s worries about income, education, and age of childbearing.

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L E AR NI NG O B JE C T I V E S After you have read this chapter, you will be able to: • apply an Indigenous feminist approach in examining family relations in rural, urban, and on-reserve settings • describe the four main tools of colonialism that resulted in the breakdown of Indigenous families • underst and Indigenous family relations through the processes of migration, specifically focusing on the experience of Cree families in Alberta • identify different ways in which Indigenous family formations act in resistance and resilience to colonialism and patriarchy

Indigenous peoples in Canada are a fast growing, young, and culturally diverse population with high mobility between urban and rural or reserve areas. In Canada, they include Status Indians, non-Status NEL

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Indians, Inuit, and Métis. Between 1996 and 2006, the Indigenous population “grew by 45%, nearly six times faster than the 8% rate of increase for the non-Indigenous population” (Statistics Canada, 2008, p. 6). In 2011, over one-quarter (28%) of the Indigenous population was under the age of 14, and 18.2 percent were between the ages of 15 and 24 (Statistics Canada, 2014, p. 15). In the last two Census periods, just over one-half of the Indigenous population in Canada lived in urban areas. Indigenous people, in general, are becoming increasingly urban, but there is still a large proportion of First Nations people living on reserves. A reserve is a tract of land set aside under the Indian Act and treaty agreements for exclusive use by a specific First Nations community. Members of the community possess the rights to live on this land, which is governed by the First Nations chief and council.* Compared to non-Indigenous Canadians, Indigenous people have a higher degree of mobility within cities, as well as in and out of cities (Environics Institute, 2010; Siggner & Costa, 2005; Skelton, 2002). Indigenous people in Edmonton, for example, are considered “highly mobile” compared to their nonIndigenous neighbours; 35 percent of Indigenous people moved within the city in 2006 (in comparison to 20% non-Indigenous) and 70 percent had moved within the city in the last five years (in comparison to 49% non-Indigenous) (Andersen, 2009, p. 12). In recent years, researchers have begun to explore how urban Indigenous people negotiate their identities within the city and how their presence within the city crosses the colonial boundaries that have been set by the state (Jackson, 2002; Lawrence, 2004; Skelton, 2002; Wilson & Peters, 2005). In their study of Anishinabek migration to urban centres in Ontario, Wilson and Peters (2005, p. 410) demonstrate that “urban First Nations migrants’ accounts of Indigenous attachment to land disrupt the dichotomous space of differences that are the legacy of colonialism in Canada.” Despite leaving the designated space of the reserve and becoming successfully integrated in city life, these Anishinabek individuals form identities that still have attachments to traditional lands. These types of complex ideas of home, belonging, and cultural identity are not just experienced by those Indigenous people who live in the city; Indigenous people living in society’s

designated space for them—the reserve—also experience these types of fluid cultural identities (Sturm, 2002). In this chapter, I adopt the lens of Indigenous feminism to explore the Indigenous identities and gender and family relations of Indigenous peoples in the context of migration patterns from the reserve to the city and perhaps vice versa. An Indigenous feminist lens requires examining how the structural impacts of patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism create the gendered, racialized, and/or classed everyday marginalization of Indigenous peoples, especially women (Green, 2007). My analysis is based on a review of secondary research and integration of my own research. I begin by reviewing the history of Indigenous peoples’ gender roles and family relations and how these were changed by colonialism. I then explore how traditional Indigenous understandings of family are resilient among contemporary Indigenous families, how family relations are shaped by choices to pursue school and work, and how Indigenous peoples make the choice to build healthy family relations in resistance to the historic colonial dismantling of Indigenous families.

The Colonial Breakdown of Indigenous Gender Roles and Family Relations The breakdown of Indigenous egalitarian gender roles and family relations was an intentional outcome of colonialism. Colonialism is the exploitation and subjugation of Indigenous peoples and dispossession of Indigenous lands by European imperial expansion. Colonialism began in the 15th century (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012) and continues today in the way Indigenous peoples in Canada fall under the separate legislation of the Indian Act. While Indigenous peoples are not a homogeneous group and considerable diversity of experience textures the lives of people from different nations, the case can be made that there were four main colonial tools to achieve the breakdown of family relations: (1) the destruction of egalitarian Indigenous gender roles; (2) the church and state’s introduction of Indian residential schools; (3) the child welfare system’s later taking of Indigenous

* For more information on the definition of “Indian Reserves,” see http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/government-policy/reserves.html?type=123&filename=Reserves.pdf.

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Dismantling of Gender and Family Roles There is a general understanding that pre-contact gender roles were much more egalitarian and balanced than the system of patriarchy introduced into our societies by colonialism and capitalism. As Kim Anderson (2000, p. 57) explains, “Our cultures promoted womanhood as a sacred identity, an identity that existed within a complex system of relations of societies that were based on balance.” Women held economic power in the distribution of community resources, and they played a role as decision makers in political matters key to community survival. The spiritual roles women held were linked to childbirth, creation, health, and well-being (Anderson, 2000). Overall, women’s roles were deemed as important as those of men. Anderson further discusses a landbased gendered division of labour, in which men “worked outside the community as hunters and warriors and women within, in areas of childcare, agriculture, food preparation and housing” (p. 59). Although there were recognized separate spheres of work for men and women, they “were not restricted in engaging in each other’s work if necessary” (p. 59). As Leigh (2009, p. 74) sees it, these differences in the spheres of labour can be described as “different-but-equal.” Dua’s (1999) historical analysis of the colonial nation-building project reveals how state policies resulted in different familial relations among the settler society and people of colour. In settler society, white women were largely encouraged to procreate and work only within the domestic sphere of nuclear families in order to build a white nation. European colonizers purposely sought to destroy Indigenous gender, sexual, and familial relations by replacing an egalitarian system with a colonial hierarchical and patriarchal system. As part of the politics of racial purity, residential schools and child welfare agencies were used to “forcibly separate” Indigenous children from their parents (Dua,

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children from their birth families and placing them in white peoples’ homes; and (4) the experience of gender discrimination resulting from the Indian Act.

Social movements continue to mobilize discussions of reconciliation, an ongoing response to the release of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

1999, p. 243). Indigenous peoples “did not have the right to live in a family context and the right to have the ‘family’ form of their choice” (p. 244). Our colonizers felt it was imperative that Indigenous women were disempowered; the systems of patriarchy and colonialism went hand in hand. Patriarchy is a social system and ideology in which family and society are organized under male domination. So, Indigenous women went from a system of balance between egalitarian gender roles to a system of imbalance being abruptly imposed in their communities and tipping the scales to disempower them. Indigenous women had their powerful roles in the economy, politics, and spirituality of the community taken away from them by the colonial rule of church and state.

The Harm of Residential Schools Our colonizers were also intent on destroying Indigenous societies by de-culturizing Indigenous children; their attempts to oppress the “Indian” in the child resulted in destroying the balance of Indigenous family life. In the following quotation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission* explains how residential schools served as a colonial tool to fulfill this oppressive purpose:

*The TRC was the result of the class action lawsuit against the federal government called the “Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement.” For five years (2010–15) the Commission documented the truth from those affected by residential schools. In June 2015, the Commission passed on all its records to the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, at the University of Manitoba. The Research Centre will continue the work of documenting this dark history and educating Canadians about it. For more information, see www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=10. NEL

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IN THE MEDIA Recognition Must Be Accompanied By Restitution The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has concluded its painstaking and pain-filled exposition of the misery inflicted by the policy of enforced residential schooling on Indigenous children and has issued its final report. In its evidence is the truth part: Canadian democratic governments legitimated genocide and human rights abuses against children. The residential school policy was not for the benefit of “Indians” but for settlers: it was intended to de-Indianize the youngest generations so that there would be “no Indians and no Indian problem,” in the crystal-clear words of Duncan Campbell Scott, the deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1932. It actually wasn’t much of an education program at all (note that the federal government still spends thousands less per student in reserve schools than provinces do in the public school system). The residential school policy was part of Canadian colonialism, along with land theft and genocide. Colonialism has inflicted incalculable damage on indigenous peoples of every generation.... Too many settler Canadians seem to think that by virtue of the colonized having told their truths, reconciliation is attained as we all just “get over it going forward.” Not so quick: in between truth and reconciliation there must be recognition of what happened in our collective name—the damage done by the democratic state to those who have been oppressed by definition since occupation, the illegal and immoral nature of this continuing state of affairs and the requirement for remediation of all of this.... This recognition was withheld by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, which refused to adopt and

implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.... The Harperites also refused to recognize the intergenerational damage consequent to colonialism in the suffering demonstrated by outrageous levels of incarceration of indigenous peoples; disintegration of indigenous families marked by the loss of children into the largely incompetent and indifferent child welfare systems; the under- and unemployment of indigenous peoples in their own communities and elsewhere; the lack of access to basics of human rights and citizenship such as education, clean water, health care and housing; and the rising barometer of pathology in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women body count. Indigenous people voted in unprecedented numbers to get rid of the Harperites and bring in a federal government that will pay some attention to Indigenous concerns. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is making all the right gestures to date, and the opposition New Democrats and Green Party are supportive of these. This is evidence of some measure of recognition—a necessary, though insufficient, condition for reconciliation. Recognition must be accompanied by restitution. Unless and until the colonial state returns at least some of the land, negotiates shared jurisdiction over resources and tax room and makes other compensatory amends, there will be no reconciliation. Saying “sorry” is meaningless without actions that make amends....

Residential schools disrupted families and communities. They prevented elders from teaching children long-valued cultural and spiritual traditions and practices. They helped kill languages. These were not side effects of a well-intentioned system: the purpose of the residential school system was to separate children from the influences of their parents and their community, so as to destroy their culture. The impact was devastating. (Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2012, p. 1)

the stories of school survivors and the effects of the schools on generations of Indigenous peoples were ignored. The Commission is perceived to have created an opportunity for healing, but how this might occur is still under debate. (See “Recognition Must Be Accompanied by Restitution” in In the Media.) By taking Indigenous children from their parents, the residential school system committed cultural genocide, stripping languages, cultures, ceremonies, and spirituality from Indigenous people. Colonizers attempted to take our humanity away from us and forced upon us oppressive ideologies, what Janice Acoose refers to as

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Source: Green (2015). Quoted and excerpted from the December 21 Opinion section of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-star phoenix/20151221/281663958967130.

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a “white-eurocanadian-christian-patriarchy” and what St. Denis refers to as “western patriarchy” (Acoose, 1995; St. Denis, 2007). Children were separated from their parents so they could no longer learn the stories and cultural traditions of their Elders. In addition to the loss of Indigenous cultural practices and languages, these children were taken away from the love and care of their large extended families and isolated in cold institutions, where they were often subjected to years of neglect and physical, sexual, and spiritual abuse. The residential school system emerged in the late 19th century. It was a massive undertaking by the church and state to build missionary-type schools across Canada that stole children and forced them to be clothed, fed, and taught in ways different than within their communities. In fact, many government and church reports throughout the existence of the residential school system documented the inability of the church and government to run such a massive colonial project (Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2012). There were major shortcomings in the management of the residential school system, and the mistreatment of Indigenous children was a constant critique by the colonizers themselves (Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2012). Nonetheless, the colonial project carried on in the belief that destroying the “Indian” was a necessary project in order to assimilate and civilize the “savage.”

Interference of the Child Welfare System From the inception of the residential school system until the last residential school closed in 1996, Indigenous parents and communities fought to close the evil institutions; however, just as their doors began to close, the pathologization of Indigenous parents as unfit parents began. Years of abuse in residential school had begun to be manifested in unhealthy parenting practices (Blackstock, 2007). Thus, a new system of taking away Indigenous children was created—and the effects were substantial. In what was referred to as the “Sixties Scoop,” almost every extended family or clan was affected: “Only 1 percent of all children in care were Native in 1959, but by the end of the 1960’s, 30 to 40 percent of all legal wards were Indigenous children, even though they formed less than 4 percent of the national population” (Anderson, 2003, p. 176). NEL

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Between 1960 and 1990, more than 11,000 Indian Status children were adopted, often outside their home province and sometimes outside Canada (Blackstock & Trocmé, 2005). As many Indigenous adults were not considered to be fit parents and there was a lack of foster homes in Indigenous communities, most children ended up in homes with white families outside their communities and away from their families. As these children were being “scooped up” from their communities—sometimes by the busload—there was little effort to understand that what made parents seem unfit, e.g. the apparent abuse and neglect of children, were actually outcomes created by colonialism, including poverty, unemployment, and substandard housing (Blackstock & Trocmé, 2005). Instead, a colonial child welfare system deemed it best to take Indigenous children away, again, from their parents, grandparents, extended families, cultures, and languages. Oftentimes, whole families were broken apart, with siblings separated and raised by different families; in this way, all family connections were broken. According to Blackstock and Trocmé (2005, p. 13), there were three times more Indigenous children in child welfare care at the beginning of the new millennium than at the height of residential school operations in the 1940s. Indigenous children are more likely to be taken by child welfare and put in out-of-home placements than non-Indigenous children, often because they come from poor lone-mother families in which the mothers themselves have experienced maltreatment as children (Trocmé, Knoke, & Blackstock, 2004). Therefore, as a colonial agent, the Canadian child welfare system will gladly oblige to continue the status quo of intergenerational broken Indigenous families, which beget further broken families.

The Indian Act and Gendered Discrimination Finally, the Indian Act has broken families apart based on gender discrimination and perceived racial differences between Indigenous peoples enacted in law. During the fur trade and early contact between Indigenous peoples and European explorers, there were intermarriages between Indigenous women and European men, creating mixed-blood children and communities. Oftentimes, these marriages were formed as alliances between Indigenous communities and Europeans. But

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once the colonial administration began keeping track of Indians, and once the white settler project of nationbuilding got under way full force, these mixed marriages and mixed-blood children came under attack. Throughout the colonial encounter, “Indianness” was gendered in various ways. For example, the colonial government negotiated with only men, which cut out Indigenous women from political activities, devalued mixed marriages, and removed Indigenous women’s mixed-blood children from white society. According to Lawrence (2004), the existence of white settler societies was (and continues to be) “predicated on maintaining racial apartheid, on emphasizing racial difference, both white superiority and Native inferiority” (p. 48). In order to distinguish between white settler society and Indigenous societies, those defined as mixed blood had to be regulated. Laws were created to divide society into three groupings: white settlers, Indians with and without status, and mixed-blood “non-Indians.” Lawrence (2004, p. 50) explains that Indianness was first defined in gendered terms in the Indian Act of 1850, “so that Indian status depended either on Indian descent or marriage to a male Indian.” The designation of “status” bestows upon Indigenous people the right to be considered an Indian under the Indian Act, which can come with it certain rights based on the treaties signed between Indigenous peoples and the state. Unfortunately, out of this legislation came paternalistic types of relationships between the state and Indigenous peoples, as well as the divisive binary discourse of Status and non-Status Indians. In 1869, under the Gradual Enfranchisement Act, “not only were wives removed from inheritance rights and automatically enfranchised with their husbands, but Section 6 began a process of escalating gender discrimination that would not be definitively changed until 1985” (Lawrence, 2004, p. 50). The goals of the 1869 legislation were “to remove as many individuals as possible from Indianness and, as part of this process, to enforce Indianness as solely a state of ‘racial purity’ by removing those children as ‘half-breed’ from Indian communities” (p. 51). This legislation created gender division by enabling the children of white women and Indian men to stay in Indigenous communities, while the children of Indian women and white men, defined as “half-breed,” were not. Lawrence (2004) attributes this division solely to the patriarchal understanding of family under the colonial administration. Later changes to the Indian Act made it so that Indian 104

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descent flowed directly from the male line, and Indian women who “married out” were further penalized (Lawrence, 2004). Under the 1985 Indian Act (Bill C-31), it seemed that Indigenous women momentarily achieved some justice. Those who had previously lost Indian status based on gender discrimination could be reinstated. When examined closely, however, this legislation made it easier for both men and women to lose Indian status; what’s more, gender discrimination has not been completely removed. Women no longer lose their Indian status for marrying out but “all Native people now face certain restrictions on their ability to pass status on to their children,” which is known as the slow “bleeding off ” of Indian status (Lawrence, 2004, p. 64). Although women who previously lost their status based on gender discrimination can be reinstated, they can pass their status on only to their children; their grandchildren will lose their status. This is known as the “second generation cut-off ” (Lawrence, 2004, p. 64). Further, some Indian women who are reinstated get only “partial status”; that is, they can pass status on to their children only if they marry someone with Indian status (Lawrence, 2004, p. 65). Lawrence (2004) points out that whole Indigenous communities were never even given the opportunity to receive Indian status. Today, many of those who were previously left out of the Indian Act now define themselves as “mixed-blood” or “Métis.” In this context, mixed-blood refers to individuals who are the products of recent intermarriages, while Métis refers to those who can trace their descendants to historic mixedblood communities. Like “the category ‘Indian,’ which homogenizes the identities of dozens of distinct Indigenous nations in Canada, the category’ Métis’ currently encapsulates not only the different historical experiences of being mixed blood that existed under the fur trade but also the tremendous differences that exist among contemporary Métis” (Lawrence, 2004, p. 84).

Identity, Gender, and Family Relations in Flux: Between Wabasca and Edmonton In fall 2011 and spring 2012, I conducted my own study to examine the development of Indigenous cultural identity in the midst of migration between

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reserve, rural, and urban areas, and in the context of the colonial history outline above. At the same time, I was interested in gender differences experienced in the migration process and how this process is shaped by the choices that young Indigenous adults make in terms of education and entering the labour market. I carried out my study as an Indigenous feminist by using an Indigenous decolonizing research methodology. According to Tuhiwai Smith (2012), a decolonizing methodology allows for Indigenous scholars to begin to produce knowledge based on Indigenous worldviews, avoiding Western colonial research practices that exploit Indigenous peoples. Local knowledge is used to frame the particular research project (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012). In this project, I used Cree traditional knowledge by applying the method of acimowin, Cree storytelling, in my interviews with Indigenous community members. I considered individual stories as part of the larger community story and considered the interplay and interdependency of many stories told all at once. The interview guide was also based on the Cree concept of niwakohmanak (“all my relations”), keeping in mind the cultural importance of family, or what Steinhauer (2007) refers to as the importance of “relationality.”

My research took place in my urban community of Edmonton, Alberta, and my home community of Wabasca.* Edmonton has the second largest per capita urban Indigenous population in Canada. Wabasca is located 330 km north of Edmonton in the Athabasca oil sands deposit region; it is a petroleum-dependent community. Wabasca was the final stop of the adhesion of Treaty 8 in 1899, in which Indigenous peoples of the area were racially divided between Status Indians, nonStatus Indians, and Métis based on the arbitrary decision of the federal government’s treaty commissioner. As a part of an Indigenous research methodology, my research was completed in consultation with community members in Wabasca. Approval was received from political leaders of Bigstone Cree Nation and the Municipal District of Opportunity in Wabasca. In total, I interviewed 31 participants. The sample was divided between Edmonton and Wabasca residents, and equally divided between males and females. Most of the community members interviewed in the Wabasca area were married or had common-law partners, and had two or three children. Few people in the Edmonton sample had children, and they tended to be single, which seemed to connect to their pursuit of their careers (see Table 7.1).

Wabasca: Bigstone Cree Nation Reserve (On-reserve)

Wabasca: Municipal District of Opportunity (Rural)

City of Edmonton (Urban)

Total

Male

4

4

7

15

Female

3

4

9

16

Individuals with no children

1

0

8

9

Parents with 1 child

0

2

6

8

Parents with 2+ children

6

6

2

14

Single

2

0

13

15

Married/Common-law

5

8

3

16

Gender:

Family Status:

Marital status:

TABLE 7.1

Study Sample Characteristics: Gender and Family

(N=31)

*In 2011, Wabasca had a population of 3,509 people, with 2,207 people living on Bigstone Cree Nation (BCN) reserve surrounding the two Wabasca lakes and 1,302 people living in the Municipal District of Opportunity 17 (MD), known as the hamlet of Wabasca. The MD, the third largest municipality in Alberta, stretches across 3.14 million hectares, while the BCN “checkerboard” reserve land covers only 20,000 hectares of land. Bigstone Cree Nation has six separate plots of land within the community. NEL

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Child as Central In my research, it soon became clear that children were central to the community, and families were organized along this model. As I interviewed working parents in Wabasca and Edmonton and we discussed their life stories, it was evident that many of the choices they made in their lives were based on their perceptions that the well-being and development of their children was central to family and community. Indigenous cultures often consider children to be sacred gifts and children are valued members of the community; they are taught and nurtured by grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles. In many Indigenous societies, there is an understanding that the survival of our ways of being and our future self-determination are contingent on how we care for our children. I begin by discussing how the child’s wellbeing is central to where a family chooses to live.

© Nativestock.com/Marilyn Angel Wynn/ Getty

One key finding that emerged from my research was an understanding of contemporary Indigenous family formations and practices, especially as they are mediated by processes of migration. In essence, I found that underlying understandings of cultural identity were Indigenous understandings of relationships and how these shaped life choices made around family, school, and work. Understandings of identity came down to questions of where the self is placed in relation to family and community, and choices made in building family in young adulthood. In the remainder of this chapter, I draw upon this qualitative data to illustrate contemporary Indigenous family relations and to consider how colonialism and patriarchy have had an impact on family in my community. As Green (2007, p. 30) explains, a lot of energy in Indigenous feminism has been directed at the “imposition of imperialism, colonialism, racism and sexism from the dominating societies. Indigenous feminism has also illuminated power abuses within Indigenous communities, organizations and families.” Ultimately, I show whether and how Indigenous young adults and parents resist colonialism and patriarchy in their experiences of migration to and from the city, how traditional Indigenous understandings of family continue or change as people migrate, and how contemporary practices of building family relations can act in resilience and resistance to colonial forces.

Motherhood is an honoured role that is further supported by the extended family in Indigenous communities.

Grandparents and Siblings as Co-caregivers For some community members, a major reason for staying in the traditional territory of Wabasca is because family, especially grandparents, help with child care daily. Sheila (age 34, married with two children) explains how her mother was the primary caregiver of all her grandchildren when they were toddler and preschool age: … my parents are here and my brothers and sisters and my husband’s family are from here too. I just like all the support … if we didn’t live here than I would probably have a hard time getting somebody to look after my kids if we had to go somewhere or do something. My mom’s raised … 18 or 19 grandchildren and she’s kept every single one of them until they were ready to go to school … As a child, Carla (age 30, married with two children) spent much of her time being cared for and taught by her grandparents, and now her own children experience this same special grandchild–grandparent relationship. Beyond that, due to all the childcare support she receives, Carla is able to focus well on her job. Carla values the intergenerational nurturing and learning that come from Elders. I remember always being with my Kohkom and Mosom* everywhere, everywhere they went I wanted to go and that’s where I was during my childhood mainly … picking berries with Kohkom and going pine cone picking with Kohkom and Mosom or going to on a little trip on a Sunday to another reserve to visit. It was always Kohkom and Mosom helping and now that’s what’s happening with my girls.

*In the Cree language, Kohkom means grandmother and Mosom means grandfather. I will use these terms throughout.

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Carla goes on to explain that, on occasion, if her sister needs child care she can help. For example, she will take her niece while her sister is at hockey. In exchange, Carla’s sister will take Carla’s children on another occasion. Carla and her sister seem to have a system of sharing child care daily. She explains that “we make a schedule around each other’s schedule, and we’re constantly helping and … we’re not alone, we have each other all the time.” Many of the parents in Wabasca described how they choose to stay in the community because of the availability of support they receive from parents and siblings. From an Indigenous perspective, grandparents are highly valued as teachers with lifelong wisdom and as a resource in childrearing. By raising children in a community of grandparent and sibling co-caregivers, mothers and fathers can maintain some autonomy and focus on their other roles in the community, such as employment roles. Building Healthy Relations in the City For parents in Edmonton, children were central to the decision to move and build healthy family relations in the city, especially for those that left behind unhealthy family histories in Wabasca. During their childhood and youth, some community members had experienced instability because of different factors such as abuse, violence, alcoholism, addictions, unstable family relations, and the foster care system. These community members had the personal agency to move to the city to pursue an education and steady employment as part of creating stability in their own lives and in the lives of their children. Building healthy family relations in the city also meant choosing to live in urban areas because children had greater access to better education and extracurricular and cultural activities. It could also include connecting to the local Indigenous community and maintaining extended family networks. I illustrate this theme with the story of a mother who left unhealthy family relations and moved to the city to build a better life for her child. Louise (age 33, single mother of one child) described the instability of her upbringing: My parents never lived together … they divorced when I was two. My mom never lived on reserve, she always lived in towns and my dad lived on reserve (in Wabasca) … throughout the years of growing up, they sort of bounced us back and forth … till my dad just wouldn’t allow us to go back to my mom. NEL

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These early experiences of bouncing between both parents’ homes and sometimes being in foster care led Louise into a path of addictions as a teenager. However, she overcame these addictions by going to a treatment centre that used traditional ceremonies, teachings by Elders, and connections with Indigenous culture as healing. Sober and in her early 20s, she found herself in an abusive relationship with a boyfriend. She explains her choice to leave the boyfriend and the reserve for the city as motivated by a desire to give her child a better life: I lived … for 5 years with my son’s father and I was going through some things at the time with that relationship and needed to leave and didn’t want to go back to my reserve and I just came to Edmonton and put myself in a shelter … it was scary … but also I was motivated for my son, not to go backwards. While at the women’s shelter Louise was encouraged to go back to school, and she eventually completed a college diploma program in social work. She quickly found stable employment with an Indigenous agency in the city. She describes the importance of having stability in the home in her raising of her son: I think before I had my son, there was no such thing as stability in my life; it was always on the go, on the go, but having my son, throughout all these years that’s one thing I’ve never not showed him was stability. Throughout Louise’s son’s life, they have lived in the same house and her son has gone to the same school. Louise has purposely kept this stable environment for her son to avoid the instability she experienced growing up. In addition, she has been a part of the cultural revitalization movement in Edmonton. She attends traditional healing practices with Elders and cultural events such as powwows, sweat lodges, and round dances. These traditional practices create a sense of community and stability for her family.

Family as Central Aunties Building Healthy Relations I now focus on some of the single childless community members that participated in this research. In two cases, good family relations rather than the well-being of children informed the choice of where to live.

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I never realized how much of a tight knit family we are, me and my sisters and my mom…. Anytime someone is sick or someone passes away or anytime someone needs to be there I’m the type of person that will drop what I’m doing and go back home and be there with my family [and] no matter what. Deborah has moved to a different province to live with her mother so that her mother would not be alone, she has moved to be with a sister who lost her boyfriend in a tragic accident, and she has moved to be with her sisters when they had babies. For most of her adult life, she has worked consistently in Indigenous organizations in family support services and in criminal justice support services. She has a very strong sense of duty to the family and community. Deborah seems to be one of those “aunties” that Indigenous persons are familiar with in the community (see also Anderson, 2000): the aunty with a steady job and a stable home who is always there to support others morally, emotionally, and financially—and need not be a biological relation. One of the most compelling aunty stories was told by Tracy (age 34). Tracy is single and lives in Edmonton. She told of her continued caregiving to some of the children she worked with in a group home because she knew that the system was “messed up” and neglected the children’s emotional needs: Still until this day I’m close to a family. I worked at a house of 5 kids, all siblings from ages 3 to 11. That was my shift for one full year so I was there when they came home from school and I was there when they went to bed. Every day for a year, and I spent Christmas with them. For years, I didn’t spend holidays in Wabasca because I was their caregiver…. Tracy took on the role of an aunty for these children from the group home, and she cared for them as if they were her own kin. Just as Deborah described dropping everything for family members, Tracy also showed dedication to being a support for others in the community. Both Deborah and Tracy had similar stories. They came from homes where their parents had separated and they were raised 108

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in blended families. Both had several siblings, with whom they exchanged support. Both grew in strength, in an understanding of Indigenous womanhood, and in responsibility for family and community through strong relationships to their Kohkoms (grandmothers). Cultural Identity and Practices For the community members in this study, a connection to family was central to their cultural identity and maintaining of traditional cultural practices. (See “Seeking and Preserving Culture amid Multiple Obstacles” in Intersections.) Paulina (age 30, mother of three children) found that staying on reserve allowed her to continue her lifelong learning of traditional, Cree women’s practices of food preparation. She discusses the importance of this traditional knowledge: It keeps me at my own roots. I’m still learning. Staying home I get to still help with the older people with meat cutting, the traditional foods … it’s important…. I didn’t skin it but I can cut up a moose, cut up the meats and divide the meats…. I’ve prepared duck. I make duck soup. I can prepare fish ready to be smoked. Family means maintaining relationships with older women who can teach Paulina traditional practices. In this sense, her traditional teachers are her kin. She

Megapress / Alamy Stock Photo

Deborah (age 33) is a single woman who lives in Edmonton. She says that family has always influenced where she lives. She elaborates:

Indigenous teachings are passed on from generation to generation.

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explains how she has maintained a close relationship with a traditional teacher since she was 16: “She was my ex’s mom and then we all became close … and we just stayed friends and she has taught me lots.” Paulina’s strong commitment to learning her cultural traditions also helps her in challenging Western understandings of learning, especially by passing on her knowledge to members of other generations. Isaac (age 33) is a Métis man living off-reserve. He maintains cultural practices of hunting and fishing in the traditional territory around Wabasca. For Isaac, maintaining his cultural roots for himself and his family means staying close to his grandparents, following in their own and other Elders’ traditions, and feeling a sense of connection to his community and the land: We know who our grandparents are. We know where they live. We know what they do from day to day. I know what they used to do because we copied them … and how they grew up and how it’s changed.… I guess because when my wife and I were talking about … how life would be different from the city … we’d feel so disconnected from everybody else around us. And when you’re in the city you feel like, that, you’re a minority ... and you’re always aware of that….

Indigenous Models of Family: Resistance and Resilience By examining these stories of Indigenous families in Wabasca and Edmonton, we can see complex race, class, and gender relations at work. One thing that was clear is that, in most cases, Indigenous understandings of family relations seemed to persist despite the colonial structures—namely, the church and state’s patriarchal family models, the residential school, child welfare systems, and the Indian Act— which have sought to dismantle Indigenous families. Moreover, the cultural identities of Indigenous young adults are most intimately tied to family relations—whether these be good or bad—and no matter the processes of migration to and from Wabasca. For families in Wabasca, the belief in children as central to community was behind some individuals choosing to stay and raise their children among a network of co-caregivers of grandparents and siblings. As well, families chose to remain in Wabasca to maintain NEL

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INTERSECTIONS SEEKING AND PRESERVING CULTURE AMID MULTIPLE OBSTACLES Trevor lived among white people in Edmonton, part of an Indigenous minority. Trevor had a highly mobile childhood through which he lived in several different foster care homes away from his family. When I asked Trevor about his experience of moving around as a foster child and specifically if people knew he was Indigenous, he responded: I’ve been in a lot of homes but you never actually think or feel like it’s your home because you just get kicked out of it or moved for some stupid reason…. I’m trying to find my place…. Yeah, the white people knew I was Native and the Native people called me white. So when I was growing up in Wabasca, basically everyone called me moniyaw [white person]. But then when I went to work they’d start making Native jokes because they could see I’m Native. During our interview, I sensed his optimism about finding his place in the world, but also a veiled sadness associated with what it was like to be a fair-skinned Native kid being moved around to different communities. Asked further about his cultural identity, Trevor described a resistant, resilient proud Native identity: “My mom used to say ‘white people think we are shit’ so I always tried to prove her wrong. So, I tried to take pride in being Native and prove them wrong …” Trevor knows little Cree but imperative phrases, such as “astam napesisak” (“come here, my boys”), speaks to a time in his life when he lived with his mother. The foster care system acted as a colonial power in Trevor’s life, breaking the bonds he once had with his mother and brothers, but only temporarily severed his connection with his language and culture.

family connections with the large extended family networks that provided a system of shared childcare support for young families. For families with children in Edmonton, the belief in children as central to community also underlined the choices individuals made to move to the city to build healthy family networks. Parents in the city chose to leave behind unhealthy family relations

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through which they experienced violence, abuse, drugs, and alcohol: relations created by the colonial dismantling of generations of Indigenous families. Family was central to understandings of community in both Wabasca and Edmonton. Staying in the traditional territory in Wabasca allowed community members to maintain connections to cultural roots in the community, their Elders, and traditional

teachers. Community members could learn and pass on traditions of hunting, harvesting, and practices of living off and sharing the land. Some community members who chose to move to the city also maintained connections to Cree language and culture. Indeed, for those single childless community members living in the city, family connections were central to their cultural identity.

CHAPTER SUMMARY In this chapter, I have explored historical pasts and the contemporary Indigenous family experiences. I began with a focus on the importance of understanding Indigenous young adults as a unique population, given their young age and high mobility. I then discussed how historical, colonial tools have transformed Indigenous family life over time. Having set this context, I turned to my own research to explore how family is experienced by Indigenous people who live in Wabasca or Edmonton, or a mix of the two. I find, overwhelmingly, that Indigenous family meanings and practices are a source of cultural identity. Moreover, they persist in resistance and resilience to the colonial structures that sought to destroy them. In the face of a history of colonialism and patriarchy imposed by church and state, which resulted in the dismantling of family, Indigenous people in this study have remained resilient by maintaining some traditional Indigenous understandings of family; they have also proven to be defiantly resistant to efforts to break the family by making choices to build healthy family networks and maintain cultural identity while pursuing higher education and work in contemporary society.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. What are some demographic characteristics and behaviours of Indigenous young adults that make their family experiences important to study? 2. Why were residential schools such a powerful and harmful colonial tool? 3. How might Indigenous understandings of family be different from conventional, nuclear family definitions? 4. How might the findings from a study using an Indigenous methodology differ from a study that does not?

APPLICATION QUESTIONS Using what you have learned in this chapter, examine the interview quotations from community members cited to answer the following questions: 1. How have colonialism and patriarchy affected Indigenous understandings of cultural identity? 2. How do the quotations from Sheila and Carla show that Indigenous understandings of the family have been resilient and yet adaptive to colonialism? 3. What did you learn from the stories of Deborah and Tracy about how the roles of Indigenous women continue to be varied and important in the urban Indigenous community? 4. How does Trevor’s story show how Indigenous cultural identity is a form of resistance and resilience? 110

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FURTHER RESOURCES “Bigstone’s Lost Opportunity,” by Tamsin McMahon in Maclean’s magazine. http://site. macleans.ca/longform/bigstones-lost-opportunity. This 2014 magazine article provides a portrait of the community of Wabasca within the oil sands region of Alberta. It focuses on the disparities of land and resources between the First Nations reserves and the rich municipality. We Were Children, a National Film Board of Canada documentary. www.nfb.ca/film /we_were_children/trailer/we_were_children_trailer. This 2012 film is based on the experiences of two residential school survivors. It deals with the abuse, trauma, and cultural genocide they experienced while attending school and how these experiences affected them later in life. A Recognition of Being: Reconstructing Native Womanhood by Kim Anderson (Toronto: Sumach Press, 2000) This book provides a comprehensive historical understanding of traditional Indigenous women’s roles and the ways they were dismantled through colonialism and patriarchy. It explores gender and identity in Indigenous communities in Canada, and how contemporary Native womanhood can be reconstructed by reclaiming our past. Decolonizing Methodologies Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith (New York: Zed Books, 2012) This is a seminal book on decolonizing research methodologies and incorporating Indigenous worldviews into research by Indigenous scholars. It begins by tracing the colonial history of research conducted on Indigenous peoples and proposes a new decolonizing approach for the future. First Nations Family and Caring Society of Canada. https://fncaringsociety.com. This website facilitates the sharing of resources in support of the empowerment of children, youth, and families in First Nations communities.

KEY TERMS colonialism: the exploitation and subjugation of Indigenous peoples and dispossession of Indigenous lands by European imperial expansion (p. 100) decolonizing methodology: a methodological research approach whereby Indigenous scholars produce knowledge about Indigenous peoples based on Indigenous worldviews (p. 105) Indigenous feminism: a theoretical approach that considers how patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism create the gendered, racialized, classed realities of specifically Indigenous peoples, especially women (p. 100) migration: the physical movement of people between social environments (p. 100)

patriarchy: a social system and ideology in which family and society are organized under male domination (p. 101) reserves: a tract of land set aside under the Indian Act and treaty agreements for exclusive use by a specific First Nations community (p. 100) residential schools: government-sponsored religious schools designed to remove Indigenous children from their families and to assimilate them into Euro-Canadian colonial lifestyles (p. 100) Truth and Reconciliation Commission: a five-year period (2010–2015) in which the stories of Indigenous persons’ experiences of residential schools were collected in response to a class-action lawsuit (p. 101)

REFERENCES Acoose, J. (1995). Iskwewak Kah Ki Yaw Ni Wahkomakanak: Neither Indian princess nor easy squaw. Toronto, ON: Women’s Press. Andersen, C. (2009). Indigenous Edmonton: A statistical story—2009. Edmonton, AB: Indigenous Relations Office, City of Edmonton. Anderson, K. (2000). A recognition of being: Reconstructing native womanhood. Toronto, ON: Sumach Press. NEL

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Anderson, K. (2003). Vital signs: Reading colonialism in contemporary adolescent family planning. In K. Anderson & B. Lawrence (Eds.), Strong women stories: Native vision and community survival (pp. 173–190). Toronto, ON: Sumach Press. Blackstock, C. (2007). Residential schools: Did they really close or just morph into child welfare? Indigenous Law Journal, 6(1), 71–78. Blackstock, C., & Trocmé, N. (2005). Community-based child welfare for Indigenous children: Supporting resilience through structural change. Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, 24(12), 12–33. Dua, E. (1999). Beyond diversity: Exploring the ways in which the discourse of race has shaped the institution of the nuclear family. In E. Dua & A. Robertson (Eds.), Scratching the surface: Canadian anti-racist feminist thought (pp. 237–259). Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars’ Press and Women’s Press. Environics Institute. (2010). Urban Indigenous peoples survey: Edmonton report. Toronto, ON: Author. Green, J. (2007). Taking account of Indigenous feminism. In J. Green (Ed.), Making space for Indigenous feminism (pp. 20–32). Winnipeg, MB: Fernwood. Green, J. (2015, December 21). Recognition must be accompanied by restitution. Saskatoon StarPhoenix. Retrieved from https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-starpho enix/20151221/281663958967130 Jackson, D. D. (2002). Our elders lived it: American Indian identity in the city. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press. Lawrence, B. (2004). “Real” Indians and others: Mixed-blood urban native peoples and Indigenous nationhood. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. Leigh, D. (2009). Colonialism, gender and the family in North America: For a gendered analysis of Indigenous struggles. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 9(1), 70–88. Siggner, A., & Costa, R. (2005). Indigenous conditions in Census metropolitan areas, 1981–2002. Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada. Skelton, I. (2002). Residential mobility of Indigenous single mothers in Winnipeg: An exploratory study of chronic mobility. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 17(2), 127–144. Statistics Canada. (2008). Indigenous peoples in Canada in 2006: Inuit, Métis, and First Nations, 2006 Census (Catalogue No. 97-558-XIE). Ottawa, ON: Minister of Industry. Statistics Canada. (2014). Indigenous peoples in Canada: First Nations People, Métis and Inuit (Catalogue No. 99-011-X). Ottawa, ON: Minister of Industry. St. Denis, V. (2007). Feminism is for everyone: Indigenous women, feminism and diversity. In J. Green (Ed.), Making space for Indigenous feminism (pp. 33–51). Winnipeg, MB: Fernwood. Steinhauer, E. (2007). Parental choice in First Nations communities: Is there really a choice? Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta. Sturm, C. (2002). Blood politics: Race, culture and identity in the Cherokee nation of Oklahoma. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Trocmé, N., Knoke, D., & Blackstone, C. (2004). Pathways to the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in Canada’s child welfare system. Social Service Review, 78(4), 577–600. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2012). They came for the children: Canada, Indigenous peoples, and residential schools. Winnipeg, MB: Author. Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. New York, NY: Zed Books Wilson, K., & Peters, E. J. (2005). “You can make a place for it”: Remapping urban First Nations spaces of identity. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 23, 395–413.

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Immigrant Families and Canada’s Changing Ethno-racial Diversity Mushira Mohsin Khan

Ghader Bsmar has seen her first squirrel and sampled Québec maple syrup. Her husband, Hamzeh Morad, has been behind the wheel of a Honda 2005, albeit only on a Toronto side street. Their son Feras, 4, can count to 10 in English, and

Film Board/Library and Archives ©Chris Ken Lund/National Burns/iStockphoto.com Canada/PA-152023

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belt out the names of random vegetables. “Tomato, tomato!” he says, before adding in Arabic: “There are no more monsters here in Canada, only toys.” The Morad family, Syrians who fled the civil war, arrived in Toronto Dec. 21 from Amman, Jordan. Already, it feels like they’ve been here for months. “When we left Jordan, we wanted to start a new chapter. We thought it would take a year to adjust,” said Ghader, 25, through a translator. “But I think things are going well. The people are so kind and already we feel we know them.” Thomas Ma, a restaurant owner, is an immigrant from Canton, China, who came to Canada in 1956, at the age of 24. His grandfather lived in Victoria; his father lived in Vancouver and worked for the Union Steamship Company for 46 years before he retired. Ma’s grandfather had retired and gone back to China during World War II but his father chose to remain in Vancouver. Ma had not wanted to come to Canada. He had a good life in China—a job, friends, a girlfriend. But his father was ill when he retired, and Ma “wanted to be the good son,” so he came to Canada to look after him. His father died in 1966. Ma’s grandmother in China was blind, so his mother stayed there to look after her, but later she joined Ma in Canada and lived here until her death in 1997. Sources: Jimenez, M. (2016). Quoted and excerpted from the January 14, 2015 edition of The Toronto Star, http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/01/14/you-are-likefamily-the-morad-family-happily-settles-in-to-toronto.html. Reprinted with permission – Torstar Syndication Services; Seniors’ Stories (n.d.). Quoted and excerpted from Thomas Ma, “A Life in Vancouver’s Kitchens,” http://seniorsstories.vcn.bc.ca/2014/07/31/ thomas-ma-life-vancouver-kitchens/.

L E AR NI NG O B JE C T I V E S After you have read this chapter, you will be able to: • explain changes in immigration patterns among and across racial/ethnic groups in Canada • generate understandings of key concepts relevant to immigrant family life, namely, acculturation, filial obligation, family shame, intergenerational solidarity, and cultural brokering • adopt an intersectional approach to explain how social, cultural, political, and legal exigencies may influence immigrant families over the life course • identify three emergent living arrangements: multi-generational households, “astronaut families,” and ­families with “satellite kids” • examine changes to Canadian immigration policy and the effects of globalization on work/ labour patterns and experiences

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Why do people migrate? Some are drawn to new places by pull factors, such as better jobs and education, security, religious freedom, or, as in the case of Thomas Ma, to reunite with family members. Others, like the Morad family, find it difficult to remain where they are and make the decision to migrate because of push factors, such as civil war, persecution, discrimination, and unemployment. Migration to countries such as Canada, Germany, France, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom has risen sharply in the last decade. In 2015, there were thought to be more than 240 million international migrants, up from about 220 million in 2010 and just over 170 million in 2000 (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2016). Likewise, Canada’s immigrant or foreign-born population has grown rapidly over the past several decades, accounting for approximately 21 percent of the population in 2011, the highest among G8 (Group of 8 industrialized) nations (Statistics Canada, 2013). And just as the immigrant population has grown, the number of immigrant families in Canada has increased, as well. According to the 2006 Census, almost one-quarter (24.0%) of the first generation, that is, those who were born outside Canada, reported East and Southeast Asian origins, either alone or with other origins, and about one in seven reported South Asian origins (see Table 8.1). Around 16 percent of the population aged 15 and over were second generation, that is, individuals who were FIRST GENERATION

born in Canada, but whose parents were foreign born. Approximately 61 percent of the total population aged 15 were third generation, that is, people who were Canadian born, whose parents were Canadian born, and who had at least one Canadian-born grandparent. Of these, about 42 percent reported British origins (Statistics Canada, 2012). Similar trends were reported in the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS): the top three ethnic origins reported by the first-generation were Chinese, East Asian, and British. The most frequently reported origins by the second-generation were British and Scottish. And among the third-generation, a majority reported British origins (Statistics Canada, 2013). In this chapter, we begin by defining the immigrant family. We then trace the historical settlement of Canada and the changes in immigration policy and patterns and living arrangements of immigrant families over time. Next, we examine the social, cultural, political, and legal exigencies that influence immigrant and ethno-racial families over the life course, and how an intersectional theoretical framework can provide insights into the challenges such families face. We conclude with a discussion on the effects of globalization and geopolitical events on the migration process, future directions vis-à-vis Canada’s immigration policy, and the implications of such policy for the health and wellbeing of Canada’s immigrant families.

SECOND GENERATION

Ethnic Origin

Number

%

Total Population

6,124,560

100.0

Chinese

916,845

East Indian

THIRD GENERATION OR MORE

Ethnic Origin

Number

%

Total Population

4,006,420

100.0

15.0

English

1,035,145

25.8

612,460

10.0

Scottish

635,600

English

547,865

8.9

Canadian

Italian

366,205

6.0

German

352,805

Filipino Scottish

Ethnic Origin

Number

%

15,533,240

100.0

Canadian

7,236,370

46.6

15.9

English

3,794,250

24.4

613,445

15.3

French

3,530,505

22.7

German

524,645

13.1

Scottish

2,865,800

18.4

5.8

Irish

496,990

12.4

Irish

2,755,420

17.7

288,515

4.7

Italian

439,275

11.0

German

1,604,225

10.3

271,545

4.4

French

284,900

7.1

North American Indian

813,405

5.2

Total Population

Irish

230,975

3.8

Dutch (Netherlands)

253,325

6.3

Ukrainian

642,955

4.1

Polish

213,715

3.5

Ukrainian

212,860

5.3

Dutch (Netherlands)

376,555

2.4

Portuguese

195,480

3.2

Polish

203,725

5.1

Polish

364,980

2.3

TABLE 8.1

Top 10 Ethnic Origins by Generational Status for People Aged 15 Years and Over, Canada, 2006

Source: Statistics Canada (2006).

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How do we define the immigrant family? An immigrant family may refer to any family that has at least one person who is foreign born, be it a child or an adult (Lee & Edmonston, 2013). It may also mean a family in which there is at least one immigrant parent (Hernandez, Denton, & Macartney, 2007). In recent years, however, researchers have defined the immigrant family as one in which the primary household maintainer is foreign born (Lee & Edmonston, 2013). In many parts of the world, the definition of family has expanded to include members of the extended family, such as grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and even close friends. When families migrate, they bring with them unique cultural understandings of kinship/family ties and the societal codes that they have learned in their early lives in their respective home countries. As you can see, the definition of the immigrant family is rather broad and is open to multiple interpretations. Indeed, it is often challenging to make meaningful comparisons between research studies given the lack of a universally acceptable definition of the “immigrant family” (VanderPlaat, 2006).

Coming to Canada: Changes in Patterns of Immigration Across Ethnic Groups Canada is often referred to as “a land of immigrants.” Starting with the European settlers from France and England, and more recently, immigrants from Asia and Africa, many groups have contributed to the multicultural mosaic.

A Land of Immigrants The Early Settlers The European conquest of Indigenous peoples and what is now known as Canada started in 1534 when the French explorer Jacques Cartier discovered Newfoundland. The early Europeans came to Canada, not with any desire to settle but rather to exploit lucrative trade opportunities (see also Chapters 7 and 11). Around the middle of the 17th century, the earliest settlers, also known as pioneers, began arriving from France, England, Scotland, Italy, Germany, Ireland, and other countries in Europe, NEL

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© LYLE STAFFORD/Times Colonist

Defining the Immigrant Family

On May 10, 2013, Citizenship and Immigration Canada allowed Surjit Bhandal, the 83-year-old aunt of Jasminder Bhandal, a resident of Victoria, British Columbia, to stay in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. Canadian law generally does not consider aunts close enough family members for reunification. An exception was made in this case since Surjit had raised her nephews from birth, as their birth mother had disabilities. (Source: “Saanich’s Surjit Bhandal allowed to stay,” (2013).)

settling with their families in the Maritimes and what became Upper Canada (now Ontario). The women in the family were primarily responsible for raising children, caring for the health of the family, cooking, sewing, cleaning, and making soaps and candles. The men, on the other hand, were mainly engaged in outside work, such as tending larger animals, constructing houses and furniture, harvesting the fields, and chopping trees. Indeed, one could argue that the division of household labour inherent in European family structures and family organization at this time and well into the 20th century provided a basis around which later immigrant families were expected to conform. The 1800s Up until the 19th century, the flow of immigrants into Canada was mostly unrestricted; however, the Chinese Head Tax, a fixed fee, was introduced in British Columbia in 1885 to restrict Chinese immigration to Canada upon completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Between 1850 and 1860, several thousand enslaved blacks fled to Canada from the American South via the Underground Railroad, a secret network of abolitionists who helped them escape from the oppression of slavery (Henry, 2006). These newcomers migrated to various parts of modern-day Ontario, including Niagara Falls, Chatham, London, Oakville, and Toronto, as well as other regions of Canada, including Québec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia (Henry, 2006).

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1900 to 1960 Between 1897 and 1914, immigration to Canada received another boost with the arrival of about one million farmers, mainly from Ukraine, who settled primarily in the Prairie provinces. The first wave of Japanese immigrants, called Issei (first generation), arrived between 1877 and 1928 and settled in the “Japantowns” or suburbs of Vancouver and Victoria, in the Fraser Valley, and in fishing towns along the Pacific Coast (Sunahara, 2011). The first South Asian migrants to Canada, mainly Sikhs, arrived in Vancouver in 1903. In 1908, the Canadian government brought into force a regulation intended to curb Indian immigration to Canada; its efforts were challenged in 1914 by the arrival of the Komagata Maru, a freighter from Hong Kong to Canada with 376 prospective South Asian immigrants. The ship was denied docking by the authorities and finally, after two long months, it was forced to sail back to India where many passengers were either killed upon disembarking or were imprisoned for breaking laws of the British empire (Buchignani, 2010). Undoubtedly, the Komagata Maru incident, along with the Chinese Head Tax, the exclusion of Jews from Canada from the 1920s up until World War II, and the internment of Japanese Canadians in 1942 are dark spots in the annals of Canadian immigration history.

Immigration Categories

1960 Onward By the 1960s Canada’s immigrant population had grown considerably. In 1962, the Honourable Ellen Fairclough, minister of Citizenship and Immigration, introduced a new immigration act, which stipulated that unsponsored immigrants who had the required education or trade skills could enter Canada irrespective of colour, race, or national origin. Then, in 1967, under the Pearson government, the points-based assessment (PBA) system for immigration to Canada was established; under this system, immigrants were judged based on qualifications such as language ability and educational skills. During this period, the source of immigrant countries shifted from Europe to Asia; at the same time, Canada increased trade with countries like Japan and as a United Nations member, committed itself to allow migrants into the country on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. Since the 1980s, Canada has become an increasingly diverse society by accepting more immigrants and refugees for permanent settlement in proportion to its population than any other G8 country. 116

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Critics of the PBA system, however, have argued that systemic and institutional bias against immigrant labour persists in Canada (Anwar, 2014; Aycan & Berry, 1996; Ferrer & Riddell, 2008) to the extent that it poses challenges to the successful implementation of Canada’s mosaic approach to multiculturalism with its emphasis on “separate but equal” cultures. Introduced in 1971 under the government of Pierre Trudeau, multiculturalism encourages racial and ethnic harmony. The Canadian Multiculturalism Act (1988) strives to ensure that all citizens have a sense of belonging while keeping their identities and taking pride in their ancestry. Its primary goal has been to engender a feeling of security and self-confidence among Canadians by making them more open to, and accepting of, diverse cultures (Citizenship and Immigration Canada [CIC], 2012). Building on this objective, The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (2002) also outlines the importance of a “two-way street” model of integration and identity preservation for newcomers to Canada (CIC, 2012), facilitating the process of acculturation, or the exchange of, and adaptation to aspects of culture. But for an increasing number of Canadians, multiculturalism may have outlived its purpose. (See “Second-Generation Canadians: ‘Where Do We Fit In?’” in In the Media.)

Today, people from all parts of the world immigrate to Canada under one of the following categories: (1) as skilled workers under the Express Entry Visa and professional investors; (2) as entrepreneurs and self-employed people; (3) as provincial nominees; (4) as Québec selected skilled workers; (5) as a sponsored family; (6) as live-in caregivers; or (7) as refugees (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 2016). Family Reunification The right to apply to unite family members has long been a cornerstone of Canada’s immigration policy under Canada’s Family Reunification Program, and the program has been hailed as an important factor in “promoting newcomer integration” (Koehn, Spencer, & Hwang, 2010). Family Class sponsorship allows Canadians to sponsor their spouse, common-law partner, conjugal partner, dependent child(ren), parents, and grandparents (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 2016).

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IN THE MEDIA Second-Generation Canadians: “Where Do We Fit In?” “We follow everything Canadians do; we follow their schedule, follow their holidays, take out OSAP, go to Canadian schools, pay taxes. I don’t know what’s not Canadian about us, our skin?” asks Sami Khalifa. What exactly is Canadian culture? Canada is often described as one of the most diverse nations in the world, but this multiculturalism has come at the price of a distinct national identity.... After speaking with a number of second-generation immigrants it becomes evident that many have trouble pinpointing exactly what it means to be Canadian. “I do not feel a [personal] connection to Canadian culture because the culture is non-existent,” says Solomon Woldemichael, a descendent of Ethiopians. “I only identify as Canadian because I lived here for much longer.” The social and cultural alienation that many immigrants feel is something that can be expected; while finding their place within a new setting they often face challenges such as language barriers, difficulty finding employment and an overall culture shock. What many tend to overlook is how the children of these immigrants … must cope with the dual identity that is subsequently created.... Sammy Nbarak comes from a Tanzanian family that immigrated to Canada in the late 1980s. “Even though you’re born here in Canada, your parents’ discipline came from Africa,” he shares. “Everything they taught you came from African tradition. Our lifestyle is different than what they went through, but it is [essentially] the same upbringing.” However, this cultural rift that has formed cannot be attributed solely to parents or any household practices, as there are a number of external factors that also play a role.

Not “Fully” Canadian “[Research done by the Canadian government] suggests that current and future second generation youth cohorts are more likely to grow up in neighbourhoods predominantly

In November 2011, the federal government stopped receiving applications for the Family Reunification Program, creating in its place a temporary program called the “Family Super Visa for Parents and Grandparents.” Under this program, eligible parents and grandparents can visit family in Canada for up to two years without the need to renew their status. Although NEL

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populated by co-ethnics,” states a 2013 Policy Horizons Canada report, “Why It Is Time to Take a Second Look at the Second Generation.” ... Sami Khalifa, whose mom and dad are from Egypt and Sudan respectively, says, “When you are younger you are surrounded by [immigrants of the same or similar backgrounds], going to the community centres, cultural events, mosques. But the older you get you don’t have as much time for that, you get more involved in the community and you are exposed to a more diverse landscape.” It is the experiences of second-generation youth like Khalifa that researcher Mehrunnisa Ali studies in the report “Second Generation Youth in Toronto: Are We All Multicultural?” published in 2008 by Metropolis’ Canadian Diversity. “In Canada, as elsewhere, the concern itself is indicative of uncertainty that second generation youth may not see themselves, and may not be seen by others, as ‘fully’ Canadian,” Ali writes. “This is despite the policy, official discourse and ideology of multiculturalism, which suggests that various cultural groups are equally valued in this country.” Khalifa can relate. “Canada’s identity is basically multiple identities [of] every race or religion. I’m still a Canadian at the end of the day,” he says. “I’m more Canadian because I was raised here. Sudanese by nature, Canadian by nurture.” ... As a whole, Canada has made great strides and is known for its multiculturalism in the international community, but there are always improvements that could be made, and understanding second-generation Canadians is one area to focus on. Source: Minassie (2015). Quoted and excerpted from the July 17, 2015 edition of New Canadian Media, http:// newcanadianmedia.ca/item/29070-second-generation -canadians-where-do-we-fit-in-second-generation -canadians-where-do-we-fit-in.

the government reopened the Family Reunification Program in January 2014, the Super Visa has now become a permanent program. The sponsorship of older parents, however, does not come without costs. Up until 2010, sponsors (usually adult children) of older Family Class immigrants were required to make a categorical commitment to the

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Canadian government to financially support their dependent relatives for a period of 10 years. This commitment has now been increased to 20 years (CIC, 2012). And the Minimum Necessary Income (MNI) required for sponsorship has been increased by 30 percent to reflect the rising costs of providing financial support for older relatives. For example, in order to sponsor an older relative, a principal applicant with a family of four (including the applicant) is now required to provide documentation demonstrating an MNI of approximately $55,000 to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) for a period of three years (CIC, 2012). These policies also stipulate that immigrant older adults, those more than 65 years of age, may not be eligible for income security measures such as the Old Age Security (OAS) program until they have met the 10-year residence requirement. This places a significant economic burden on sponsors, particularly those who have arrived in Canada only recently, as they face the challenges of resettlement and the uncertainties of a fickle job market (Khan & Kobayashi, 2014).

Living Arrangements and Generational Dynamics Multi-generational Households In 2010, parents and their dependent children and grandparents comprised more than 5 percent of newly arrived permanent residents to Canada under Family Class sponsorship. India and Sri Lanka, in particular, with close to 5,185 landings between 2005 and 2010, topped the list of source countries with the highest number of parent and grandparent sponsorships (CIC, 2012). This

kind of reunification has resulted in an increase in multigenerational households, or settings in which three or more generations of a family live under the same roof (see also Chapters 4 and 13). According to the 2011 Census, 269,315 children aged 14 and under in 2011, or nearly 5 percent of all children in this age group, lived with at least one grandparent, up from about 3 percent in 2001. (See Table 8.2.) According to the 2016 Census, multigenerational households are the fastest growing type of household in Canada, accounting for approximately 6 percent of the population (nearly 2 million people) living in private households (Statistics Canada, 2017). The benefits of multi-generational living are manifold and reciprocal. As a significant “turning point” in the life course of individuals, migration results in a reconfiguration of familial roles, expectations, and interactions within families (Dreby, 2012). For immigrant families, grandparents provide essential support with child care and other household chores and duties, thus allowing parents to engage in paid employment outside the home (see also Chapter 6). In addition, in many families, grandparents, usually grandmothers, take on the responsibility of cultural transmission, that is, the process through which cultural elements such as language, tradition, values, attitudes, and beliefs are passed on from one generation to the next. In return, not only are older parents taken care of in later life, as grandparents, they are able to spend more time with their grandchildren in caregiving roles and can feel useful and productive. Thus, when several generations of a family live together, it is believed that intergenerational ties are strengthened, resulting in increased intergenerational solidarity, or improved social cohesion between generations (Khan & Kobayashi, in press).

2001

2006

2011

Number

Percentage

Number

Percentage

Number

Percentage

Children in private households

5,723,245

100.0

5,562,530

100.0

5,587,165

100.0

Children in Census families

5,678,320

99.2

5,514,550

99.1

5,540,230

99.2

190,920

3.3

210,105

3.8

269,315

4.8

Children in households with a grandparent

TABLE 8.2 Children Living with Grandparents Distribution (number and percentage) of population aged 14 and under living with at least one grandparent, Canada, 2001 to 2011 Source: Statistics Canada (2015).

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In their study on immigrant Chinese women in Toronto, Leung and McDonald (2007) have highlighted the benefits of multi-generational living: “Caregiving and care receiving experiences,” state the authors, “can involve a high level of reciprocity, particularly if the elderly parents are able and healthy” (p. 19). The caregiving literature, however, tends to focus more on the care provided to older adults than on the support older adults provide to their families even though we know that the latter occurs often (Keefe & Fancey, 2002). Multi-generational living does not come without challenges, however (see Chapter 13). For example, intergenerational tension is exacerbated when grandchildren and grandparents do not share a language or cultural values (Koehn, 1993). For recently arrived immigrant older adults, loss of financial independence and the need to depend on their adult children or grandchildren for assistance with day-to-day activities such as grocery shopping, attending places of worship, and making medical appointments may result in lowered self-esteem and feelings of role loss in the family. According to Koehn (1993), older immigrant Punjabi women in Vancouver “who sought to maintain an upper hand over acculturated daughters-in-law were said to cause considerable tension” in the household (p. 85). Similarly, Acharya and Northcott (2007) found that older Hindu grandmothers from nuclear and extended families living in Great Britain considered ethnic identity and tradition as important indicators of mental health. Specifically, older adults whose granddaughters had an exclusively “Asian,” or “Hindu” identity and espoused traditional South Asian cultural values were more likely to be perceived as having better mental health in comparison with those whose granddaughters reported a “British” ethnic identity. Koehn (2009) also found that the older immigrant women in her study tended to characterize the heightened independence of young women in Canada and “the greater likelihood that they will work outside the home and prefer a nuclear-family living arrangement,” as selfish and robbing them “of the opportunity to be cared for in the way that they have provided care for their own elders” (p. 591). On the other hand, adult children, especially those belonging to certain ethno-racial groups, are bound by culturally prescribed norms around filial responsibility and obligation (see also Chapter 13). Filial piety and obligation form an integral part of many cultures of the East. As a Confucian virtue, filial piety (Xiao) in the Chinese context is described as emotional support for parents by their children and contains an element of NEL

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authority, including “support, memorializing, attendance, deference, compliance, respect and love” for older parents (Yeh & Olwen, 2003, p. 215). Similarly, among Chinese communities, obedience and service to one’s parents and elders as it is manifested through care work forms an integral part of filial piety, with the expectation of blessings and benevolence in return (Hsü, 1991). Asians, South Asians, and Southern Europeans are more likely to provide assistance to older relatives than are persons belonging to other ethnocultural groups (Keefe & Fancey, 2000). Even in Asian post-immigrant groups like the Japanese, oya koh koh (filial obligation) has a significant effect on sansei (third-generation) children’s provision of emotional support to older parents (Kobayashi, 2000). Often, however, structural factors (such as living arrangements and age) rather than cultural factors (like filial obligation) are stronger predictors of assistance and involvement (Keefe & Fancey, 2000). Indeed, among Japanese Canadian families, financial and service support are affected to a greater degree by material conditions, that is, the child’s socio-economic status, the child’s availability, and the parent’s health, than by adherence to traditional cultural values (Kobayashi, 2000). And while immigrant South Asian women may employ the cultural values of dharma (moral duty) or karma (destiny) as a buffer for their caregiving responsibilities toward older parents, they often find themselves constrained by structural barriers such as access to culturally appropriate health and social care services (Khan & Kobayashi, in press).

Transnationalism, Astronaut Families, and Satellite Kids In an era of globalization and fluid borders, transnationalism, a socio-political phenomenon that entails being connected to several places at once, or being “neither here nor there” (International Organization for Migration, 2010), is on the rise. Transnational practices, such as intimate social, political, and economic ties with the country of origin, are an enduring aspect of the lives of immigrants (Wong & Satzewich, 2006) (see also Chapter 13). Basch, Glick, and Blanc-Szanton define transnationalism as “the process by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social, economic, and political relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement ... many immigrants today build social fields that cross geographic, cultural, and political borders” (p. 6).

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In support of the persistence of transnational ties, a report from the World Bank (2013) suggests that Canadians, mostly foreign born, remit close to $24 billion overseas in one fiscal year. Immigrant families make a conscious effort to stay connected with their extended family and network of friends through modern communication technologies such as Skype and social media interfaces such as Facebook. Long telephone conversations with close friends and family members living in the country of origin, in particular, are considered an important avenue of social support during times of distress (Khan & Kobayashi, 2014). This feeling of “connectedness,” social solidarity, and strong bonds of kinship and community are a hallmark of collectivistic cultures (Sodhi, 2008). Further, in interviews with immigrants in their studies, researchers have noted that participants’ conversations were consistently peppered with narratives of “home” and a collectivist voice of “we,” “our,” and “us” (Khan & Kobayashi, 2014; Willis, 2012). A related development is the rise of astronaut families, or families in which members reside in different countries around the world. Consider this hypothetical example: Peter, a software engineer from Taiwan, immigrated to Canada with his wife Sophia and two children, Paul and John, during the early 2000s. After working to settle his family in Richmond, British Columbia, Peter returned to Taiwan to work at a consulting firm. In Canada, Sophia stayed at home and took care of their sons Paul and John, who quickly adapted to the ways of living in their new country. Peter transferred money to Canada every month to help his family meet their daily expenses. Four years after migrating, Peter bought a three-bedroom townhouse in Canada where his family has lived ever since. For several years, his wife and children visited Peter in Taiwan every summer, while Peter spent two months in Canada with his family every year. Peter’s family is what social scientists and demographers refer to as the “astronaut family.” In addition to the emergence of the astronaut family over the past two and half decades, we have seen the rise of the satellite kid phenomenon in Canada. Consider the following example. Two years ago, when their older son Paul was a college freshman and their younger son John had just started high school, Peter suffered a stroke in Taiwan and had to be hospitalized. Sophia rushed to Taiwan to be with her husband and has stayed there ever since. Peter has resumed work in Taiwan and Sophia has begun working as a secretary in a construction 120

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company. The parents send money to their children in Canada, who visit them once a year. Peter’s children, Paul and John, are what social researchers refer to as “satellite kids,” or “parachute kids.” In Vancouver, this type of familial arrangement has been observed primarily among families originating from Hong Kong or Taiwan during the 1990s. Waters (2011) suggests that often a desire for upward social mobility through the accumulation of cultural capital, or non-economic assets, such as Westernized ways of living or a Canadian education for their children, motivates parents’ decision to immigrate. While this living apart together (LAT) or long-distance arrangement is beneficial to the family, it may also result in a breakdown of relationships. Tse and Waters (2013) found that children of astronaut parents often perceived their family life as fragmented and disruptive, with the parents making an occasional and often unwelcome appearance in the lives of the children they had left behind in Canada. The following excerpts from Chiang’s study on middle-class Taiwanese “astronaut wives” in Vancouver also highlights the precarious nature of this arrangement: When the family first came to Canada, the husband visited his household in Canada often. The frequency of visits reduced over the years, and he gradually stopped sending money. Later, the husband got a girlfriend in Taiwan or Mainland China, and wanted a divorce. Madame Wan, who had been an “astronaut” for five years, felt like an intruder every time she flew back home to visit her husband. On the other hand, Madam Yu in Vancouver felt that when her husband came from Taiwan, he picked on her for the way she runs their home and their children. Madam Tan’s husband simply hated to live in Toronto, and stayed back in City K to operate three coffee shops with his friends. Madam Liu immigrated because her husband wanted to. In spite of graduating from one of the best universities in Taiwan, he could not find a decent job in Toronto. He lost his selfesteem because he could not find work, while she enjoyed the business that she had started. They later got divorced, and he hoped to divide her money, in accordance with Canadian law. (Chiang (2008).)

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Parent–Child Dynamics within Immigrant Families The immigration and settlement process can have a great impact on family life. Members of the second generation, who possess knowledge of both their traditional and “mainstream” Canadian cultures, often engage in cultural brokering, a process wherein they act as a bridge between their parents’ ways of living and a Westernized Canadian way of living (Cila & Lalonde, 2014), resulting in the formation of a bicultural, or hybrid, identity. Defining biculturalism as the ability to “navigate two cultural worlds” (p. 187), Sodhi (2008) found that second-generation Indo-Canadians frequently saw themselves oscillating between an individualistic worldview, which is independent and self-reliant, and collectivistic cultural values, in which there is an emphasis on group-based thinking and identity, as they sought to incorporate the “best of both worlds” into their lifestyle. The dominant, mainstream culture promoted personal autonomy, whereas at home, the collectivistic culture emphasized conformity, family interests before individual aspirations, and unconditional love and obedience toward older family members. Moreover, acculturated second-generation immigrants may be expected by their parents and ethnocultural communities to adopt lifestyles espousing collectivistic cultural values, leading to situations where they are confused about their own identity (Segal, 1998). A generation gap may often occur within immigrant families when parents’ expectations of their children to conform to cultural perceptions around dating and spouse selection, educational and career choices, parenting, and peer relations lead to feelings of ambivalence among second-generation children. In fact, a recent report suggests that forced marriages, or unions that are formed against the will of one or both partners, are common among ethno-racial families in Canada (Browne, 2015). Some researchers have found that second-generation South Asians’ efforts to incorporate both worldviews into their lifestyle may result in resentment toward the home culture even as they strive to integrate into the dominant culture (Phinney, 1999; Triandis, 2001). Cultural notions around family shame and honour often exacerbate these tensions. The following NEL

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excerpts from a study on the education of immigrant children in Canada provide insights into immigrant parent–child dynamics: Father of one student: “In our family, having a degree is an end in itself; it brings prestige. People go to school a long time. It is highly regarded and very rewarding.” Father of one student: “We didn’t come here for a holiday or to work in a factory.... She has to go to university and then she can decide what she wants to do.... A child’s success is shared by the entire family. The tree bears fruit and everyone gets to eat.” Mother of one student: “She’s definitely going to go to college and then university. She has to be very well educated, highly trained, earn a very good salary, have the best house, the best car.” (Kanouté & LaFortune, 2011, p. 138) In a qualitative exploration of ethnic identity, Inman and her colleagues (2007) interviewed 16 first-generation immigrant parents raising second-generation children about the influence of immigration on the retention of their own ethnic identity and their ability to promote a sense of ethnic identity in their second-generation children. The authors found that the retention of ethnic identity was linked to participation in cultural events, a need to maintain tradition and upbringing, family ties, social support, and a rejection of perceived Western values. Participants in the study indicated that they were concerned about losing the ability to “have the best of both worlds” when dealing with challenges to ethnic identity, loss of familial support, and cultural discontinuity, or a lack of cohesion between the two cultures.

The Theoretical Toolbox: Intersectionality as a Promising Approach to Gaining Insights Into Immigrant Family Dynamics and Challenges As a “metaphor for the entanglement and interaction of multiple and complex identity categories” (Hulko, 2011, p. 236), the intersectional approach enables

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INTERSECTIONS IMMIGRANT FAMILIES STRUGGLE TO DEAL WITH DISABILITY According to the 2015 child poverty report for Toronto, newcomer children, children of colour, and children with disabilities are among the largest groups living in poverty. Families that fall into more than one of these groups face even more grim circumstances. Sean Meagher, Executive Director of Social Planning Toronto, suggests that immigrants with non-European backgrounds taking care of children born with disabilities face financial crises often. “English speaking [people], compared to the significant number of immigrants who are not from that background, are successful in getting jobs and we do have a racially segmented employment market [that] people with coloured skin face.” ... Those taking care of someone with a disability often relinquish their own plans, as is the case of Ottawa resident Maryem Hashi (name changed for privacy). Hashi has three younger siblings between the ages of 22 and 26 years old who all have disabilities. She gave up her university studies and a full-time job to fulfill her responsibilities at home. Hashi, who moved here from Pakistan, recalls her initial days in Canada, when her mother had to face the ordeal of raising her siblings, without much access to Internet. With difficulty in speaking and understanding English, she had to navigate things like funding, health care and programs that suit the needs of her children.... Hashi’s siblings have delayed development, which usually starts showing up after a child is two to five years old. It is a “mild” condition that affects their ability to do things “independently.” ... Today, Hashi is a program assistant and works parttime in occupational therapy, serving children with disabilities under the age of three to five years old. For Hashi’s siblings, a crucial time came when they each turned 21, as that is the cut-off age for school programming for kids with a disability.... She says that such programs are a support for caregivers, too, and allow the young person not to lose what they have learned from school. “My siblings [have been] home for a couple of years, and [are] alone with depression and low self esteem; it’s hard to deal with their ordeal,” she shares. “If we take programs privately, it starts at $90 a day, which is unaffordable with multiple siblings [with a] disability.”

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Rabia Khedr, executive director of the Canadian Association of Muslims with Disabilities, runs a program in Mississauga, Ont., DEEN (Disability Empowerment Equality Network) support service, which is an extended-hour day program and works on the capacity building of individuals with disabilities who have aged out of school programs.... The school has a sliding scale fee structure and the rest is fundraised through charitable donations. Khedr shares that in Ontario alone 12,000 people with intellectual disabilities are waiting for housing.... According to the department of finance, in 2011 the Canadian federal government transferred almost $4 billion to low-income families and provided $19.9 billion to Employment Insurance benefits alone. Still for some, medications, dental care and eye check-ups are not included. And in the cases of people with disabilities things like electronic gadgets, crutches, wheelchairs and scooters to assist in daily life are also not fully covered. “They have to hire special vans to take these individuals from place to place. This all has a cost,” says Hashi. “And we want at least medication to be costfree for all.” Khedr says that people who don’t have the experience of poverty won’t understand how choices can become increasingly limited when a person is on welfare assistance. She suggests, “The solution lies in a combination of a few hours of activity and government funds.” Source: Inam (2015). Quoted and excerpted from the December 20, 2015 edition of New Canadian Media, http:// newcanadianmedia.ca/item/32362-immigrant-families-struggleto-deal-with-disability?tmpl5component&print51.

us to understand the simultaneous intersections between aspects of social difference and identity, as they are related to ethnicity, gender, social class, geography, age, migration status, and nationality (Dhamoon & Hankivsky, 2011) (see also Chapter 14). The intersectional perspective suggests that identities and roles are continuously co-constructed in interaction with diverse socio-historical contexts and significant others (Heyse, 2011). Intersectionality helps us understand how overlapping strands of power, privilege, and oppression shape our experiences and understanding of the social world. This approach is thus a useful way to acquire deeper insights into the social, political, and economic

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Looking Ahead: Winds of Change and Future Directions On November 4, 2015, Justin Trudeau, leader of the federal Liberal Party, was sworn in as the 23rd prime minister of Canada. Under Trudeau, Canada’s cabinet is the most diverse in history, with two Indigenous politicians, two persons with disabilities, and three Sikhs (Ford, 2015). Another significant measure of the successful integration of our diverse population into our polity is the representation of visible minorities, or people who are non-Indigenous, non-Caucasian in race, or non-white in colour (Statistics Canada, 2015) in Parliament overall. The number and percentage of visible minority members of Parliament has risen NEL

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exigencies faced by immigrant families over the life course. (See “Immigrant Families Struggle to Deal with Disability” in Intersections.) An intersectional perspective, for example, provides insights into the unique challenges faced by South Asian immigrant women as they simultaneously juggle the demands of care provision to older relatives and children at home and the challenges of being immigrant women of colour in a competitive workplace. It helps us understand how a second-generation Chinese immigrant negotiates the fluid boundaries between diverse cultural affiliations in making decisions around education and career choices, mate selection, and parenting. It also allows us to acquire deeper insights into the everyday lived experiences of an older Middle Eastern woman who immigrated later in life and the challenges she faces as she transitions to a socially and culturally unfamiliar place, geographically displaced from her country of birth. The story of Hashi’s family (see Intersections) is a poignant reminder of how aspects of social inequality such as race and ethnicity, immigrant status, language, gender, religious affiliation, ability, and socio-economic status intersect to produce conditions of multiple jeopardy, or the multiple barriers and burdens that individuals face based on their social location. An intersectional approach acknowledges and reflects the myriad ways in which immigrants like Hashi’s family renegotiate their sense of place and identity relative to evolving social and political contexts, changing realities, environmental constraints, and Westernized views of living.

Prime Minister Trudeau has voiced his commitment to admitting migrants to Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

dramatically to 47 MPs, or 14 percent of the House, about the same as the proportion of visible minority Canadian citizens (15%) (Dharssi, 2015). As a result of these monumental changes, Canadians can anticipate amendments to the immigration process, such as simplification of family reunification and the elimination of the Super Visa for Parents and Grandparents, changes that were promised by Justin Trudeau on the campaign trail. Under this new government, policies and programs pertaining to the health and well-being of immigrant families will be revisited and reformed. The prime minister took an important first step in this regard by reiterating Canada’s commitment to the global community in his efforts to admit migrants on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. With the first group of Syrian refugees arriving in early December 2015, the government began to fulfill its promise to admit 25,000 Syrian men, women, and children fleeing persecution and civil war. Starting a new life in an unfamiliar country is a daunting task for families and requires considerable adjustments. These challenges are further exacerbated for refugees who have left their countries under stressful circumstances. Given its emphasis on the successful integration and well-being of asylum seekers, Canada has been lauded worldwide as a leader in refugee protection and settlement. In return, refugees bring with them their skills, experiences, and rich cultural traditions, which enhance the diversity of our country.

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CHAPTER SUMMARY Canada is a nation of immigrants. Each year, several thousand individuals migrate to Canada in hopes of a better life for themselves and their children. Our aim in this chapter was to provide an overview of the changing patterns in Canadian immigration and the increasing ethnocultural composition of the Canadian population. In doing so, we also explored the evolution of Canada’s immigration policy and the challenges to family reunification under the current policy. We discussed the diverse living arrangements of immigrant families, such as multigenerational households, transnational and astronaut families, and families with satellite kids, as well as key sociological concepts pertaining to immigrant family life, namely, acculturation, filial obligation, family shame, intergenerational solidarity, and cultural brokering. Finally, we emphasized that the theoretical framework of intersectionality is appropriate for constructing a more in-depth understanding of the unique and complex social, political, economic, and cultural pressures and challenges faced by immigrant families throughout their lives. We conclude with a note of cautious optimism for family policy in Canada as a new government works to fulfill its promises to promote and protect the rights of vulnerable or at-risk families, admirable goals that reflect Pierre Trudeau’s vision to build a truly multicultural nation more than four decades ago. The transmission of this message from father to son is evident in the actions to date of our new prime minister.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. How would you define an immigrant family? What does such a family look like? 2. How do you think Canadian immigration policy has evolved over time? 3. What are some of the different living arrangements of immigrant families in Canada? What might be some advantages and disadvantages of such arrangements?

APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. How do you think the intersectional approach can help us understand the day-to-day experiences of a first-generation immigrant mother from Somalia? 2. How do you think the government of Canada could facilitate the settlement experiences of refugee families? 3. What changes would you propose to the current policy on family reunification?

FURTHER RESOURCES “Religions Work Together on Richmond’s Highway to Heaven,” by Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun. www.vancouversun.com/life/Douglas1Todd1Religions1work1together1 Richmond1Highway1Heaven/8771141/story.html. This 2013 newspaper column discusses a highway in Richmond, British Columbia, along which there are more than 20 different religious institutions. Emphasis is placed on how these institutions cooperate and, in their totality, represent the unique multi-faith community of this city. Children of Immigrants Caught between Two Cultures. www.cbc.ca/ news/canada/children-of-immigrants-caught-between-2-cultures-1.12257709. This 2012 video by CBC News features the voices of some second-generation Canadians. Immigration Loans for Refugees: Best Christmas Gifts. http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/ bcalmanac_20151223_52284.mp3. This CBC Radio podcast, produced in 2015, is worth checking out. 124

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KEY TERMS acculturation: exchange of and adaptation to aspects of a diverse culture (p. 116) astronaut families: families in which members reside in different countries around the world (p. 120) biculturalism: the ability to understand and adapt to aspects of two different cultures (p. 121) Canadian Multiculturalism Act: the Act, passed in 1988, that mandates that all Canadians are equal and have the right to share their cultural heritage; it also promotes equitable participation of all Canadian citizens in all aspects of Canadian society, irrespective of ethnocultural origins. (p. 116) Chinese Head Tax: a fixed fee which was introduced in British Columbia in 1885 to restrict Chinese immigration to Canada upon completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway (p. 115) collectivistic: cultural values that emphasize group-based thinking and identity (p. 121) cultural capital: non-economic assets (p. 120) cultural discontinuity: a lack of cohesion between two cultures (p. 121) cultural transmission: the process through which cultural elements such as language, tradition, values, attitudes, and beliefs are passed on from one generation to the next (p. 118) Express Entry Visa: a new selection system for immigrants to Canada, which allows expedited entry to skilled workers (p. 116) filial responsibility: a sense of obligation and duty toward one’s parents (p. 119) first generation: those who are born outside the country of migration (p. 114) forced marriages: unions that are formed against the will of one or both partners (p. 121) Immigration and Refugee Protection Act: legislation passed in 2002 that allows Canada to pursue the social, economic, and cultural advantages of immigration and the reunification of immigrant families; it also promotes international justice and security. (p. 116)

individualistic worldview: an independent and self-reliant worldview (p. 121) intergenerational solidarity: improved social cohesion between generations (p. 118) intersectional approach: a perspective that helps us understand the simultaneous intersections between aspects of social difference and identity, such as ethnicity, gender, social class, geography, age, migration status, and nationality (p. 121) multiculturalism: a policy introduced in 1971 under the government of Pierre Trudeau that encourages racial and ethnic harmony and emphasizes “separate but equal” cultures (p. 116) multiple jeopardy: the multiple barriers and burdens that individuals face based on their social location (p. 123) points-based assessment: an assessment system which evaluates immigrants based on qualifications such as language ability and educational skills (p. 116) pull factors: benefits that attract people to a certain place, for example, better jobs and education, security, religious freedom, or the opportunity to reunite with family members (p. 114) push factors: in general, problems such as civil war, persecution, discrimination, and unemployment that force people to leave a country (p. 114) satellite kid: children in a long-distance living arrangement in which only the children live in the country of migration and the parents live in another country (p. 120) second generation: people who are born in the country of migration, but whose parents are foreign born (p. 114) third generation: people who are born in the country of migration, whose parents were born in the country of migration, and who have had at least one grandparent born in the country of migration as well (p. 114) transnationalism: a socio-political phenomenon that entails being connected to several places at once, or being “neither here nor there” (p. 119)

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Chiang, N. L. (2008). “Astronaut families”: Transnational lives of middle-class Taiwanese married women in Canada. Social & Cultural Geography, 9(5), 505–518. Cila, J., & Lalonde, R. N. (2014). Language brokering, acculturation, and empowerment: Evidence from South Asian Canadian young adults. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 36. doi: 10.1080/01434632.2014.953540 Citizenship and Immigration Canada. (2012). Canadian multiculturalism: An inclusive citizenship. Retrieved from http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/multiculturalism/citizenship.asp Dhamoon, R. K., & Hankivsky, O. (2011). Why the theory and practice of intersectionality matter to health research and policy. In O. Hankivsky (Ed.), Health inequities in Canada: Intersectional frameworks and practices (pp. 16–52). Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. Dharssi, A. (2015, October 19). Canada federal election candidates include more visible minorities in 2015 than in the past four votes. National Post. Retrieved from http:// news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/study-says-canadas-threemajor-parties-are-fielding-more-visible-minority-candidates Dreby, J. (2012). The burden of deportation on children in Mexican immigrant families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 74(4), 829–845. Ferrer, A., & Riddell, W. C. (2008). Education, credentials, and immigrant earnings. Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d’économique, 41(1), 186–216. Ford, M. (2015, November 5). A Canadian cabinet for 2015. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/11/canada-cabinet-trudeau/414280 Henry, N. L. (2006). Underground Railroad. The Canadian encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/underground-railroad Hernandez, D. J., Denton, N. A., & Macartney, S. E. (2007). Family circumstances of children in immigrant families. In J. E. Lansford, K. Deater-Deckard, & M. H. Bornstein (Eds.), Immigrant families in contemporary society (pp. 9–29). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Heyse, P. (2011). A life course perspective in the analysis of self-experiences of female migrants in Belgium: The case of Ukrainian and Russian women in Belgium. Migration, 27(2), 199–225. Hsü, J. C. H. (1991). Unwanted children and parents: Archaeology, epigraphy and the myths of filial piety. In J. Ching & R. W. L. Guisso (Eds.), Sages and filial sons: Mythology and archaeology in ancient China. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong. Hulko, W. (2011). Intersectionality in the context of later life experiences of dementia. In O. Hankivsky (Ed.), Health inequities in Canada: Intersectional frameworks and practices (pp. 199–217). Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. (2016). Immigration and citizenship. Retrieved from http://www.cic.gc.ca/english. Inam, T. (2015, December 20). Immigrant families struggle to deal with disability. New Canadian Media. Retrieved from http://newcanadianmedia.ca/item/32362-immigrant-families-struggleto-deal-with-disability?tmpl5component&print51 Inman, A. G., Howard, E. E., Beaumont, R. L., & Walker, J. A. (2007). Cultural transmission: Influence of contextual factors in Asian Indian immigrant parents’ experiences. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 54(1), 93–100. International Organization for Migration. (2010). Migration and transnationalism: Opportunities and challenges. Retrieved from http://www.iom.int/idmtransnationalism Jimenez, M. (2016, January 14). “You are like family”: The Morad family happily settles in to Toronto. Toronto Star. Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/01/14/you-arelike-family-the-morad-family-happily-settles-in-to-toronto.html Kanouté, F., & LaFortune, G. (2011). Immigrant families: Educating children. Our Diverse Cities, 7, 135–140. Retrieved from http://www.metropolis.net/pdfs/ODC7_Kanoute_e.pdf Keefe, J., & Fancey, P. (2000). The care continues: Responsibility for elderly relatives before and after admission to a long term care facility. Family Relations, 49(3), 235–244. 126

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Keefe, J., & Fancey, P. (2002). Work and eldercare: Reciprocity between older mothers and their employed daughters. Canadian Journal on Aging, 21(2), 229–241. Khan, M. M., & Kobayashi, K. M. (2014). Negotiating tricky territories: Filial obligation, caregiving experiences, and processes of acculturation among recently-landed South Asian immigrant women (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia. Khan, M. M., & Kobayashi, K. M. (in press). Negotiating sacred values: Dharma, karma and kinwork among migrant Hindu women. In P. Dossa & C. Coe (Eds.), Transnational aging and kinwork. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Kobayashi, K. M. (2000). The nature of support from adult children to older parents in Japanese Canadian families. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 15(3),185–205. Koehn, S. (1993). Negotiating new lives and new lands: Elderly Punjabi women in British Columbia (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia. Koehn, S. (2009). Negotiating candidacy: Access to care for ethnic minority seniors. Ageing & Society, 29(4), 585–608. Lee, S. M., & Edmonston, B. (2013). Canada’s immigrant families: Growth, diversity and challenges. Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series, 1(1), article 4. Leung, H., & McDonald, L. (2007). Chinese women who care for ageing parents in three generational households: Some immigrant experiences in Toronto. Asian Journal of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 2(1), 15–22. Minassie, S. (2015, July 17). Second-generation Canadians: “Where do we fit in?” New Canadian Media. Retrieved from http://newcanadianmedia.ca/item/29070-second-generation-canadianswhere-do-we-fit-in-second-generation-canadians-where-do-we-fit-in Phinney, J. (1999). An intercultural approach in psychology: Cultural contact and identity. Cross-Cultural Psychology Bulletin, 33(2), 24–31. Saanich’s Surjit Bhandal allowed to stay in Canada. (2013, May 13). Victoria News. Retrieved from http://www.vicnews.com/news/207274101.html Segal, U. (1998). The Asian-Indian family. In C. H. Mindel, R. W. Haberstein, & R. Wright (Eds.), Ethnic families in America: Patterns and variations (pp. 331–360). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Sodhi, P. (2008). Bicultural identity formation of second-generation Indo-Canadians. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 40(2), 187–199. Statistics Canada. (2006). 2006 Census analysis series: Census of population. Retrieved from http:// www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/as-sa/97-562/table/t1-eng.cfm Statistics Canada. (2012). Portrait of families and living arrangements in Canada. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-312-x/98-312x2011001-eng.cfm Statistics Canada. (2013). Immigration and ethnocultural diversity in Canada. Retrieved from http:// www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm Statistics Canada. (2015). Censuses of population, 2001 to 2011. Retrieved from http://www12 .statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-312-x/2011001/tbl/tbl5-eng.cfm Statistics Canada. (2017). Families, households, and marital status: Key results from the 2016 Census. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/170802/dq170802a-eng.htm Sunahara, A. (2011). Japanese Canadians. The Canadian encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www .thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/japanese-canadians Thomas Ma, a life in Vancouver’s kitchens. (n.d.). Seniors’ Stories. Retrieved from http://seniorsstories. vcn.bc.ca/2014/07/31/thomas-ma-life-vancouver-kitchens Triandis, H. (2001). Individualism, collectivism, and personality. Journal of Personality, 69(6), 907–924. NEL

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Chapter 9 Paid and Unpaid Work: Power, Division, and Strategies Glenn J. Stalker

Chapter 10 When Abuse Strikes at Home: Families and Violence Nancy Nason-Clark

Chapter 11 (De)colonization, Racialization, Racism, and Canadian Families: Relearning through Storytelling about Lived Experience Wesley Crichlow

H

ow and with whom is power perceived in families? How is power exercised by family members and to whose benefit and at what expense? Whose rights are deemed to matter in households and in other social spaces? Which discursive knowledge about families is privileged in law and social policy? These are all important inquiries that are related to family meanings, practices, and processes. The three chapters in Part 5 address such questions. Chapter 9 takes up unpaid work as a site of power relations within families. While unpaid work is part of, and has always sustained family formations and living arrangements (see Part 2), we focus here on unpaid labour as a matter of power and rights. Stalker’s intention is to provide a critical discussion on this often taken-for-granted practice of family life by underscoring how power continuously infuses gender meanings and differences into and onto how unpaid work is performed. He explores family members’ changing relationships to the labour market and how other forms of work, including housework and child care, that support families are

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PART 5

Power and Rights

not necessarily equally divided. Continuation of this unfair and gendered division of domestic labour and its implications is considered in view of, for example, how theories attempt to understand that things have changed or how women’s workforce participation has increased and yet supports to enable this, such as innovative, affordable child care, have not necessarily kept pace. The chapter provides an exemplar for how family sociologists quantitatively research unpaid work. (For a discussion of research methods, see Chapter 2.) With a focus on family violence, Nason-Clark provides a critical framework for understanding how power and rights can be unfairly distributed across individually held meanings about families and family practices. In Chapter 10, she explores different types of family violence, but strongly emphasizes how intimate partner violence (IPV) compromises women’s individual rights to safety. In addition, she highlights women’s differing experiences of partner violence based on their race, ethnicity, religion, and social class. Nason-Clark’s chapter is especially notable for its activist implications as

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she affirms how individuals, communities, and governments have important roles to play in ending this kind of violence. Crichlow offers a specialized discussion of how ongoing racialization and colonialism have shaped power and rights in and outside families over time. In Chapter 11, he highlights the historical social injustices experienced by Indigenous and racialized families in Canada, and the implications lived or felt by family members today. Like Alook in Chapter 7, he underscores the complexity inherent in constructing an understanding of the history of Canada’s Indigenous peoples. Further, in his chapter, he behooves us to fully understand Canada’s role in the slave trade. Departing from an aggregate

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account of the social inequalities experienced by racialized immigrant families today, Crichlow adopts a critical race perspective to foreground the voices of immigrant and/or racialized youth. He shares their stories to illustrate the myriad ways in which youth understand the meanings about and practices within families in relation to their own experiences, sometimes shaped by their or their family members’ past and present experiences of marginalization and outright racism. Using youth storytelling as a research strategy allows Crichlow to demonstrate how problematic scholarly accounts about a group can be un-learned and new meanings, practices, and processes about family learned or relearned.

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CHAPTER 9

Glenn J. Stalker

Dorothy Sims, a personnel director … explained … that ... she and her husband, Dan, “shared all the housework,” and that they were “equally involved” in raising their nine-month-old son, Timothy. Her husband, a refrigerator salesman, applauded her career and was more pleased than threatened by her high salary … But one evening at dinner, a telling episode occurred. Dorothy had handed Timothy to her husband while she served us a chicken dinner. Gradually, the baby

©©Monkey Ken Burns/iStockphoto.com Business Images/Shutterstock

Paid and Unpaid Work: Power, Division, and Strategies

L E AR NI NG O B JE C T I V E S

began to doze on his father’s lap. “When do you want me to put Timmy to bed?” I think, to her husband—that this seemingly insignificant question hinted to me

After you have read this chapter, you will be able to:

that it was she, not he or “they,” who usually decided such matters. Dorothy

• understand the differences

Dan asked. A long silence followed during which it occurred to Dorothy—then,

slipped me a glance, put her elbows on the table, and said to her husband in a

between the public sphere of

slow, deliberate voice, “So, what do we think?”

production and the private

When Dorothy and Dan described their “typical days,” their picture of sharing

sphere of reproduction

grew even less convincing. Dorothy worked the same nine-hour day at the office as her husband. But she came home to fix dinner and to tend Timmy while Dan fit in a squash game three nights a week from six to seven (a good time for his squash partner). Dan read the newspaper more often and slept longer. Source: Quoted and excerpted from Hochschild (1989, p. 2).

• differentiate between familial and state patriarchy • understand various models of domestic production • identify four types of household strategies to manage

Interest in the gendered character of unpaid domestic labour is a relatively recent phenomenon in academic research and state family policymaking. Socialist feminist activists and scholars were successful in documenting how state family and labour policies had entrenched women’s productive activity in the private sphere of the home, while simultaneously ensconcing males as “breadwinners” in the public sphere market work. In a detailed account, Ursel (1992) demonstrates how Canadian public policy has since shifted from this era of patriarchy, defined as male control over female reproduction and production, as a result of political struggle and greater female labour force participation, to an era of state patriarchy. State patriarchy directs resources, such as family allowances and child care in varying NEL

unpaid work and how each is shaped by differences in partners’ human capital • explain how sociological gender theories and feminist economics expanded upon early models of household production

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degrees, to the family to assist in both reproducing the labour necessary in the home and managing the broader economic resources and labour supply of the society. In other words, the state took an interest in socializing the costs of reproduction in order to manage emerging needs in labour markets, such as the need for a literate and more highly educated workforce. Whereas unions and existing cultural and religious normative expectations had played a role in protecting the breadwinner role of men, for example, under state patriarchy, the labour movement eventually became involved in protecting some women’s rights, such as freedom from sexual harassment in the labour market, and in promoting pay equity and benefits such as parental leaves. The success of the women’s movement in the West contributed to women’s greater political influence in state policy. In particular, there was a growing recognition of the importance of measuring all productive activity, including unpaid domestic labour, that is, the unmeasured and unpaid work in the care-economy (Folbre, 2004). Dramatic change, including higher female educational achievement, postponed marriage, and delayed childrearing (Cohen & Bianchi, 1999; Schlesinger & Schlesinger, 1989), further buttressed the need for more robust data on market and unpaid work within families on which to base emerging modernized family policies in the areas of child care, parental leave, and elder care. This holistic account of all productive work—market and unpaid work—is not captured by the singular measurement of a nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). The collection of additional household surveys and expanded Census data were needed. Data on unpaid work is now collected by most advanced nations often using the highly favoured method of measuring the time that individuals spend in discrete daily activities. This approach typically uses telephone-based survey methods to collect time-use diaries from national samples of respondents (see also Chapter 2). In Canada, time-use data has been collected by Statistics Canada as part of the General Social Survey (GSS) statistical program for the years 1986, 1992, 1998, 2005, and 2015. Other sources of unpaid work data are also available using stylized measures, which ask respondents to recall how much time has been spent in various domestic work activities or to record their response within a categorical range of hours, thereby necessarily

introducing measurement error due to the use of ordinal response categories. These measures, used in the Canadian long-form census, are very useful when studying specific activities, such as child care and caregiving. They are, however, unable to provide a robust holistic account of all unpaid productive activity that may be completed by an individual. Existing research further suggests that respondents are also more likely to provide typified responses to these stylized measures, such as replying that they work a 35-hour week, thereby not providing an accurate account of the total sum of their time in any one activity (Robinson, 1985, 1999). There is also evidence that respondents may overestimate their time in socially desirable activities such as child care, especially given contemporary anxiety among busy parents to avoid compromising on caregiving to their children and increased social pressures for fathers to participate in caregiving (Hofferth, 1999) (see also Chapter 12). This social desirability effect, however, is diminished when time-use diaries are collected since minutes per day in a specific activity are measured sequentially, thereby diminishing the cultural significance of any one activity within a diary of daily time-use (Folbre, 2002).

Changes in Female Labour Force Participation and the Gendered Division of Paid Work Gender roles have been dramatically transformed due to women’s increased labour force participation. Women’s greater participation can be pinpointed as transforming the organization of households, family life, and the broader political economy in general. Between 1976 and 2015, women’s participation rate in the labour force increased from 45.72 percent to 66.34 percent (Statistics Canada, 2016a), while the participation rate for men decreased from 77.68 percent to 70.61 percent in the same period (Statistics Canada, 2016a).* The proportion of dual–earner families within Canada, as a percentage of all opposite-sex husband-wife families, increased from 47.1 percent to 64.4 percent over roughly the same time period (1976–2008) (Statistics Canada, 2015). Furthermore, the prevalence of male breadwinners in single-earner households has declined relative to

*Author’s calculations using data from Statistics Canada, CANSIM Table 282-0087

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© Hurst Photo/Shutterstock Over time, the number of hours both women and men work each week has been converging.

increases in families with a single-earner wife. Marshall (2009) demonstrates that between 1976 and 2008, the proportion of families with a single-earning wife increased from 4 percent to 10 percent, while, in the same period, the proportion of families with single-earning husbands declined from 53 percent to 21 percent. These trends were more pronounced among families with dependent children. Marshall also notes that the proportion of dual-earner couples in which both partners work full time has increased from 70 percent to 74 percent between 1997 and 2008. As such, women in dual-earner couples are increasingly invested in full-time work, and the asymmetry of women’s part-time and men’s full-time employment is diminishing. This diminishing symmetry is reflected in a trend toward convergence in estimates of weekly hours worked by women and men. As indicated by the Statistics Canada (2016b) Labour Force Survey, in 1976, men and women worked 41.2 and 32.7 hours per week, respectively. By 2012, greater similarity in the work hours of men and women was evident, with men working 39.6 hours per week and women working 33.2 hours, on average.

Theoretical Frameworks Household Production and Developments in the “New Home Economics” Micro-economic theories of household production have been used to address the division of labour between couples by focusing attention on the relative NEL

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differences in each partner’s human capital, defined as their respective education and labour force experience; both can be expected to increase one’s income. Assuming a rational actor, these theories expect that couples will negotiate a division of labour to maximize their marginal utility, that is, the benefits to their partnership. The work of Becker (1981, 1985) gave rise to the New Home Economics which suggests that the prevalence of the traditional gendered division of labour is the product of the disparity in the valuation of men’s and women’s skills in the labour market. Within a patriarchal breadwinner model of the family, women’s need, or, for that matter, opportunity to achieve highly valued education, skills, and labour market experience in the public sphere of work was understood to be limited. Presumably, then, if each partner in a nuclear family had roughly similar levels of human capital, one would expect a more egalitarian division of paid and unpaid work. Focusing exclusively on human capital differences within couples, however, makes it more difficult to explain “non-optimal” outcomes that arise when each partner has the same level of human capital, or, indeed, when the female partner’s human capital exceeds that of her male partner, yet the male partner remains more heavily involved in paid work. In order to assume “optimal” outcomes, one would also have to assume “perfect competition” in a labour market and disregard gender discrimination, sexual harassment, or other barriers, such as the absence of parental leave and affordable daycare, that limit women’s labour force participation, seniority, and opportunities for advancement. According to Becker, traditional gender roles, wherein men and women are specialized in paid and unpaid work respectively, were more efficient since it is assumed that people will become more proficient at managing one task, compared to multiple tasks, especially when one partner’s human capital is more highly remunerated. As suggested by Young and Willmott (1974), however, even if the sum of time spent in paid and unpaid work were the same within a couple, the disparity, that is, the ratio of paid to unpaid work, could have lifelong consequences for women. Women’s loss of human capital in the form of labour force experience cannot be easily overcome without additional education. In other words, the “gains to marriage” of specialized gender roles contribute to the development of greater human capital among men rather than women in households organized by traditional

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gender roles. Furthermore, Folbre (1994) suggests that Becker’s theory exaggerates the gains to marriage that accrue through specialization in gender roles in addition to overstating the role of individual decision making. The New Home Economics perspective offers some insight into the contemporary paid and unpaid work experiences of women and men. The perspective would suggest that the declining wages and economic fortunes of men are associated with the erosion of the male breadwinner model (Levy, 1995). Becker’s model would also accurately predict increased female labour force participation given the increased marginal utility of women’s paid work due to their higher levels of education and increased opportunities in the labour market. One could further expect that couples in which each partner has high human capital may work longer hours given their greater utility in relation to their respective labour markets. Bloemen and Stancanelli (2008) call this the “polarization hypothesis,” which they theorize to contribute to these high human capital couples choosing paid over unpaid work and care: it may be more economical to purchase in-house care than forgo the additional monetary benefit of work. These replacement costs of care work, however, may not be able to completely satisfy the interdependent emotional care provided by family members: most family members may prefer the care of other family members. The cost to replace all unpaid work, however, provides a good measure of how valuable this work is when nations account for their total economic productivity. These figures, however, may be depressed given lower wages within the care sector of the economy. Alternatively, one could calculate the value of a nation’s unpaid work using the opportunity costs associated with the choice of providing unpaid work versus market work: the cost of what you are giving up to do what you are currently choosing to do among competing options. This, however, penalizes those who may choose unpaid work over market work, thereby devaluing care work by discounting people’s motivation to provide it, in effect, taking advantage of people’s willingness to provide care work by paying them less to do it. As such, a singular focus on marginal utility maximization as per New Home Economics can negate the range of motivations and desires that people have to care for household members and the satisfaction they may receive from providing and, in turn, receiving care. 134

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Feminist Economics and Models of Household Production In earlier models of household production, there is an explicit assumption that the utility of the household is the same for each partner within the household (Folbre, 2004), something that downplays impacts related to gender (Crow, 1989). Becker’s early theoretical work is sometimes referred to as a unitary model, since the maximal “gains to the marriage” are based on the nuclear family unit. Non-unitary models allow for each member of a partnership to have a different utility function that reflects his or her own needs and, consequently, recognizes the potential for conflict within the couple. Clearly, the use of power within couples is not fully addressed by the New Home Economics, nor is it used to explain how a couple’s arrangement may favour one partner to the detriment of the other’s desires and interests. This unequal advantage experienced by women and men may be immediate or accrue over the life course. For instance, women with high human capital, though unable to negotiate a more egalitarian division of paid and unpaid labour with their spouses, may forgo accruing human capital in the form of greater labour force experience. (See “Canadian Women Still Hesitant to Climb the Corporate Ladder, Study Finds” In the Media.) By so doing, if the relationship is dissolved and they re-enter the labour market, they are apt to find their market competitiveness and salary adversely affected. Similarly, a woman with little education and labour force experience may choose to be a homemaker since her nuclear household may not be able to afford daycare. Her apparent choice, however, may limit her subsequent labour market opportunities and remuneration. This care-penalty (Folbre, 2002) is typically gendered. As it accrues over a lifetime, it imposes a significant wage penalty upon the central provider of unpaid work within a family, typically the mother, given weaker labour force experience and transitions into and out of paid work. Mothers’ future financial security is also potentially compromised especially given higher contemporary rates of marital dissolution. This motherhood wage penalty is proportionally largest among the lowest-paid workers (Budig & Hodges, 2010). Lost human capital explains the wage penalty at the highest levels of income, while women in low-wage jobs with young children are most likely NEL

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IN THE MEDIA Canadian Women Still Hesitant to Climb the Corporate Ladder, Study Says Canadian women believe there’s been progress in the workplace in closing the salary gap, a survey by Randstad Canada has found. Yet women are still showing a surprising reluctance to climb the corporate ladder. Nearly half—48 per cent—of Canadian women surveyed said they don’t aspire to a management or senior executive role, according to the poll released Monday. Thirty per cent said they’re undecided about moving up the ranks. “That was really surprising,” said Faith Tull, Randstad Canada’s senior vice-president, human resources, in an interview. Women are still hesitant about their employers’ willingness to accommodate home and work obligations, Tull added. Fifty-three per cent of women said they fear that absences due to family obligations would prevent them from advancing in senior roles…. “We are the sandwich generation. We’re taking care of elderly parents and we’re taking care of kids. Then we’re balancing careers. When organizations are not showing they are embracing the uniqueness of those pulls and pushes, then we don’t think we can do it.”

to reduce hours of employment or transition out of the labour market to care for children (Budig & Hodges, 2010; Waldfogel, 1997) because of the high cost of child care relative to earnings (Perry-Jenkins, 2009). Women, similarly unable to negotiate more egalitarian divisions of labour, may, nonetheless, choose to pursue greater labour force experience, but be encumbered by a double burden of paid and unpaid work, effectively doing more combined paid and unpaid work than their male spouses (Hochschild, 1989). Existing research suggests that mothers resist reducing the amount of time they spend on child care as they increase their hours of work (Bianchi, 2000; Bryant & Zick, 1996; Hofferth & Sandberg, 2001; Sandberg & Hofferth, 2001; Sayer, Bianchi, & Robinson, 2004). Additional research indicates that the amount of time that fathers spend in child care is not highly affected by mothers’ hours of work; in other words, the relationship is not highly elastic (Bryant & Zick, 1996; Nock & Kingston, 1988; Pleck, 1997). Consequently, NEL

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These are pressures that Tull, 49, has felt personally in her career. Her climb up the corporate ladder has been affected by the birth of her daughter, divorce and caring for her ailing mother, who has since died.... … First Canadian Title [Tull’s employer] provided the flexibility and support that she needed. Tull went on to become the Oakville-based company’s first vice-president of human resources. “It was a family culture. We worked hard, we played hard,” Tull said. “As long as you delivered, they understood when you were called upon to do the family care.” … Canadians need to take a holistic view on women rising through the corporate ranks, Tull said. “It starts with families and educators building confidence at an early age so women know that women can aspire to greater roles. That will definitely help women’s perceptions of where they can go.” Source: Acharya-Tom Yew (2014). Quoted and excerpted from the November 17 edition of The Toronto Star, https:// www.thestar.com/business/2014/11/17/canadian_women_ believe_salary_gap_is_closing_survey_finds.html. Reprinted with permission - Torstar Syndication Services.

Hochschild (1989) argues that the market and unpaid work that men and women do is not reducible to their comparative positions in the labour market. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that mothers have reduced time spent on domestic work as their labour force participation has increased (Robinson & Godbey, 1999), while the time that parents spend on child care has increased (Bryant & Zick, 1996; Gauthier, Smeeding, & Furstenbern, 2004; Sandberg & Hofferth, 2001). Some researchers, however, attribute some of this specific increase in reporting child care to the greater social desirability of men participating in child care, especially among dual-income partnerships (Press, 1998). The “classical,” or “unitary,” economic model of paid and unpaid work of the New Home Economics has been strongly criticized by scholars who proposed feminist economic models of household production that re-centred gender as a critical explanatory variable. These approaches focused on non-cooperative bargaining between couples and outcomes that may be

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the result of “doing gender,” or maintaining traditional gender roles even in instances when doing so did not maximize the utility of the household (Brines, 1994). As such, theoretical focus is directed toward how the more powerful members of the household or, for that matter, those who are best able to advocate for their interests, are more likely to negotiate outcomes in their favour (Lundberg & Pollak, 1994; Schultz, 1990). Typically, within a traditional model of specialized gender roles, economic power is in the hands of the male breadwinner. However, women with higher levels of education and, therefore, possibly higher earning potential are more likely to have an egalitarian division of household labour (Geerken & Gove, 1983; Mannino & Deutsch, 2007; Shelton & John, 1993). Furthermore, men with more education perform additional child care (Brines, 1994; Presser, 1986, 1994; Strober & Chan, 1998), suggesting that education changes expectations concerning gender roles. These feminist insights suggest that unpaid work within the home is a far more complex reality shaped by familial attachments, culture, emotion, and gender and is not wholly reducible to utility as in the New Home Economics perspective. Folbre (2008) goes further in suggesting that while there is a certain amount of rational self-interest within households, there is, nonetheless, a great deal of interdependence, emotion, and care work that cannot be reduced to market rationality and self-interested maximization of utility. Although there is negotiation and non-cooperative negotiation in which one partner may have less power over the outcome, there is also much interdependence, emotional connection, and reciprocity. Folbre further argues against existing economic orthodoxy by stressing that unpaid work contributes tremendously to the economic well-being of society. Unpaid work, then, can be thought of as an “externalized cost” in which benefits are shared broadly, but the costs are shouldered by unpaid caregivers. In other words, there are manifold benefits for individuals and families, but also for private economic interests, that are not paid. As Ursel (1992) suggests in her analysis, under state patriarchy, the state has been reluctant to socialize the entire costs of unpaid work, especially within a period of neo-liberal retrenchment in public policy. Ursel identifies the whole of this unpaid domestic and care labour as reproduction that occurs within the private sphere of the home and can be distinguished from the production, or paid work occurring within labour markets. 136

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Feminist economic models of household production have contributed to newly relevant economic analyses of the division of labour between couples, while further considering the macro-structural context within which couples’ decisions are made (Folbre, 2004). As earlier suggested in reference to the work of Ursel (1992), the structural context that families experience is shaped by economic and social policy that either contributes to or limits the ability of women to participate in market work. A large body of scholarship demonstrates the impact that states potentially have on ameliorating class and gender inequality (Esping-Anderson, 1990; Korpi, O’Connor, & Olsen, 1998; Sainsbury, 1996). Consequently, social policy has the potential to change gender inequality within employment and the family household. For instance, existing research demonstrates that female labour force participation is increased when mothers have access to affordable quality daycare (Baker, Gruber, & Milligan, 2008; Lefebvre & Merrigan, 2008; Lefebvre, Merrigan, & Verstraete, 2009; Stalker & Ornstein, 2013). The costs of child care, or reproduction, can be met through public education and affordable state-subsidized child care (Jacobs & Gornick, 2002; Joesch & Spiess, 2002). Female labour force participation may be lowered, however, when the marginal taxation rate on second household wage earners is high, essentially diminishing the disparity in the opportunity costs of paid market work (Apps, 2003). Finally, mothers’ personal preferences may be overwhelmed by the economic needs of their families, the availability and cost of child care, and labour market supports for maternal employment (Stähli, LeGoff, Levy, & Widmer, 2009).

Child Care, Daycare, Leisure, and the Division of Paid and Unpaid Work: Recent Findings Contemporary research on the division of paid and unpaid work within families continues to grapple with the impact of human capital on this division, as per earlier theorizing by Becker and others, and the innovations in understanding posed by much of feminist scholarship. Using measures for child care and paid work from the 2006 Canadian long-form census, Ornstein and Stalker (2013) demonstrate the impact of human capital on a couple’s choice of household paid work and childcare strategy. The Canadian long-form NEL

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census collects data on time allocated to child care, in a stylized measure consisting of six ordinal categories, from a sample of one in five Canadians. A couple’s household strategy refers specifically to the combination of each parent’s employment, that is, whether one is employed full time, part time, or not outside the home, and how child care is shared between them. Mårtensson (1979) suggests that individuals pursue distinct time-use projects over their life course and that the constellation of projects, including education, work, child care, and elder care, have a profound effect on how couples organize themselves to cope. Strategizing around the division of paid and unpaid work is remarkably continuous within families. Based on insights derived from sociological and feminist economic theory, Ornstein and Stalker expected that after accounting for human capital, gender will predict more child care among women, in addition to human capital having a larger impact on paid work of men compared to women contributing to asymmetries in the division of labour. Ornstein and Stalker (2013) identified parents’ strategies for work and child care by developing a categorization of each partner’s paid work time and the amount of time they allocated to child care as measured in the Census. The analysis was limited to couples with children between the ages of one and five and excluded older children or other adult household members who might provide additional care to children. Four strategies accounted for over 80 percent of all couples. The traditional arrangement, representing 40 percent of couples, was by far the most prevalent; the mother provided more child care and did not work, while the father was employed full time. Both partners in close to 20 percent of couples worked full time and shared child care relatively equally. In almost 12 percent of couples, both partners were employed full time, though the mother was double-burdened and did more child care. Finally, in close to 11 percent of couples, the mother did more child care and worked quite a few part-time hours, while the father was employed full time. Further analyses suggested that any difference in human capital, measured by each partner’s age and education, contributed to a less egalitarian household strategy. Furthermore, Ornstein and Stalker observe a strong tendency toward specialization of traditional gender roles when very young children are within the household. Human capital also predicted greater specialization and unequal childcare arrangements when NEL

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these factors favoured the father compared to when the discrepancy in human capital favoured the mother within the relationship. Considering child care performed by others outside of the household, research has demonstrated huge variation in its cost across Canadian cities. Full-day infant childcare fees were highest in Toronto in 2014; there, parents could expect to pay $1,676 per month, while fees were lowest in cities within Québec where parents pay $152 per month to gain access to the province’s universal childcare program (Macdonald & Friendly, 2014). Subsequent work conducted by Stalker and Ornstein (2013) used Census data for the years 1996, 2001, and 2006; continued to explore the relationship between human capital and household strategies; and focused more closely on different childcare arrangements among couples in Québec. This research demonstrated that the traditional division of labour had diminished somewhat in Québec following the introduction of affordable and universal daycare, while female labour force participation had somewhat increased. The erosion of the traditional breadwinner model of the family was more pronounced among common-law than married couples, suggesting that these couples are less conforming to traditional gender roles, even when accounting for human capital, and more responsive to policy intervention and supports. While movement occurred away from the traditional household strategy, this did not result in more egalitarian households in which mothers and fathers share child care equally; rather, there was an increase in the proportion of egalitarian strategies in which couples both work full time and share child care about equally and strategies within which the mother is doubleburdened with full-time work and more child care. When fathers had higher human capital than their partners, it was more likely that the couples would have an unequal childcare strategy. Other contemporary comparative research has demonstrated impacts on leisure, a common practice of family life, that are potentially related to the level of social welfare support among nations. Consistent with expectations derived from theories of the welfare state (Esping-Anderson, 1990), overall leisure time was lower in the United States than in Canada and the United Kingdom throughout a period beginning in the late 1960s and ending in the early 2000s, coming closest to being equal in the mid-1980s. This difference can be attributed to how the United States is typically classified

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Canada Male Female

500 450 400 350 300 250

1971

1981

1986 Year

1992

500 450 400 350 300 250

1998

1975

1983

1987 Year

1995

2000

United States

550 Leisure Time (minutes)

United Kingdom

550 Leisure Time (minutes)

Leisure Time (minutes)

550

500 450 400 350 300 250

1965

1975

1985 Year

1998

2003

FIGURE 9.1  Fitted Number of Minutes of Leisure Activity by Country and Gender

as a more liberal welfare state with fewer provisions that regulate labour markets and the timings of work and holiday (Stalker, 2011). While Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States can all be considered along a continuum of liberal welfare states, both Canada and the United Kingdom integrate additional policies such as socialized medicine and family allowance, which are more typical of social democratic welfare regimes that provide far more extensive social welfare provisions. Studying available leisure provides a holistic account of the time available outside paid and unpaid work. In a comparative analysis of leisure time from roughly the mid-1960s to the early 2000s in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and in view of differences in social welfare provisions, Stalker (2011) found that individual leisure time was either stable or had slightly increased in the nations studied, except for the parents of young children. In other words, parents’ leisure time had decreased relative to stable or 138

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increasing leisure time for individuals in these national samples (see Figure 9.1). The strongest pattern of differentiation of leisure time by parental status is found within the United States. These changes occurred simultaneously, with growing gender equality or convergence, in the amount of leisure time available for men and women (see Figure 9.2). Although this gap has narrowed, there is, nonetheless, a somewhat large and continuous inequality in available leisure time for women and men with young children compared to those without. Consequently, the leisure time available after paid and unpaid work is less gendered, though increasingly differentiated by parental status; parents of young children sacrifice a greater proportion of free time as they specialize in reproduction and production. This work suggests that there are growing differences in how time is used over the life course. Investing in careers and establishing a family has been referred to as the “launching phase” of young adult life (Moen & NEL

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Canada

500 450 400 350 300 250

1971

1981

1986 Year

1992

500 450 400 350 300 250

1998

1975

1983

1987 Year

1995

2000

United States

550 Leisure Time (minutes)

United Kingdom

550 Leisure Time (minutes)

Leisure Time (minutes)

550

500 450 400 350 300 250

1965

1975

1985 Year

1998

2003

Children less than 5 years old Children more than 5 years old No children FIGURE 9.2  Fitted Number of Minutes of Leisure Activity by Country and Parental Status

Sweet, 2003), and evidence suggests that this phase may be increasingly specialized in paid and unpaid work. Many of the findings discussed suggest that managing the challenges of family and household has become increasingly demanding, especially for working mothers with young children. In addition to studying the allocation of time, researchers have investigated attitudes and perceived stress that may be the consequence of managing paid and unpaid work under challenging circumstances. Robinson and Godbey (1999) developed an indicator of time-stress based on 10 questions that evaluate respondents’ perceptions of time use in daily life. Given the preceding discussion, it is perhaps unsurprising that time-stress was found to be higher among mothers, households with younger and more children, and parents who do not have partners and are employed. NEL

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Parents who provide care to older adults and who are members of multi-generational households were also found to have higher time-stress scores. Stalker (2014) discovered that time-stress was particularly high among working mothers who could be considered double-burdened (Hochschild, 1989). Surprisingly, mothers’ and fathers’ time-stress decreased during weekdays when there were increasingly older children in the household, but remained high on the weekend—time traditionally associated with rest from paid work (Stalker, 2014). Parents may be using the weekend to accomplish tasks left over from the week, or alternatively, as suggested in the work of Linder (1970), are trying to increase the marginal utility, that is, the value of their leisure time, by overbooking their free time with activities and events, or some combination therein.

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Same-Sex Families and Queering the Division of Labour

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Much of the preceding discussion has been limited to opposite-sex couples because early models of household production assumed the heterosexual couple as the norm. Recent research has demonstrated that same-sex couples tend to divide paid work more equally than opposite-sex couples and that lesbian partners tend to specialize less following marriage or childbirth (Jaspers & Verbakel, 2013); rather, both share the care work more equally than heterosexual couples (Shechory & Ziv, 2007; Sullivan, 2004). Innovative research by Moore (2008) showed that, in a sample of black lesbian mothers, the biological mother tended to exert more authority over household organization and to have further control over the environment in which the child was raised. Most lesbian mothers in this sample had children from a previous, often heterosexual, relationship. Moore argues that in the absence of patriarchal male privilege, these mothers traded off doing more household labour for exerting more control over household finances and organization, practices perceived as important to the raising of their children. Tellingly, this work suggests interesting power differentials centred on gender and sexuality, on identity and expectations and not income, that is, human capital, as typically defined in the micro-economic models discussed above. Solomon, Rothblum, and Balsam (2005) also found, in a sample of same-sex and heterosexual couples, that sexual orientation, not income disparities within couples, was the biggest predictor of the division of household tasks, with heterosexual couples

The division of domestic labour, including child care, can be more fair among gay couples than heterosexual couples.

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adopting a more traditional gendered division. (See “Gay and Straight Couples and the Division of Unpaid Work in 2015” in Intersections.) The research of Solomon et al. suggests that measures of human capital are not sufficient to account for the great variation among and between couples of different types. Furthermore, these theoretically insightful findings were developed through detailed qualitative examination: information often lacking in quantitative data or not easily measured in national samples (see Chapter 2).

INTERSECTIONS GAY AND STRAIGHT COUPLES AND THE DIVISION OF UNPAID WORK IN 2015 The division of unpaid work among gay and straight couples and how this may be different is a topic of interest in popular media too. A recent survey of 225 gay and straight dual-earner couples by Price Waterhouse Cooper and the Family Institute was reported on in The Washington Post. Survey data showed that among gay couples, common household tasks (e.g., child care, laundry, grocery shopping, yard work) were divided more fairly, and communication about personal preference was cited as a reason for why labour was divided in the way it was. Notably, gay couples were more likely to share child care, including caring for a child who fell ill. Among opposite-sex couples, women spent more time in child care and other household tasks than men, even if they worked full time. So too did the partner who earned less money or worked fewer hours. Men with higher incomes and who worked longer hours than women—differences that can be associated with perceived greater economic power and status in the relationship—participated in outdoor work (e.g., yard work) that was less time consuming. What this survey reveals is that intersections of gender and class (e.g., income) and unpaid work can continue to be entrenched as traditional gendered divisions of labour for partners in straight couples, even in 2015. Meanwhile, gay couples seem to innovatively approach the division of household tasks, by communicating, especially about likes and dislikes, and thereby create a more equitable division of labour. Sources: Matos (2015); Schulte (2015). Paraphrased from the sources.

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CHAPTER SUMMARY Becker’s (1981) innovative approach in the New Home Economics has contributed to the development of an extensive body of research addressing gender and the division of labour. Unitary models were greatly improved upon by explicitly addressing the different utility functions that may exist for each member of the household, and how existing paid and unpaid arrangements may have been arrived at through non-cooperative bargaining, for example, when the member of the household with the most power exerts greater control over decision making and outcomes. Feminist economics, however, greatly expands the possible considerations needed to understand decision making by considering how mutual aid, interdependence, and emotionally invested caring motivate the actions of members of a household. To a large extent, economic models of household production such as Becker’s developed in tandem with the increasing availability of household survey data, and these models yield important findings. Insights from feminist economics and recent research on same-sex families, however, suggest that we should not presume that what is easily measured through survey methods—that is, indicators and proxies for human capital—is sufficient for a more robust understanding of household decision making and the division of paid and unpaid work. The statistician George Box (1979) stated, “All models are wrong but some are useful.” Models necessarily reduce social complexity to what is theoretically argued to be the most important relationships within data but should not be taken to represent the complexity of social reality. Detailed qualitative work continues to demonstrate how orthodox models have the potential of limiting understanding when they are taken for “reality.” It is increasingly clear that family and social policies have yet to consistently adapt to the rapid change experienced within the family over the last several decades, resulting in the large increase in female labour force participation (Moen & Sweet, 2003; Ursel, 1992). In Canada, only Québec offers affordable, universal daycare as an innovative program easily accessible to all parents; yet, as suggested in research, increased access to affordable daycare in the rest of Canada can be expected to have the similar impact of increasing women’s labour force participation. There are, therefore, economic and social benefits still to be gained by supporting paid employment, especially among mothers with less human capital and whose daycare costs price them out of paid work.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. What policies could be pursued to decrease the opportunity costs of women with lower levels of human capital from entering the labour force? 2. Is rational maximization of personal self-interest an adequate enough perspective to understand the negotiations over paid and unpaid work that occur between couples? Defend your opinion. How does feminist economics widen this focus on utility maximization? 3. How do traditional economic models of household production minimize or disregard the experiences of unpaid care-workers? 4. How has qualitative research on same-sex couples challenged existing understandings of human capital, utility maximization, and power within couples? Refer to studies, described earlier, that have explored experiences of paid and unpaid work.

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APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. Compare and contrast how daycare is provided in Québec and the rest of Canada. How might these differences in how daycare is provided affect decisions by opposite-sex couples? 2. How could the wage penalty associated with care-work be lessened for men and women who provide care to household members? 3. The valuation of a nation’s total unpaid work can be estimated using either the replacement value of the work or the opportunity costs of the work for the caregiver. What are the consequences of basing national accounts of the valuation of unpaid work on its opportunity costs? 4. Review Who’s Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics, a National Film Board of Canada film. Discuss how the United Nations system of national accounting measures the productive value of work within nations. Whose interests are served and who are marginalized in this system of national accounts?

FURTHER RESOURCES Who’s Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics (written and directed by Terre Nash). https://www.nfb.ca/film/whos_counting. In this feature-length 1995 documentary, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, economist and writer Marilyn Waring challenges existing economic orthodoxy by demonstrating how systems of national accounts failed to measure the contribution of domestic work in economies. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Gender Equality website. www.oecd.org/gender/home. The OECD promotes policy development in areas of economic and social well-being. This website documents how gender equality is promoted by governments in both OECD and non-OECD countries. Statistics Canada, General Social Survey—Time Use. www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/survey/household/4503. Detailed methodological information about the General Social Survey on time use can be found here. International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE). www.iaffe.org. This nonprofit organization aims to increase feminist research on the economy. IAFFE publishes the journal Feminist Economics and organizes or participates in conferences.

KEY TERMS double burden: a term used to capture how women do more combined paid and unpaid work than their male spouses (p. 135) household strategy: how each parent’s employment, whether it be full time, part time, or not outside the home, and child care are shared between the parents (p. 137) human capital: education and labour force experience (p. 133) patriarchy: male control over female reproduction and production (p. 131)

state patriarchy: when the state directs resources to support families, such as family allowance and child care in varying degrees, to support reproduction and production within and outside families (p. 131) stylized measures: a record of how much time has been spent in various activities based on what respondents recall or choose within a categorical range of hours (p. 132)

REFERENCES Acharya-Tom Yew, M. (2014, November 17). Canadian women still hesitant to climb corporate ladder, study says. Toronto Star. Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/11/17/ canadian_women_believe_salary_gap_is_closing_survey_finds.html 142

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Apps, P. (2003). Gender, time use, and models of the household (Discussion Paper No. 796). Bonn, Germany: Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Baker, M., Gruber, J., & Milligan, K. (2008). Universal child care, maternal labor supply, and family well-being. Journal of Political Economy, 116(41), 709–745. Balkissoon, D. (2011, November 5). The 7 habits of highly effective lesbian families. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/ the-7-habits-of-highly-effective-lesbian-families/article1358105/?page5all Becker, G. S. (1981). A treatise on the family [expanded edition, 1991]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Becker, G. S. (1985). Human capital, effort, and the sexual division of labour. Journal of Labor Economics, 3(1), S33–S58. Bianchi, S. (2000). Maternal employment and time with children: Dramatic change or surprising continuity? Demography, 37, 401–414. doi: 10.1353/dem.2000.0001 Bloemen, H. G., & Stancanelli, E. G. F. (2008). How do parents allocate time? The effects of wages and income (IZA Discussion Paper No. 3679). Bonn, Germany: Institute for the Study of Labor. Box, G. E. P. (1979). Robustness in the strategy of scientific model building. In R. L. Launer & G. N. Wilkinson (Eds.), Robustness in statistics (pp. 201–236). New York, NY: Academic Press. Brines, J. (1994). Economic dependency, gender, and the division of labor at home. American Journal of Sociology, 100(3), 652–88. Bryant, W. K., & Zick, C. D. (1996). Are we investing less in the next generation? Historical trends in time spent caring for children. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 17, 385–392. doi:10.1007/BF02265026 Budig, M. J., & Hodges, M. J. (2010). Differences in disadvantage: Variation in the motherhood penalty across white women’s earnings distribution. American Sociological Review, 75(5), 1–24. Cohen, P. N., & Bianchi, S. M. (1999). Marriage, children, and women’s employment: What do we know? Monthly Labor Review, 122(12), 22–31. Crow, G. (1989). The use of the concept of “strategy” in recent sociological literature. Sociology, 23(1), 1–24. Easterlin, R. A. (1978). What will 1984 be like? Socioeconomic implications of recent twists in age structure. Demography, 15(4), 397–432. England, P., & Folbre, N. (2005). Gender and economic sociology. In N. J. Smelser & R. Swedborg (Eds.), The handbook of economic sociology (2nd ed., pp. 727–749). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Esping-Anderson, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Folbre, N. (1994). Who pays for the kids? Gender and the structures of constraint. London, UK: Routledge. Folbre, N. (2002). The invisible heart: Economics and family values. New York, NY: New Press. Folbre, N. (2004). A theory of the misallocation of time. In N. Folbre & M. Bittman (Eds.), Family time: The social organization of care (pp. 7–25). London, UK: Routledge. Folbre, N. (2008). Valuing children: Rethinking the economics of the family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gauthier, A. H., Smeeding, T. M., & Furstenbern, F. F., Jr. (2004). Are parents investing less time in children? Trends in selected industrialized countries. Population and Development Review, 30(4), 647–671. Geerken, M., & Gove, W. (1983). At home and at work. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Hochschild, A. R. (with Machung, A.). (1989). The second shift: Working parents and the revolution at home. New York, NY: Viking. NEL

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Hofferth, S. (1999). Family reading to young children: Social desirability and cultural biases in reporting Paper presented at the Workshop on Measurement of and Research on Time Use, Committee on National Statistics, National Research Council, Washington, DC. Hofferth, S., & Sandberg, J. (2001). How American children spend their time. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 63(2), 295–308. Jacobs, J. A., & Gornick, J. C. (2002). Hours of paid work in dual-earner couples: The U.S. in cross-national perspectives. Sociological Focus, 35(2), 169–187. Jaspers, E., & d Verbakel, E. (2013). The division of paid labor in same-sex couples in the Netherlands. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 68(5), 335–348. Joesch, J. M., & Spiess, C. K. (2002). European mothers’ time spent looking after children: Differences and similarities across nine countries (EPAG Working Paper No. 31). Essex, England: European Panel Analysis Group. Katz, E. (1997). The intra-household economics of voice and exit. Feminist Economics, 3(3), 25–46. Korpi, W., O’Connor, J. S., & Olsen, G. M. (Eds.). (1998). Power resources theory and the welfare state. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Lefebvre, P., & Merrigan, P. (2008). Child-care policy and the labor supply of mothers with young children: A natural experiment from Canada. Journal of Labor Economics, 26(3), 519–548. Lefebvre, P., Merrigan, P., & Verstraete, M. (2009). Dynamic labour supply effects of childcare subsidies: Evidence from a Canadian natural experiment on low-fee universal child care. Labour Economics, 16(5), 490–502. Levy, F. (1995). Incomes and income inequality. In R. Farley (Ed.), State of the union: America in the 1990s. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation. Linder, S. B. (1970). The harried leisure class. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Lundberg, S., & Pollak, R. A. (1994). Noncooperative bargaining models of marriage. American Economic Review, 84(2), 132–137. Lundberg, S., & Pollak, R. A. (1996). Bargaining and distribution in marriage. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 10(4), 139–158. Macdonald, D., & Friendly, M. (2014). The parent trap: Child care fees in Canada’s big cities. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Mannino, C. A., & Deutsch, F. M. (2007). Changing the division of household labor: A negotiated process between partners. Sex Roles, 56(5), 309–324. Marshall, K. (2009, April). The family work week. Perspectives on Labour and Income (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 75-001-X), 10(4). Mårtensson, S. (1979). On the formation of biographies in space-time environments. Lund Studies in Geography, Series B. Human Geography No. 47. Lund, Sweden: Gleerup, Royal University of Lund. Matos, K. (2015). Modern families: Same- and different-sex couples negotiating at home. New York, NY: Families and Work Institute. Retrieved from http://www.familiesandwork.org/downloads/ modern-families.pdf Moen, P. & Sweet, S. (2003). Time clocks: Work hour strategies. In P. Moen (Ed.), It’s about time: Couples and careers. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Moore, M. R. (2008). Gendered power relations among women: A study of household decision making in black, lesbian stepfamilies. American Sociological Review, 73(2), 335–356. Noch, S., & Kingston, P. (1988). Time with children: The impact of couples’ work-time commitments. Social Forces, 67(1), 59–85. Oppenheimer, V. K. (1997). Women’s employment and gains to marriage: The specialization and trading model. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 431–453. doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.23.1.431 Ornstein, M., & Stalker, G. J. (2013). Canadian families’ strategies for employment and care for preschool children. Journal of Family Issues, 34(1), 53–84. 144

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Perry-Jenkins, M. (2009). Making a difference for hourly workers: Considering work–life policies in social context. In A. C. Crouter & A. Booth (Eds.), Work–life policies (pp. 219–227). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Pleck, J. H. (1997). Parental involvement: Levels, sources, and consequences. In M. E. Lamb (Ed.), The role of father in child development (3rd ed., pp. 66–103). New York, NY: John Wiley. Press, J. (1998). Wives’ and husbands’ housework reporting: Gender, class, and social desirability. Gender and Society, 12(2), 188–218. Presser, H. B. (1986). Shift work among American women and child care. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 48, 551–563. doi: 10.2307/352041 Presser, H. B. (1994). Employment schedules among dual-earner spouses and the division of household labour by gender. American Sociological Review, 59(3), 348–364. Robinson, J. P. (1985). The validity and reliability of diaries versus alternative time-use measures. In R. T. Juster & F. P. Stafford (Eds.), Time, goods, and well-being (pp. 33–62). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research. Robinson, J. P. (1999). The time-diary method: Structures and uses. In W. E. Pentland, A. Harvey, M. P. Lawton, & M. A. McColl (Eds.), Time-use research in the social sciences (pp. 47–89). New York, NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Robinson, J. P., & Godbey, G. (1999). Time for life: The surprising ways Americans use their time. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sainsbury, D. (1996). Gender, equality and welfare states. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Sandberg, J. F., & Hofferth, S. L. (2001). Changes in children’s time-use with parents: United States, 1981–1997. Demography, 38, 423–436. doi: 10.1353/dem.2001.0031 Sayer, L. C., Bianchi, S. M., & Robinson, J. P. (2004). Are parents investing less in children? Trends in mothers’ and fathers’ time with children. American Journal of Sociology, 110(1), 1–43. Schlesinger, B., & Schlesinger, R. (1989). Postponed parenthood: Trends and issues. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 20(3), 355–363. Schulte, B. (2015, June 4). What gay couples get about relationships that straight couples often don’t. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/ wp/2015/06/04/what-gay-couples-get-about-relationships-that-straight-couples-oftendont/?utm_term5.956baf9c20fa Schulte, B. (2016, June 4). Gay couples divide household chores more equitably. The Washington Post, as cited in the Toronto Star. Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/life/2015/06/04/gaycouples-divide-household-chores-more-equitably.html Schultz, T. P. (1990). Testing the neoclassical model of family labor supply and fertility. Journal of Human Resources, 25(4), 599–634. Shechory, M., & Ziv, R. (2007). Relationships between gender role attitudes, role division, and perception of equity among heterosexual, gay and lesbian couples. Sex Roles, 56, 629–638. doi: 10.1007/s11199-007-9207-3 Shelton, B. A., & John, D. (1993). Does marital status make a difference? Journal of Family Issues, 14, 401–420. doi: 10.1177/019251393014003004 Solomon, S. E., Rothblum, E. D., & Balsam, K. F. (2005). Money, housework, sex, and conflict: Same-sex couples in civil unions, those not in civil unions, and heterosexual married siblings. Sex Roles, 52(9), 561–575. Stähli, M. E., LeGoff, J.-M., Levy, R. L., & Widmer, E. (2009). Wishes or constraints? Mothers’ labour force participation and its motivation in Switzerland. European Sociological Review, 25(3), 333–348. Stalker, G. (2011). A widening parental leisure gap: The family as a site for late modern differentiation and convergence in leisure time within Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 36(1), 25–58. NEL

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Stalker, G. (2014). Gendered perceptions of time among parents: family contexts, role demands, and variation in time-stress. Loisir et société/Society and Leisure, 37(2), 241–261. Stalker, G., & Ornstein, M. (2013). Quebec, daycare, and the household strategies of couples with young children. Canadian Public Policy, 39(2), 241–262. Statistics Canada. (2015). Women in Canada: A gender-based statistical report (7th ed., Catalogue No. 89-503-X). Ottawa: Author. Retrieved from http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/olc-cel/olc. action?ObjId589-503-X&ObjType52&lang5en&limit50 Statistics Canada. (2016a). Table 282-0087—Labour force survey estimates (LFS), by sex and age group, seasonally adjusted and unadjusted, monthly. V2062834 Canada; Participation rate (Percent); Females; 15 years and over; Estimate; Seasonally adjusted (Jan-1976 to Jan-2016, Data: 481). CANSIM II (database). Statistics Canada. (2016b). Table 282-0028—Labour force survey estimates (LFS), by total and average usual and actual hours worked, main or all jobs, type of work, sex and age group, annual (hours). CANSIM (database). Retrieved from http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/ a26?lang5eng&id52820028 Strober, M. H., & Chan, A. M. K. (1998). Husbands, wives, and housework: Graduates of Stanford and Tokyo universities. Feminist Economics, 4(3), 97–127. Sullivan, M. (2004). The family of woman: Lesbian mothers, their children, and the undoing of gender. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ursel, J. (1992). Private lives, public policy: 100 years of state intervention in the family. Toronto, ON: Women’s Press. Waldfogel, J. (1997). The effects of children on women’s wages. American Sociological Review, 62(2), 209–217. Young, M., & Willmott, P. (1974). The symmetrical family. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

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CHAPTER 10

Nancy Nason-Clark

Susan and John met at a party about six weeks after they started university. They were initially attracted to each other because they shared many similar background and personality characteristics. Both were rather shy, from small towns, and deeply

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When Abuse Strikes at Home: Families and Violence

connected to their families, who believed in the value of hard work and spending time together. Since they both felt rather homesick and were without a new network of friends, it did not take long for them to start hanging out together

L E AR NI NG O B JE C T I V E S

almost all of the time. But once Susan began to develop other friends, too, John friends would text or call, he demanded to know who was contacting her and

After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

what they wanted.

• understand intimate partner

became very jealous. He insisted that she spend every evening with him and when

One night they got into a serious argument about her upcoming plans to go and

violence and how it is dif-

visit her roommate’s family for the weekend. As his anger escalated, Susan became

ferent from other forms of

quite frightened of John. She told him that she was leaving the coffee shop where

abuse

they were arguing and going back to her dorm room. He followed her several blocks through the city centre, even though she kept telling him that she wanted to be alone. When they arrived at the hall of the residence, she wanted to avoid creating a scene, so she let him come to her room. Once there, he grabbed her,

• discuss the prevalence and severity of family violence • recognize the factors behind

pushed her against the closed door, and said several mean and hurtful things to

a woman’s decision to leave,

her. He told her if she ever walked away like that again, she would be very, very

or not leave, an abusive

sorry for disrespecting him. Susan then began to cry, and John stormed out of

relationship

the building. Once John was outside, his mind went back to all the times he had seen his mother in tears.

• explain various elements in the story of a man who acts abusively • differentiate different forms of

Intimate partner violence is a complex, ugly, fear-inducing reality for large numbers of women in Canada and around the globe. Women’s violence at the hands of their male partners has also been a consistent, though often hidden, reality in Canada. Thus, intimate partner violence can be thought of as a continuous process of family life, though affecting only some families (see Chapter 2). While more women than men are victims of abuse, some men are abused by their female or male

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support for families in crisis • identify the coordinated community response that exists in Calgary and understand the factors making it a gold standard approach

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partners. When violence exists in an intimate relationship, dreams are shattered, shame abounds, and safety is compromised. Children linked to the family unit are always affected, whether or not they are the specific targets of violence on the part of adult family members. Intimate partner violence is but one form of violence that is experienced within families. Elder abuse is another example of how abuse strikes family life, and so is sibling abuse. Although violence is learned behaviour, it flourishes most when ignored, minimized, or misunderstood. Early detection and intervention must be promoted at the community level and prevention should always be the goal. Violence of any form is not a problem that has an impact on just a few families: abuse in the family context is a problem weaving throughout our society at many different levels. There is a part for us all in reducing violence in the family. Every woman, man, and child can become part of the solution to ensuring that every home is a safe home, every home a shelter. To work together raising awareness and ensuring best practices for those affected by family violence is the challenge we present to you—the student—reading this chapter. You can play a role in reducing family violence and in responding with care and compassion to those who suffer from it, abuser and abused alike. Whether you do so by volunteering within a community-based program or offering a listening ear to a friend who is hurting, you can be part of the important initiative striving to ensure that family life is safe and healthy for all—children and adults. Most of this chapter covers intimate partner violence, though other forms of family violence are discussed. The narrowing of focus to intimate partner violence, or IPV, is because (1) IPV is the most common form of family violence; (2) intimate partnerships are part of starting families (that is, in the context of dating) or can even be thought of as constituting families (in the context of committed, marriage, or common-law-like unions), whether couples are straight, queer, or with or without children; and (3) intimacy or closeness is thought to be part of family life. We tend to equate intimacy largely with affection and love; we can forget to equate it with harm and fear. If family violence in all forms is to be eliminated, there will need to be a coordinated community response, or a response that incorporates criminal justice and therapeutic, as well as advocacy, 148

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resources. But despite the public policies that might be put in place—as important as these are—the deeper roots of violence in intimate partner relationships will never be ameliorated until we recognize and alter the systemic economic, ethnic, gender, and sexual inequalities and patriarchal ideologies that operate within Canadian society (Hampton & Gerrard, 2006). The intersection of multiple structural barriers and vulnerabilities has material consequences that prevent many women from leaving violent partners and seeking safety for themselves and their children (Crenshaw, 1994); it also thwarts partners in same-sex relationships from doing likewise (Renzetti, 2011). Theories—or answers to the questions we may have—about the causes and consequences of intimate partner violence range from individual-level explanations (why did John become angry when he felt rejected by Susan?), to family-level explanations (is John repeating a pattern he observed at home?) to societal-level explanations (what is the impact of so much violence on TV and in the movies?). Understanding why abuse occurs and the foundations of our society that give rise to it is an important first step in working toward its elimination. Abuse occurs across the country and frequently in our own backyards. It flourishes on university campuses, leading some to speak of a rape culture, the normalization of violence against women; it can also be observed in nursing homes or in other care facilities where the elderly live. There are cultural differences in intimate partner violence, too. In some societies, honour-based killings occur when it is believed that a woman has shamed the family name by violating a cultural norm. Femicide, the killing of women because they are women, is a dramatic example of gender-based violence. It is internationally recognized as a phenomenon different from male homicides. There are many different types of femicide—familial, friend/ acquaintance, and stranger—but femicide directly related to an act by an intimate partner is by far the most common; in fact, in Canada, 52 percent of solved homicide cases of women involved offenders who were former or current intimate partners (Johnson & Dawson, 2011). Before anyone can be of much assistance, though, it is critical to understand the dynamics of the problem and why it continues to occur. NEL

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Understanding Family Violence: Its Frequency and Severity Intimate Partner Violence in Comparative Perspective Choose any region of the world and you will find signs of the ugly presence of abuse. In every country of the world where data have been collected, the evidence is overwhelming: large numbers of women suffer physical violence from the men with whom they share intimacy and residence (Kroeger & Nason-Clark, 2010). With content experts from Canada and the United States representing criminal justice, therapeutic, advocacy, and religious perspectives, the Religion and Violence e-Learning (RAVE) website was developed, based on the findings from my research projects. On our RAVE website (www.theraveproject.org), you can click on the names of various countries and see some of the statistics that have been gathered in those contexts concerning violence against women and girl children.* We present a few examples below before discussing the situation in Canada. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an average of 24 people per minute—or 12 million men and women a year—are victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner (Metzger & Moyer, 2014). On their website, the CDC report that one in four women and one in seven men in the United States have suffered severe physical abuse at some point in their lifetime— abuse perpetrated by an intimate partner (Black et al., 2011; Nason-Clark & Fisher-Townsend, 2015). According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2.1 percent of Australian women and 0.9 percent of Australian men experience violence by a current partner, while 15 percent of women and 4.9 percent of men have experienced violence by a former intimate partner (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006, p. 11). These rates are lower than those reported by the Australian section of International Violence

Against Women Survey (IVAWS), of approximately 10 percent of women experiencing violence from a current partner and 36 percent from a former partner (Schubert, Crofts, & Bird, 2014). Proportionately, Indigenous women in Australia are much more likely to have experienced abuse than their non-Indigenous counterparts (Schubert et al., 2014). In their overview of domestic violence in Kenya, Njue, Rombo, Smart, Lutomia, and Mbirianjau (2014) report that over 40 percent of women in a current intimate relationship had been assaulted by their partner and that one in four women had been victimized within the past year. Likewise, Rosario Esteinou (2014) demonstrates that, in Mexico, the number of violent households is believed to be one in three.

Canadian Data on Violence against Women We now turn our attention close to home, to Canada. In their excellent and informative book, Violence against Women in Canada: Research and Policy Perspectives, Holly Johnson and Myrna Dawson (2011) argue that male violence against female partners is the most common form of family violence in Canada. As other researchers have found, they claim that women victims often perceive emotional abuse, the harming of their self-esteem, to be worse than other forms of violations—including abuse that involves physical violence, such as hitting, punching, or kicking. In my research that spans more than two decades, I have found that women often cite the persistent emotional put-downs, name-calling, and deliberate changing of facts and experiences (sometimes called “crazy making” by the women) as taking an enormous toll on their health and well-being (Nason-Clark, 1997; Nason-Clark & Kroeger, 2004). Students often ask: “How common is abuse?” To be perfectly honest, the straightforward answer is: it depends. It depends on a myriad of factors, including country of residence, culture, age, and gender. It also depends on how the data were collected and how the questions were composed. Between 2000

*The RAVE (Religion and Violence e-Learning) Project was developed by a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment. Its purpose is to offer training and resources for working with committed religious women of the Christian faith who have been abused. Some of the resources are specifically designed for women, while others are directed toward religious leaders or secular professionals assisting the women as they journey toward healing and wholeness. It is based on our fieldwork concerning issues of abuse and faith, which spans a 25-year period. NEL

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and 2005, 653,000 women in Canada indicated that they had been a victim of violence at the hands of an intimate partner. Of these women, 26 percent had been assaulted more than 10 times. According to Statistics Canada, women between the ages of 15 and 24 report the highest one-year rates of intimate partner abuse (Statistics Canada, 2005). Moreover, Indigenous women in Canada are far more likely to experience abuse: the rates of violence are three times the rate of violence among non-Indigenous women (Statistics Canada, 2009). Indigenous women’s greater risk of harm is most alarmingly observed by the number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada, a point highlighted in other chapters, as well. Like women in First Nations communities, immigrant women are another highly vulnerable group as it relates to family violence. (See “Domestic Violence among Immigrant Women a Growing Concern” in In the Media.) Using an intersectional theoretical framework, Catherine Holtmann completed her Ph.D. research at the University of New Brunswick (in 2013) where she analyzed data on intimate partner violence collected from 89 Christian and Muslim women from 27 countries of origin. Her findings revealed both women’s experiences of overcoming adversity and harnessing social networks to cope and strategize solutions in the aftermath of family violence,

Women 15 to 24 years of age report the highest one-year rates of intimate partner abuse in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2005).

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as well as challenges linked to dependency on their husbands, transnational family responsibilities, and lack of knowledge about local resources (see NasonClark, Fisher-Townsend, Holtmann, & McMullin, in press). Irene Sevcik and her colleagues also examined the needs of immigrant women who experienced intimate partner violence but in Calgary; they drew attention to the ways that culture and religion intertwine in the lives of those who have recently come to Canada (Sevcik, Rothery, Nason-Clark, & Pynn, 2015). Across our country, there is a growing recognition that the needs of visible minority women, as well as those of elderly women, have often been overlooked, at least in the past, in research initiatives that focus on abuse; further, little research to date has explored the unique needs of those battered by intimate partners within the LGBTQI2SA communities.

Violence Is a Family Problem In Canada, as elsewhere, we are becoming more aware of violence against women—in all of its devastating forms and consequences—but so, too, are we becoming aware of violence against other vulnerable family members, including children, the elderly, and family members who have disabilities. Since the 1960s, enormous steps have been taken in our country to address child abuse, including the introduction of mandatory reporting laws and the construction of child abuse registries (Department of Justice, Canada, 2012). It is now widely known that children who witness or experience violence suffer long-term consequences. Child abuse includes physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, as well as neglect. Sibling abuse—whether sexual, emotional, or physical—is a relatively new area of study, but its occurrence within the family context is anything but new. Interest in the abuse of older adults has been increasing and this is very important given that the number of Canadians over the age of 65 is expected to double in the next 25 years (Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, 2012). Older adults may suffer from elder abuse that is perpetrated by not only their intimate partners, but by other family members, including their adult children. As they age, their vulnerability increases; examples of abuse in this age group include financial abuse, spiritual abuse, such as denying access to their faith community or faith leader, extortion, robbery, threats, neglect, and abandonment. NEL

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IN THE MEDIA Domestic Violence Among Immigrant Women A Growing Concern SASKATOON—Domestic violence remains a significant issue across Canada, yet many cases continue to go unreported. According to the Canadian Women’s Foundation website, “immigrant women may be more vulnerable to domestic violence due to economic dependence, language barriers and a lack of knowledge about community resources.” The foundation goes on to say “newcomers who arrive in Canada traumatized by war or oppressive governments are much less likely to report physical or sexual violence to the authorities, for fear of further victimization or even deportation.” Being able to build bridges and break down barriers has been crucial to Constable Jing Xiao’s job with Saskatoon police. She works closely with immigrants, refugees and international students. Xiao has noticed a reluctance among new Canadians to report crime, especially domestic violence. “That could be because sometimes they have had bad experiences in their home countries and they think the police officers are corrupt and violent,” she tells Global News. “So they just assume it’s the same in Canada.” Xiao says often immigrant women do not realize domestic violence is a crime, much less that they are victims of it. The Government of Canada website defines abuse as “behaviour used to intimidate, isolate, dominate or control another person. It may be a pattern or a single incident.”

Understanding the Dynamics of Intimate Partner Violence Since the 1970s, interest in the subject of intimate partner violence has been growing (Dobash, Dobash, Cavanagh, & Lewis, 2000). The once very private problem of one man abusing one woman within the context of an intimate relationship (most often within a family context) has become an issue of violence against women, a societal problem understood as stemming, at least in part, from the power imbalances between men and women and the social construction of masculinity and of femininity. Feminists, in particular, were key in highlighting the need to talk about NEL

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Abuse can take several forms, including physical, sexual, psychological, financial and neglect. The Saskatoon Police Service has an interpreter program with more than 60 interpreters who may be called upon to assist with investigations or situations where language is a barrier. “If the women come with children, culturally the women are kept at home taking care of the children so these factors add more isolation,” says Karin Portillo-Malpass, with the Saskatoon Open Door Society. According to the group, domestic violence among newcomer Canadian women in Saskatoon is up. Malpass says often men control the family finances. Then there is the fear of deportation. Regulations were put into effect in October 2012 regarding spouses or partners being sponsored to live in Canada. It affects those who have been in a relationship for two years or less and who have no children with their sponsor when they apply for permanent resident status. According to the Government of Canada web page, “If you have been granted conditional permanent residence, you must live together with your sponsor in a legitimate relationship for two years from the day you receive conditional permanent residence.” Though regulations also stipulate that you do not have to stay in an abusive relationship to keep your status. Source: Maharaj (2014). Quoted and excerpted from this article. Courtesy of Global News.

violence against women publicly and to provide shelter and respite for its victims (Timmins, 1995). Control is a central feature of violent or abusive acts against intimate partners, and such acts are perpetrated more often by men than by women. In the last 10 to 15 years, there has been some suggestion of gender symmetry in abusive behaviour. This term refers to the belief that women are as violent as men in their intimate relationships. Gender symmetry is debated within some academic writing on intimate partner violence, and the belief surfaces sometimes in public conversations about victims and perpetrators, or among a minority of police who answer a 911 call to find that both the man and the woman claim to have been attacked by the other. But, in his 2011

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A CLOSER LOOK Are There Warning Signs in an Intimate Partnership? A relationship is unhealthy when … • you are called names that are embarrassing, hurtful, and degrading • your opinions count for nothing • your skills, abilities, and accomplishments are belittled • what you like and dislike does not matter • you are threatened or harmed physically • you feel as if you are walking on eggshells much of the time

book, Violence against Women: Myths, Facts, Controversies, Walter DeKeseredy holds that the belief of gender symmetry in intimate partner violence is not only erroneous, but it adds to the pain and suffering of women who are abuse survivors and becomes an excuse used by government officials to deny funding for services such as shelters. Moreover, DeKeseredy (2011, p. 58) argues that there is no support for the position that women are as abusive as men in their intimate relationships. He cites data such as the following: (1) almost all requests for police assistance in domestic violence are from, or for, women victims; (2) women are more likely than men to be injured in these cases, and when both parties are injured, women’s injuries are more severe; (3) hospitals report more women than men seeking medical assistance for domestic assaults; and (4) few men seek emergency or safe accommodation in the aftermath of intimate partner violence. While abuse is not a new problem, talking about it is new. Many of our great-grandmothers and the women before them considered rough treatment at the hands of their partners simply life. “You made your bed, now you have to lie in it” goes the old adage, referring to the fact that once someone has chosen a partner, she can expect to put up with the consequences of her choice. It is difficult to tell someone that you are being abused by someone you love. This is part of the explanation of why so many battered women choose to keep secret their abuse for a long time. Then, when they muster the courage to tell someone else what is happening behind closed doors, they often do so in a way that minimizes the fear and the hurt. Almost all victims of family violence feel alone, betrayed, and full of fear (Martin, 1981). They often blame themselves 152

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• everything you do is monitored and criticized • you are intentionally kept away from family and friends • you are denied access to food, money, or other family resources • you are blamed for all the problems Source: Adapted from the RAVE Project: www.theraveproject.org.

for the violence, rather than placing the blame on the family member who is acting abusively. (See “Are There Warning Signs in an Intimate Partnership?” in A Closer Look.) Some feel pressured to pretend that everything in the family is going well, fearing that their disclosure of abuse may lead to further shame or being ostracized from community or extended family support. Asking a woman whether it is safe for her to go back home after she has sought help for a family-related problem is extremely important. It is one critical way to gauge her safety.

Why Is There Intimate Partner Violence? It is important to understand that abuse is rooted in the desire to control another person (DeKeseredy, 2011; Dobash & Dobash, 1979). Male abusers want to control what happens at home and in the lives of their wives and girlfriends. They often feel a sense of entitlement to services and to emotional support. When men believe that they are not receiving their fair share of things to which they feel they are entitled, they use power and control to punish their partners (Bancroft, 2002). (For a discussion of these patterns among men from visible minority populations, see Panchanadeswaran et al., 2010.) Their desire is to attain or maintain dominance in the relationship. Some men who act abusively, for example, believe that supper should always be ready for them when they return home, or sexual activity should occur whenever they want it to, or that they should be able to spend the family income any way they choose. When these things do not happen, as they NEL

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© JackF/Thinkstock There are a variety of factors connected with intimate partner violence, but many researchers agree that an underlying reason is the desire for control.

believe they should, they lash out in anger, using harsh words, harmful behaviour, or their fists. Theorists and activists alike agree that violence against women is a multi-faceted and complex problem that stems from a variety of interconnected factors. Heise (1998) offers an integrated ecological framework that conceptualizes this interplay of forces through the use of four concentric circles: personal history, microsystem factors, exosystem factors, and macrosystem factors. Personal history includes witnessing or experiencing violence as a child, while microsystem influences refer to male dominance in one’s family of origin, or substance abuse. Poverty, unemployment, or delinquent peer associations are examples of exosystem factors, while influences of the macrosystem include the social construction of masculinity, rigid gender roles, and the acceptance of interpersonal violence.

Intergenerational Transmission and the Cycle of Intimate Partner Violence Some men who are abusive grew up in abusive environments where they were abused as children or they watched their fathers hurt their mothers (Nason-Clark & NEL

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Fisher-Townsend, 2015). Other abusive men suffer from low self-esteem or struggle with addictions to alcohol or drugs (Gondolf, 2002). While the use of alcohol and drugs is often present when violent altercations occur, men who abuse their female partners when drinking or high also abuse when sober. Substance abuse and violence are both significant problems that need to be taken seriously and for which intervention is possible. They are not the same problem, and complementary interventions need to occur to address both of these issues that may be harming family life and family functioning. The most common response among women to violence in their intimate relationships is fear (Martin, 1981). Women fear that the abuse could escalate and they fear reprisal should they disclose to someone else what is happening in their lives behind closed doors. Another common factor for many women victims is economic dependency, which often informs the fear that the woman cannot support herself and her children apart from the man who is abusing her (Asay, DeFrain, Metzger, & Moyer, 2014; Timmins, 1995). Other women hold out great hope that the promises an abuser offers when he is temporarily sorry for his behaviour will come true and that peace will be restored to the relationship (Kroeger & Nason-Clark, 2010). Religious women, in particular, are more likely to believe that they must stay in the relationship or marriage, no matter how high the cost (Bonnycastle, 2004; Nason-Clark, 1997). They often cling to unrealistic notions that their abusive partners will change. Sometimes, explicitly religious beliefs have an impact upon their decision, causing deeply committed women of faith to stay longer, endure more suffering, offer forgiveness despite repeated acts of abuse, or accept notions that they are responsible to change their behaviour in the aftermath of domestic violence. Sometimes, priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams are guilty of encouraging the women who seek their help to change their ways rather than flee an abusive partner, temporarily or forever. For detail, refer to Knickmeyer, Levitt, Horne, and Bayer (2003) for Christian women; Levoics (1998) for Jewish women; and Sevcik et al. (2015) for women of various faith traditions. For Indigenous women or immigrant women in Canada, and especially for black women in the United States, the fear of incarceration of their partners causes them to think very carefully before calling 911 or reporting the abuse they are suffering to a

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helping professional or someone connected with the criminal justice system, such as the police (Crenshaw, 1994; Metzger & Moyer, 2014; cf. Nason-Clark & Fisher-Townsend, 2015). Some immigrant women fear deportation, as well, and sometimes report that the fear of losing their children to their violent husband, or the state, prevents them from seeking safety for themselves and their household (Sevcik et al., 2015). In fact, in our fieldwork in Calgary, we interviewed many women and helping professionals who noted the specific challenges of working with recently immigrated women, including their limited understanding of English, concerns over the possible removal of children from their care, the cultural practices from their countries of origin that may prohibit talking about family members to a stranger, potential deportation, and their fear of shaming by their ethnic/religious community (Sevcik et al., 2015). Each of these concerns is added to the already large number of issues facing all women who are victims of abuse. Many women lack support structures that would enable them to leave an abusive relationship, even on a temporary basis. Without friends or family close by who might offer them shelter, food, and lodging, and without independent financial resources, they have nowhere to go if they flee a violent situation. That is precisely the reason behind the historic development of transition houses across the country (Timmins, 1995). It took a long time for the federal government to become convinced that violence against women was a significant problem even though few would say it has never not been a problem. An important event to recall occurred in 1982 when a female member of

Parliament tried to place the issue of wife abuse on the agenda for discussion. The response among her male colleagues in the House of Commons was laughter and ridicule. But when that met with a public outcry from women and men across the country, the same men in Parliament who were caught on tape making fun of the issue reacted with apologies and resolutions (Mitchell, 2008). Feminists have played a key role in highlighting the issue of violence against women and for years have been working diligently to ensure that women have safe places to flee to when abuse strikes at home. (See in A Closer Look.) This is one of many examples where activism has led to meaningful change. Moreover, when students and others become aware of the interconnected factors that give rise to violence in intimate relationships, or within the family, they are better equipped to stand up against it. But we need to remember that, in a culture that values individualism, there is often a disconnect from collective community responsibilities.

Understanding Men Who Batter Over the last three decades, various theories have been advanced to explain the causes or conditions that give rise to violence against women in intimate partner relationships (DeKeseredy, 2011; Dobash & Dobash, 1979; Johnson & Dawson, 2011; Martin, 1981). These theories generally fall under the rubric of “the social control of women” or “men wishing to maintain dominance.” Thus, in a nutshell, men who exhibit violence are not losing self-control; rather, they are affirming and preserving their power.

A CLOSER LOOK Transition Houses in Canada Did you know ... ? • The first shelters in Canada opened their doors in 1973 in Vancouver, Calgary, and Saskatoon (Tutty, 2006). • Thirty-five years later, in 2008, there were 550 shelters and transition houses located from one Canadian coast to the other (Johnson & Dawson, 2011). • In the early years of their existence, transition houses depended on donations of goods and financial assistance from local communities.

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• Feminist collectives and women and men committed to gender equity and non-violence were important in helping to establish shelters and ensuring that the vital work they did continued without interruption despite changing political or economic conditions (Timmins, 1995). • Many shelters have a website, where they provide information on their services and contact information.

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In the recent book, Men Who Batter, we discuss our field research among men who have been connected with the criminal justice system as a result of their abusive acts toward female intimate partners (Nason-Clark & Fisher-Townsend, 2015). Using a combination of characteristics and circumstances from the stories of three of the more than 50 men we interviewed on many occasions over a four-year period, I tell the story of the fictitious man, Charlie, and base the questions in Intersections, which follows, on the story. Charlie grew up in an unstable home environment, where his father abandoned the family when Charlie was still a toddler. On several occasions, he went to live with his grandmother in another city when his own mother was unable to care for him. He learned early to be a bully, using his fists and his temper to get what he wanted and felt he deserved. As a young teen, Charlie was disruptive in school, drinking and partying whenever possible, and stealing money to support his habits. Before long, he was in trouble with the law. Charles was taught by his uncle that hard work paid off in the end, so he decided that if he could find a trade he would be “set for life.” He took industrial courses in high school and began studying to be a plumber in a community college setting. At 19, Charlie was living only for himself. He had many friends and when he wanted to have a girlfriend, he never seemed to have any trouble finding one. Then he learned that Dawn, the girl he had been seeing for a few months, was pregnant. Charlie was furious: he blamed her for the pregnancy and blamed her for wrecking his future. Since Dawn did not want to have an abortion, they decided to move in together, and Charlie agreed to cut back his drinking and drugging to prepare for his new responsibilities as a father. Things did not go well for long. Charlie found Dawn’s attention on the growing baby inside her annoying and felt frustrated that his own needs were not being satisfied. When he went out drinking with his buddies, she complained, saying that they barely had sufficient money for food and rent. The fighting escalated, but Dawn was reluctant to call 911 even when she was very afraid. Besides, he was often sorry and apologized to her afterward for threatening her or the fetus. Dawn had been taught by her parents and the Sunday School she attended NEL

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as a child to be a forgiving person so she was always eager to give Charlie another chance. Besides, she loved Charlie and did not want to leave him. On two occasions, he hit her, but the pain of his mean, nasty words during their shouting matches had a greater impact on her than the bruises. Shortly after the baby was born, she called the police for the first time. For the next two years, Charlie and Dawn sometimes lived together and sometimes lived apart. Then an incident occurred when they were together, with the child present, which caused their little girl to be removed temporarily from their apartment on the suspicion that she, too, was being physically abused. Charlie was charged, convicted, served a short sentence in a county jail, and then was mandated to enter a batterers’ intervention program. We met Charlie on five different occasions, every six months. At the beginning, he was very involved in trying to change his ways and to ensure that he and Dawn, and their little girl, became reunited. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous, continued to attend classes at the intervention program, and finished his community college training. He had regular work and made good money, but the pull of his old friends and his old habits was stronger than his resolve to turn his life around. This was despite the support he had from his parole officer, the facilitator at the intervention program he was attending, his mother, and Dawn. When his little girl turned 3, we learned that Dawn moved back to her parents’ home with the child, thousands of miles away from Charlie. Before long, he boasted that he had found a new girlfriend. In the case just illustrated, Dawn was reluctant to seek help from family and friends in the early stages of her life with Charlie. She felt vulnerable as a young, pregnant woman, and she feared life on her own, not knowing how she would be able to support herself and her child. Like many abused women, she was economically dependent on the man who was abusing her. She believed that things would get better—that his pleas for forgiveness meant he was determined to act differently in the future. In Dawn’s case, she was verbally abused by his constant name-calling and hurtful words and physically abused when he used his fists or his physical strength to harm her. In her mind, she would rehearse the mean things he said to her; this hurt her far more than the bruises and a broken rib that she suffered.

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INTERSECTIONS A MATTER OF CHOICES Charlie’s story prompts several intersecting issues— gender, sexuality, and class—that we ask you to consider. 1. From the story, what do we learn about how gender roles and other ideas about men and women affect Charlie’s life? Do you think the story would have evolved differently if Charlie grew up in a First Nations community or his parents had recently immigrated to Canada? 2. Why was Dawn reticent to seek help early on in their relationship when she was afraid of Charlie and his anger? Do you think she would have been more, or less, likely to do so if her family had been wealthy? if her family had been poor? 3. What are some of the major challenges facing those who work with men who have been convicted of abusing an intimate partner? 4. Why is it so difficult to change abusive, controlling behaviour? 5. What might you have done as a friend or family member if you knew of a situation like that of Charlie and Dawn?

Charlie had grown up in a context where his father had abandoned his mother after harsh treatment. The intergenerational transmission of violence is a concept that captures how abuse often travels from one generation to the next (Black, Sussman, & Unger, 2010). Many young boys learn from their fathers and others that they can deal with their disappointment, frustrations, and anger by using violent acts (Stith et al., 2000). Feeling that the world revolved around his wants and wishes, Charlie was unable and unwilling to accommodate to the changing needs of his partner and the baby she was carrying. He lashed out against Dawn, holding her responsible for the frustration he was feeling. Like many abusive men we have interviewed, Charlie felt some sadness and regret when he harmed Dawn. He understood that this was not loving behaviour, but he was never able to get to a point where he wanted to alter the way he thought about how he should behave. He felt entitled to attention, sex, and freedom; he was 156

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not willing to accept responsibility for his own happiness or behaviour and alter his abusive ways. Charlie drank to excess with his buddies to escape from the pressures of his life. Yet his abuse of Dawn occurred both when he was drunk and when he was sober. After Charlie’s involvement with the criminal justice system, his case was followed by a parole officer who had intermittent contact with the batterer intervention program group facilitator. The coordinated community response also included contact with an outreach worker involved at the local transition house, where Dawn had sought information and advice, and a pastor who had offered them support and some financial assistance from the church. Ultimately, the cost of changing his abusive and controlling ways was too high for Charlie to pay. Despite a period where he refrained from alcohol and abusive acts, he returned to his old patterns. Those who had assisted Dawn were able to convince her that the only way to ensure her safety and that of her child was to begin life without Charlie around. She made the decision to return to the home of her parents and start life over free from fear and the abuse that compromised her physical and emotional health.

Raising Awareness about Family Violence In the introduction to this textbook, Gazso and Kobayashi remind us that more than 50 years ago, C. Wright Mills challenged us to interweave our personal story with social history and contemporary society. More recently, feminists, among other groups, have highlighted the truth behind these words: the personal is political. Themes of continuity and change are interwoven throughout the various chapters of this book. As noted in this chapter, in terms of violence in the family context, the subject is not new—this is evidence of continuity—but how we respond to violence has changed. And for abuse to be eradicated, more innovative change is necessary. Most students reading this chapter will know about abuse either first-hand or through the lives of friends or family members. But perhaps this is the first time you have been presented with information leading you to understand the frequency and severity of abuse and its longer-term consequences in the lives of those families affected by it. Perhaps right now you are thinking NEL

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about someone you know who is in a relationship that seems unhealthy. Perhaps you are worried about your mother, your grandmother, or even yourself. For someone who is being abused—child or adult— help is only a phone call away. If in immediate danger, you can call 911. There are many helplines that a person can call; some are highlighted in Further Resources, near the end of the chapter. Across the country there are many shelters, or transition houses, where women can seek safety as they flee a violent situation. Other women call transition houses and can obtain information and advice from an outreach worker there. Across Canada and the United States, there are a variety of alliances and resource centres that specialize in the topic of domestic violence; these range from resources specifically directed toward families connected with the Canadian military to national Indigenous circles that assist First Nations women. While it is true that an abused woman needs first and foremost to seek safety for herself and her children, she may also require ongoing police protection, counsel from a lawyer, help from a therapist, or advice from teachers or others in the school system about her children’s learning and emotional needs. Many abused women also want spiritual help at the time of crisis. Raising awareness about abuse is everyone’s responsibility!

What Can Be Done? Family violence, especially intimate partner violence, in Canada and in other countries around the globe is a reality that knows no boundaries of class, colour, ethnic origin, educational attainment, sexual orientation,

gender identity, or religion. Collaborative community responses that include, but are not restricted to, the criminal justice system have shown the most promise for responding to the impact of abusive behaviour. It is important to be mindful of the needs of all women (and men) who are abused, including the needs for safety, shelter, legal redress, and emotional and financial support. In addition, attention should be paid to the individual needs of victims and their families: these needs pertain to cultural, religious, linguistic, and economic differences. A lack of attention to the concept of intersectionality—or the ways that multiple identities have an impact on the experience and consequences of abuse for victims/survivors—is something for which early feminists working on the issue of abuse were criticized. They failed to take into account how a poor, black, uneducated woman would be treated differently by the criminal justice system and other agencies than a middle-class white woman. Understanding the differences among women who experience abuse is something on which more recent attention has been focused. Every home and every community should be a safe place for all, children and adults. Some victims are more vulnerable when they are abused, especially the poor or recent immigrants, or those whose beliefs or practices make it especially difficult to seek help or leave an abusive relationship. As we have seen from the data, but also from growing societal awareness related to the tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous women, the needs of First Nations communities are complex, and First Nations women, in particular, are often at the intersection of multiple inequities in their lives. Hence, abuse in the lives of these women is

A CLOSER LOOK HomeFront in Calgary It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the level of need represented by the issue of violence in the family context. It is also easy to feel that little is being done, but, of course, that is not true. Over the last 30 years, in particular, much has developed: transition houses, coordinated community-based initiatives, professionals collaborating and working together to end violence, and raised awareness among all branches of the criminal justice system. One stellar initiative has taken place in the city of Calgary, Alberta. HomeFront Calgary is the coordinating

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body for more than 50 community agencies, government departments, legal services, and healthcare services working to end domestic violence and respond to those affected by it. If you look at their website, you can read about their Specialized Domestic Violence Court, the Domestic Conflict Response Team, the High Risk Management Initiative, and Early Intervention and Outreach (HomeFront, 2016). These are coordinated services for all family members: children and adults, perpetrators and victims.

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particularly pervasive and highly complex (Crenshaw, 1994; Nason-Clark, Fisher-Townsend, McMullin, & Holtmann, 2014). At the community level, it is essential that our institutions and professions work together to raise awareness and develop policies and practices that offer compassionate, timely, wise, safe counsel to those who

are victimized and justice, accountability, and intervention services for those who are the aggressors. But it is important, as well, that our communities work to reduce violence and to encourage prevention at every possible turn. This will not happen without resources and careful planning. (Calgary’s model program, HomeFront, is outlined in A Closer Look.)

CHAPTER SUMMARY In this chapter we have identified different forms of abuse, including physical abuse, emotional/psychological abuse, and sexual abuse. We examined the prevalence and severity of violence in the family context, focusing particularly on intimate partner violence, and explored some of the reasons why women find it difficult to leave an abusive relationship temporarily or forever. We then outlined various elements in the story of a man who acts abusively and discussed, in particular, the intergenerational transmission of violence—where one generation learns to be violent by watching or experiencing abuse at home. We differentiated forms of support for families in crisis and highlighted HomeFront, the coordinated community response network in Calgary. We also explored the role that every one of us can play in responding to the issue of abuse. Family violence, including intimate partner violence, is a social problem that will persist until the structures that privilege certain people over others are identified and resisted. While individual support for victims is critical and their healing central, the political and structural dimensions of needed change should never be ignored (Profitt, 2000). There are certainly resources available to assist women today that were not available 50 years ago. But many of our attitudes toward family members and their rights and responsibilities have not changed. So, while there is innovation in programs and their delivery across the country, there is still ample evidence that scores of family members suffer abuse behind closed doors, away from public scrutiny. We ask you, our students—and leaders of tomorrow—to call on our governments at all levels to ensure that adequate funding is available for transition houses and for educational programs that raise awareness. Our first responders—notably the police and medical teams—need to be trained to recognize the signs of abuse. Our legal system and our universities have important roles, as well. But ultimately, violence will never be eradicated until every man, woman, and child plays a part in responding with compassion to those who have been harmed, seeking to live in a non-violent way in all interactions at home and elsewhere, and striving to ensure that we call those who act otherwise to accountability and to justice, and then provide services that will endeavour to help them change their violent ways.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. At the beginning of the chapter, there was a fictitious account of two university students, Susan and John. Explore how you think John’s past might help us to understand his treatment of Susan. 2. What are some of the warning signs you see in their relationship? 3. After reading this chapter, how do you think about violence against an intimate partner? Can you identify several forms of abuse? Do you understand why it might be difficult for a woman to leave a partner who is harming her? Explain. 158

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4. Pretend that you have been dragged into a debate with some friends about whether the statistics on violence against women are really true. What would you say to someone who argues that he or she does not know anyone who has grown up in a family situation where there were abusive acts? 5. Click on the “stained glass story of abuse,” which is available on the RAVE website (www .theraveproject.org). Identify some ways that family members or friends might assist a person at each stage of a journey toward healing and hope.

APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. View the HomeFront Calgary website (http://homefrontcalgary.com/main). How would you gather evidence to evaluate its effectiveness? 2. Watch the video of one woman’s story of violence on the RAVE website (www.theraveproject.com/index.php/resources/resource_content/rave_video). Consider the support Julie had available from her family when violence affected her life. What suggestions would you offer domestic violence advocates or policymakers based on her story? 3. Describe the concept of the intergenerational transmission of violence. What are the strengths of this concept for research on violence against women? What might be some weaknesses associated with using this concept?

FURTHER RESOURCES Canadian National Domestic Violence Hotline. 1-800-363-9010. This is a free service for women who need someone to talk to or information on other resources available across the country. Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline. 1-800-4-A-CHILD. https://www.childhelp. org. Assistance is provided throughout North America in more than 150 languages. The hotline is staffed 24 hours a day and is dedicated to the prevention of child abuse. Alliance to End Violence. www.endviolence.ca. The Alliance to End Violence is a resource centre in Calgary that offers excellent information, including safety information, for victims. National Indigenous Circle Against Family Violence. http://nacafv.ca/en/mandate. National Indigenous Circle Against Family Violence acts as a national clearinghouse for information, training programs, and monitoring of family violence among Indigenous peoples. The RAVE Project (Religion and Violence e-Learning). www.theraveproject.org. The RAVE Project is an extensive Web-based resource related to violence in families associated with the Christian faith tradition. It offers a shelter map with contact information for every transition house in Canada and the United States. It provides information on safety plans and offers videos and online training modules.

KEY TERMS child abuse: physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, as well as neglect, perpetrated by adults and directed at children. (p. 150) coordinated community response: a level of coordination between government and other community-based agencies and nonprofits in responding to a social issue. For abuse cases, it involves the criminal justice system (police, courts, NEL

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judiciary, probation), as well as advocacy and intervention services. (p. 148) elder abuse: acts of neglect, as well as emotional, sexual, or physical abuse directed toward an older man or woman by an intimate partner or other family member; it includes abuse by healthcare professionals or caregivers as well. (p. 150)

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emotional abuse: persistent acts that tear down someone’s spirit, making the person feel powerless and useless. It often includes name-calling. (p. 149) femicide: the intentional killing of women because they are women; acts include murder by an intimate partner, honour killing, and infanticide of the girl child. (p. 148) financial abuse: preventing access to income or restricting the ability of a person to make financial decisions over his or her own resources. (p. 150) gender symmetry: the belief that women are as violent as men in their intimate relationships. (p. 151) intergenerational transmission of violence: a process that captures the influence of witnessing or experiencing violence in the childhood home. (p. 156)

physical abuse: refers to behaviour such as pushing, shoving, hitting, or assaulting with a weapon that is meant to hurt, harm, humiliate, and intimidate another person. (p. 149) rape culture: refers to how men’s violence against women is socially normalized; the victim-blaming of women for this violence against them is part of this normalization. (p. 148) sexual abuse: refers to behaviour that is sexual (e.g., touching of the genitals, vaginal penetration, excessive kissing, or fondling) for which consent has not been received. (p. 150) sibling abuse: the emotional, physical, mental, or sexual harm between siblings. (p. 150) spiritual abuse: denying someone access to spiritual resources or subjecting someone to ridicule about spiritual beliefs or practices. (p. 150)

REFERENCES Asay, S. M., DeFrain, J., Metzger, M., & Moyer, B. (2014). Family violence from a global perspective. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2006). Personal safety, Australia 2005 (Catalogue No. 4906.0). Retrieved from www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/cat/4906.0 Bancroft, L. (2002). Why does he do that? Inside the minds of angry and controlling men. New York, NY: Penguin. Black, D. S., Sussman, S., & Unger, J. B. (2010). A further look at the intergenerational transmission of violence: Witnessing interparental violence in emerging adulthood. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 25(6), 1022–1042. Black, M. C., Basile, K. C., Breiding, M. J., Smith, S. G., Walters, M. L., Merrick, M. T., et al. (2011). National intimate partner and sexual violence survey (NISVS): 2010 summary report. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Bonnycastle, C. R. (2004, Spring/Summer). The role of religion in contemporary social services: Reemerging democratic alignment or false hope. Canadian Review of Social Policy, 53, 68–87. Crenshaw, K. W. (1994). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. In M. Fineman & R. Mykitiuk (Eds.), The public nature of private violence: The discovery of domestic abuse (pp. 93–118). New York, NY: Routledge. DeKeseredy, W. S. (2011). Violence against women: Myths, facts, controversies. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Department of Justice, Canada. (2012). Child abuse: A fact sheet. Retrieved from www.publications. gc.ca/collections/Collection/J2-295-2002E.pdf? Dobash, R. P., & Dobash, R. E. (1979). Violence against wives: A case against the patriarchy. New York, NY: Free Press. Dobash, R. P., Dobash, R. E., Cavanagh, K., & Lewis, R. (2000). Changing violent men. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Esteinou, R. (2014). Family violence in Mexico. In S. Asay, J. DeFrain, M. Metzger, & B. Moyer (Eds.), Family violence from a global perspective (pp. 152–164). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Gondolf, E. (2002). Batterer intervention systems: Issues, outcomes and recommendations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hampton, M. R., & Gerrard, N. (2006). Introduction. In M. R. Hampton & N. Gerrard (Eds.), Intimate partner violence: Reflections on experience, theory and policy (pp. 1–8). Toronto, ON: Cormorant Books. Heise, L. (1998). Violence against women: An integrated, ecological framework. Violence against Women, 4(3), 262–290. 160

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HomeFront Calgary. (2016). Who we are. Retrieved from http://homefrontcalgary.com/main Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. (2012). Canadians in context: Aging population. Retrieved from www.hrsdc.gc.ca/[email protected]?iid533 Johnson, H., & Dawson, M. (2011). Violence against women in Canada: Research and policy perspectives. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Knickmeyer, N., Levitt, H. M., Horne, S. G., & Bayer, G. (2003). Responding to mixed messages and double binds: Religious oriented coping strategies of Christian battered women. Journal of Religion and Abuse, 5(2), 29–54. Kroeger, C. C., & Nason-Clark, N. (2010). No place for abuse. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Levoics, S. (1998). The observant Jewish victim to spouse abuse: Dynamics and countertransference issues. Journal of Psychology and Judaism, 22(2), 91–100. Maharaj, S. (2014, July 7). Domestic violence among immigrant women a growing concern. Global News. Martin, D. (1981). Battered wives. San Francisco, CA: New Glide. Metzger, M., & Moyer, B. (2014). Family violence in the United States: A community and country respond. In S. Asay, J. DeFrain, M. Metzger, & B. Moyer (Eds.), Family violence from a global perspective (pp. 200–214). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Mitchell, M. (2008). No laughing matter: Adventure, activism and politics. Vancouver, BC: Granville Island. Nason-Clark, N. (1997). The battered wife. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Nason-Clark, N., & Fisher-Townsend, B. (2015). Men who batter. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Nason-Clark, N., Fisher-Townsend, B., Holtmann, C., & McMullin, S. (in press). Religion and intimate partner violence. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Nason-Clark, N., Fisher-Townsend, B., McMullin, S., & Holtmann, C. (2014). Family violence in Canada. In S. Asay, J. DeFrain, M. Metzger, & Moyer, B. (Eds.), Family violence from a global perspective (pp. 182–199). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Nason-Clark, N., & Kroeger, C. C. (2004). Refuge from abuse. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Njue, J. R., Rombo, D., Smart, L. S., Lutomia, A. N., & Mbirianjau, L. W. (2014). Domestic violence in Kenya: Strengths-based research. In S. Asay, J. DeFrain, M. Metzger, & B. Moyer (Eds.), Family violence from a global perspective (pp. 29–50). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Panchanadeswaran, S., Ting, L., Burke, J., O’Campo, P., McDonnell, K., & Gielen, A. C. (2010). Profiling abusive men based on women’s self-reports: Findings from a sample of urban lowincome minority women. Violence against Women, 16(3), 313–327. Profitt, N. J. (2000). Women survivors, psychological trauma, and the politics of resistance. Binghampton, NY: The Haworth Press. Renzetti, C. (2011). Toward a better understanding of lesbian battering. In S. J. Ferguson (Ed.), Shifting the center: Understanding contemporary families (pp. 454–466). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Schubert, L., Crofts, P., & Bird, K. (2014). Good things come to those who wait: Striving to address domestic and family violence in Australia. In S. M. Asay, J. DeFrain, M. Metzger, & Moyer, B. (Eds.), Family violence from a global perspective: A strengths-based approach (pp. 216–234). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Sevcik, I., Rothery, M., Nason-Clark, N., & Pynn, R. (2015). Overcoming conflicting loyalties: Intimate partner violence, community resources, and faith. Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta Press. Statistics Canada. (2005). Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. NEL

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Statistics Canada. (2009). Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. Stith, S. M., Rosen, K. H., Middleton, K. A., Busch, A. L., Lunderberg, K., & Carlton, R. P. (2000). The intergenerational transmission of spouse abuse: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(3), 640–655. Timmins, L. (1995). Listening to the thunder: Advocates talk about the battered women’s movement. Vancouver, BC: Women’s Research Centre. Tutty, L. (2006). Effective practices in sheltering women: Leaving violence in intimate relationships. Toronto, ON: YMCA Canada.

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(De)colonization, Racialization, Racism, and Canadian Families: Relearning through Storytelling about Lived Experience Wesley Crichlow, PhD

Racial and racialized gaps in scholarly knowledge achievement about families can be attributed to how we value (i.e., not erase) our differences and equitably share

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power in the classroom as students and professors. As a black, gay, immigrant professor, I understand my duties and responsibilities to include advocacy for and with

L E AR NI NG O B JE C T I V E S

black, LGBTQ, and racial minority students, including in the study of racialized and immigrant families. I have found joy in working with black and racialized students as a way to challenge past ruins. Indeed, in my support of decolonizing education, learning/unlearning/relearning, retention, and success within the white* academy, I have experienced the importance of hearing racialized students’ powerful testimonies of family in order to validate their contemporary lived experiences. I have heard of how the socio-cultural context experienced by some immigrant families places them at a starting disadvantage; hence, parents are seen as the source of children’s skill gaps before they enter school. Other examples from my 15 years of teaching and employing storytelling and social justice pedagogy in the university classroom setting are highlighted in this chapter to stress the importance of relearning racialized and/or immigrant† students’ family meanings, practices, and processes through their own voices.

The aim of this chapter is to share about processes of historical and contemporary racial injustices that some families have experienced, and continue to experience, and to encourage an ongoing dialogue about racialization and decolonization to inform students’ relearning of the sociology of the family in the university classroom. My objectives stem from working with black and racialized students within

* I deploy white and whiteness here to refer to white supremacist patriarchy beyond phenotype, upholding and maintaining racial hierarchies that do not always have to involve force. † The term immigrant refers to recently arrived residents of Canada, their families, and diasporic communities. It can include international students, refugees, those with temporary work permits, and visitors. An immigrant often migrates for educational, economical, and social reasons. NEL

After you have read this chapter, you will be able to: • appreciate histories of colonization and racialization in Canada • understand the historical experiences of Indigenous peoples and how they are connected to contemporary family life • understand the history of slavery in Canada and subsequent racial injustices experienced by black immigrants and their families • understand the creation of “bachelor societies” among Asian immigrants • situate racial minority students’ experiences of family life within historical processes of colonization and immigration • use insights from critical race theory and storytelling to relearn racial minority students’ experiences of family life with them 163

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the academy as pedagogical activism. My activism with students is a dedication to pedagogical praxis (teaching as activism); I work with black and racialized students from diverse families to transform education. Before my education in Canadian universities, I never knew that Indigenous peoples were colonized and subject to genocide and that slavery existed in Canada, dramatically transforming family lives—my students likewise. The study of Canadian slavery was a transformative moment in my scholarly journey, which led to a deeper understanding of many of my scholarly goals. My subsequent black community activism and public consciousness of social justice movements had an impact on my university teachings. Watching films and documentaries such as Birth of a Nation (1915) and Eyes on the Prize (2009) while engaged in other forms of community activism led me to teaching my students about slavery in Canada, for example, by broadening their critical and intersectional lenses to grasp the links between slavery, sports, and criminology, or, as Du Bois said: “the slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery” (1935, p. 30). Most of my students come to university dehistoricized, suffering global amnesia, and with little or no knowledge about Indigenous colonization, slavery, racism, and racialization and how these things have an impact on families in Canada today. In this chapter, I share this history but also examples of how I have worked with students to relearn history through storytelling. My approach departs from the traditional canon and other scholars’ studies of families, race, and processes of colonization or immigration through common theoretical perspectives on families and social change, for example, materialism, symbolic interactionism (see Chapter 2), or reliance on reviewing demographic trends and how they differ by racial category. Throughout this chapter, I engage in a constant deconstruction and construction of histories of colonization, racialization, and learning of the contemporary human experience through a critical race perspective. Ultimately, I argue that culturally sensitive pedagogical interventions like storytelling, and support for working with and across racial, cultural, and gendered differences, should be a politically and economically palatable strategy that addresses the concerns of black, 164

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LGBTQ, and minority immigrant students in the study of family and family relations.

Colonization, Racialization, and Institutionalized Racism: Family Disparity and Inequality Upon his visit to Canada in 2004, Dr. Doudou Diène, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Racism, noted: “Canadian society is still affected by racism and racial discrimination. Because of its past history … all the countries of North and South America, carry a heavy legacy of racial discrimination, which was the ideological prop of trans-Atlantic slavery and of the colonial system” (Diène, 2004, p. 20). Omi and Winant (1986, p. 65) further inform us that the process of class and racial formation in North American political culture produced the institutionalization of a racial order that drew a colour line around rather than within Europe.

Canada’s First Peoples Canada’s colonial, legalized, draconian, and Manichaean treatment of some citizens started with the colonization of Indigenous families. Canada’s Indigenous families and people were and continue to be subject to settler colonialism, where they have been forcibly removed from their territory, home, and native land. Settler colonialism is a structure, not an event; it destroys to replace with its own image (Wolfe, 2006, p. 358). (See “Western Colonization as Disease” in A Closer Look.) This was evident in the 17th century creation of racist missionary residential schools in what is now the province of Québec; between 1620 and 1629, the first residential school was established. Then, to ensure that Indigenous children across Canada could not see their families and would be forced to assimilate into white ways, the Bagot Commission of 1842 recommended agriculture-based boarding schools placed far from Indigenous settlement (http://www.ahf.ca). From 1892 onward, the Canadian government contracted various churches for this purpose. Indigenous children were taken from their families and communities, in some cases, hundreds of miles away, to board in these schools. The goal of the schools was NEL

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A CLOSER LOOK Western Colonization as Disease In the 2003 article “Western Colonization as Disease: Native Adoption & Cultural Genocide,” I make the case that colonialism is a disease. Consider this definition of disease which appears in the 29th edition of Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary (2000): A disease is any deviation from or interruption of the “normal” structure or function of any part, organ, or system (or combination thereof) of the body that is manifested by a characteristic set of symptoms and signs and whose etiology, pathology and prognosis may be known or unknown. (p. 511) Thus, I argue: The deviation is Western colonization, caused by the vector called French, English, and Portuguese colonizers. The interruption is the illegal entry, unwanted input and exploitation by the usurpers. The normal is any free society before abnormal western colonization

not only to educate the Indigenous children, but also to make them forget about their own culture, including traditional family practices (see also Chapter 7). An amendment to the Indian Act in 1920 made it mandatory for Indigenous children to attend these schools. Further, these children were subjected to cultural, physical, psychological, and sexual abuse and indoctrinated into foreign religions. The last government-run school, the Gordon Residential School, closed in 1996 in Saskatchewan; the last band-run school closed in 1998 (Indigenous Healing Foundation, 2014). Especially with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, there has recently been recognition of past wrongs in respect of the residential schools, with their intent to “assimilate Indians into civilized society.” No apology, however, can make amends for how the forced assimilation of children into residential schools created dehistoricized and colonized Indigenous people. Settler laws and constitutions continue to control Indigenous peoples and their families today under the Indian Act (RSC 1985, c I-5) (see also Chapter 7). Colonization denies human rights to the colonized; it is denigrating and disarticulating of one’s humanity

disease. The colonizers imposed their patriarchal values on the structure that is the Native people, their psyche, psychosocial outlook and the population. The body, of course, is the country. The manifestation by a set of symptoms and signs is the chronic subconscious belief among First Nations (indigenous) people about an inferior complex in relation to whites. This inferiority is both nourished and maintained, through a daily indoctrination of self-hate, low self-esteem and by denying their contribution to civilization, society, history and the country. The Europeans not only infected the Native people with physical and psychological diseases, but also forced them to accept intellectual, cultural and religious inferiority. (Czerny, Swift and Clarke, 1994:152) Source: Crichlow (2003, pp. 89–90), select excerpts and quotations.

and dignity. In explaining white/black colonization, Fanon (1986, p. 17) writes: “the Black man has two dimensions. One with his fellows, the other with the white man. The negro behaves differently with another negro. That this self-division is a direct result of colonialist subjugation is beyond question.”* In essence, colonization is to be blamed for the psychological damage experienced by many Indigenous families in Canada. In addition to genocidal, residential schoollike systems, Canada’s Indigenous families were also subject to annihilation, as was the case of the Beothuk Indigenous people, exposed to tuberculosis from Europeans and left to starve and die throughout the 18th and 19th centuries (Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage, 2016). Fanon reminds us that settler colonialism always entails annihilation and genocidal outcomes for Indigenous peoples. There is, however, some disagreement on whether Europeans committed genocide against the Beothuk people. One undebatable issue with settler colonialism, though, is how the colonizers have always had to see Indigenous people as childlike in their disposition, uncivilized, savage-like, and in need of European parenting, civilizing, and

*The quotation is a translation of the French text, first published in 1952. NEL

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structure so that they could justify their colonization (Fanon, 1963; Kallen, 2010; Rubinstein, 2004).

Slavery in Canada The emergence of Canada’s racial order is also found in the history of black–white relations, specifically in the form of chattel slavery which existed from the early 1500s to 1865 (Cooper, 2006). Under chattel slavery, blacks were considered the property of whites and did not own their bodies. They were bought and sold on the market by white slave owners just as if they were commodities (Winks, 1966, p. 6; 1997, p. 9). In the United States, Africans were bought off the transatlantic slave market to become the property of European slave owners who were in search of cheap labour and profits (Heagerty & Peery, 2000). In Canada, slaves had no legal rights, were forbidden to read or write, could not hold property or get married in the same way as whites, and needed permission to travel or move around (Berberoglu, 2005, p. 71). Slavery especially fractured families when siblings were bought and sold by different slave owners. All of these factors contributed to the black slaves’ disengagement from social relations and their internalization of an inferiority complex.

Some postsecondary Canadian students fail to realize, recognize, or have any historical analysis that slavery existed. The past institution of slavery in Canada stands in sharp contrast to students of any racial and cultural background who may proudly claim that “at least slavery did not happen here and we are not as bad as the U.S. where chattel slavery and slavery occurred.” (See “The Invisible History of the Slave Trade” in In the Media.) Through this denial, they are often most interested in hearing other people talk of racism but are afraid to break the taboo themselves. As Lorde (1992) defines it, racism is “the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance” (p. 496). Racism in this definition can be conscious or unconscious beliefs, but the beliefs have specific implications. The group that is believed superior and powerful exercises that power, through attitudes and behaviours, which results in the exploitation and dominance of those considered inferior. For many minority students, a global and local amnesic syndrome about slavery sets up a justified nationalistic “othering” and hierarchy of oppression in which it seems that oppression or inequality within Canada is better than in the United States. Further, one is left with what appears to be

IN THE MEDIA The Invisible History of the Slave Trade In our everyday lives, we invoke the metaphors of slavery. For example, if you feel you are being exploited you might say, “I am being treated like a slave.” Yet few people actually know about the slavery that they constantly refer to— the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans. Paradoxically, for all our invocation of slavery, there is still a real silence around the topic. For example, if one raises the issue of the slave trade, people suddenly become uncomfortable. One is asked to “forget the past” or “not to bring up that ancient history.” The slave trade and slavery in Western society, life, and culture is still by and large an invisible history…. The silence, I believe, is directly connected to the fact that during the period when these heinous activities took place, black people were turned into objects. Blacks were treated as chattel, items of commerce who were bought and sold by those in power….

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Thus, for the longest while, the idea that Africans were not fully human circulated in the Western psyche, mind, and culture; their pain, therefore, was not worthy of recognition and acknowledgment. Only this belief explains the long silence about slavery. The silence is more than tragic and unforgivable given that, at the time, slavery underwrote the entire Western economic system…. Institutionalized racist practices, anti-black racism, the colour line, colonialism, African underdevelopment and also that of former slave societies in the New World, duplicity of Western governments, white supremacy, economic disadvantage, racialization of black peoples, and psychic distance between black and white have all been identified as legacies of the slave trade and slavery. Source: Cooper (2007). Excerpted and quoted from the Opinion section of the March 25 edition of the Toronto Star.

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a logical, albeit racist explanation that Canada has good racism and the United States has bad racism. As Satzewich (1998) informs us, “one of our most enduring national myths is that there is less racism here than in the U.S.” (p. 11). Many Canadian-born, new immigrant, and international students are equally unaware that in Québec a slave woman by the name of Marie-Joseph Angélique, in her quest for freedom from slavery, was hanged in 1734 in what is today called Old Montréal, for allegedly burning down her master’s home and 16 other homes. Her innocence has been widely debated and her hanging is often attributed to her resistance to and rebellion against slavery (Cooper, 2006). After slavery was legally abolished in 1834 in Canada, slaves and their family members (for those still living as family) saw Canada as a safe place to live, and tens of thousands of slaves of African descent sought refuge in Upper Canada (now Ontario) and Lower Canada (now Québec) via the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad emerged as a result of years of slavery in the United States. American slave families wanted a way out, and with the help of abolitionists such as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and a vast network of people, many

blacks escaped to freedom in Canada (Ontario Black History Society, 2016) (see also Chapter 8). While slavery no longer existed, Canada was not entirely a safe haven. Blacks and their families had to confront judicial segregation in housing, schooling, and employment (see Table 11.1), as well as exclusion from public places such as theatres and restaurants.* Blacks were not allowed to sit anywhere in public sporting arenas or theatres, as confirmed in the 1898 case of Frederick Johnson (documented in Lambertson (2009)), and were not served in public establishments in Montréal, for example, until the 1950s. Judicial support for racial segregation in Montréal was evident, as well, in Loew’s Montreal Theatres Ltd v Reynolds (1919), 30 Que KB 459. Indeed, as late as 1940 (see Christie v York, [1940] SCR 139), the Supreme Court of Canada held that it was legal to refuse to serve black people in public places, such as the tavern at the Montreal Forum. (See “Slavery, Racialization, and Understanding Contemporary Black Family Life” in A Closer Look.) One specific example of the racism experienced by black persons is that of Halifax-born Viola Davis Desmond. In 1946, she challenged the racial segregation policy of the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Desmond wanted to buy a ticket for the ground floor, or orchestra section, restricted to whites. In buying her ticket she said, “one down please.” She received the ticket and proceeded to look for a seat in the orchestra section. The ticket-collector called her back and informed her that her ticket was for the upper level. Thinking that she had been sold the wrong ticket, she requested to upgrade and the cashier said, “I am Ontario

© Photos.com/Thinkstock

in Chatham, 1891

Alberta

Nova Scotia

in the 1960s

in 1983

in Harrow, 1907 in Amherstburg, 1917 in North Colchester and Essex, 1965

TABLE 11.1 The End of Segregation of Black and White Students, 1891–1965, as per the Separate Schools Act

Harriet Tubman “conducted” many slaves to freedom in Canada through her participation in the Underground Railroad.

Source: Winks, Robin, W. (1969). “Negro School Segregation in Ontario and Nova Scotia.” Canadian Historical Review 50(2):164–191.

*See the article “Contesting Racial Inequality: Revising the History of Black Montrealers’ Quest for Justice” on the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations website at www.crarr.org/?q5node/19660. NEL

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not permitted to sell downstairs tickets to you people” (Jobb, 2009, p. 26). After been forcibly removed from the theatre, arrested, charged, and found guilty, she was fined $20 and court costs of $6. She paid the fine but subsequently fought against racial segregation by the Roseland Theatre.† Many have argued that Desmond was the Rosa Parks of Canada (Bredhoff, Schamel, & Potter, 1999): a black woman who refused to leave her seat in a white section of a theatre in Nova Scotia just as Parks refused to give up her seat in the white section of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Desmond was posthumously pardoned in 1965.

Institutionalized Racism toward Immigrant and Racialized Families The beginning of the 1800s saw the arrival of Chinese labourers who came to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway through the Rocky Mountains. Their presence in British Columbia was confronted with a white majority backlash of invidious racist laws and practice. Despite their employment in dangerous work not desired by white men, the Chinese were accused of working for cheap and taking away white men’s jobs and livelihoods to care for their families—a common sentiment echoed today by many settler Canadians toward racialized immigrants. As economic resentment grew, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald said the alien-race would not and could not be expected to assimilate with “our Aryan people” (Walker, 1997, p. 58). When the Chinese were finished building the Canadian Pacific Railway, they were then subjected to draconian and racist Canadian immigration policy during the 19th and early 20th centuries (Krauter & Davis, 1978, p. 63). In 1886, a federal head tax was imposed on Chinese entering Canada (see also Chapter 8). From 1898 to 1903, the tax increased from $50 to $500 per head. An estimated 81,000 Chinese paid the head tax, raising $23 million for the Canadian government and the provinces collecting. The

Canadian government then adopted the Exclusion Act on July 1, 1923, which virtually halted Chinese immigration until 1947; during this period only 50 persons of Chinese descent were admitted into the country. Persons of Chinese origin were denied Canadian citizenship and the right to vote until 1947, concurrent with the repeal of the Exclusion Act (see, for example, Keung, 2000).* The 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act condoned white supremacy and racism among whites toward the Chinese and produced the exclusion of their families from Canadian communities. Chinese men were forced to live without wives and children. Scholars characterize pre-reunification North American Chinese communities as “bachelor societies” (Kallen, 2010; Marshall, 2011). The Exclusion Act was a form of forced birth control as Chinese were not allowed to have relationships with white women and Chinese women were restricted entry; a temporary male sojourn community was promoted. In 1903, the federal government passed a new law requiring every Asian, except for those covered by special treaty or international agreement, to have in their possession upon arrival $200 Canadian (Kallen, 2010, p. 128). In 1903, this was considered a great deal of money; hence, legalized, discriminatory financial restriction was another tool for oppressive exclusion of racialized people and their families. In 1907, Canada entered into a gentleman’s agreement with the government of Japan whereby the number of Japanese families who could settle in Canada was limited. Entry was restricted to an initial maximum of 400 Japanese families per year, later reduced to 150 families (Kallen, 2010, p. 127). As white male lawmakers began to feel more insecure and worry about the Asian and Chinese presence in Canada, the Saskatchewan government passed a law in 1912 to prevent the employment of white females by Asians. This law gave rise to the infamous case of Quong Wing v The King, [1914] SCR 440. Wing was charged for hiring two white women in his restaurant, thereby infringing the labour act pertaining to white women of Saskatchewan.

†His Majesty the King v Viola Irene Desmond, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, RG39, “C” Halifax, v. 937, Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, No. 13347; The King v Desmond (1947); report date of pardon: Canada, Debates of the Senate, 40th Parl, 3rd Sess, No 58 (21 October 2010) at 1195. See more at BlackPast.org: www.blackpast.org/gah/desmond-viola-davis-1914-1965#sthash.QxNoK1MK.dpuf. *Other newspaper articles or editorials provide these accounts: “Chinese Canadians sue over head tax: No other immigrant had to pay entry fee,” The Globe and Mail, December 19, 2000; “$1.2B lawsuit ‘a matter of justice’: Chinese immigrants seeking refund of infamous head tax,” Edmonton Journal, December 20, 2000; “Head tax litigants had no alternative,” Edmonton Journal, January 4, 2001).

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A CLOSER LOOK S lavery, Racialization, and Understanding Contemporary Black Family Life Any study on black families in Canada today must account for the traumatic impact that slavery and judicial segregation played on the psychosocial outlook of blacks and their families. It should connect the post-colonial legacy of slavery systemic and structural racism, to contemporary family life. Legal slavery and the judicial segregation of black families of the past still have an impact in terms of behaviour, cultural norms, parenting, relationships, lifestyle choices, and in how identity is projected and received in society. Specifically,

The Live-in Domestic Worker Program and Caribbean Family Destruction Until 1962, the Canadian Immigration Act was administered in a blatantly discriminatory and racist manner against black and other racialized minorities, making it difficult for non-whites and their families to migrate to Canada. In 1962 and later in 1967, the Act underwent reforms that introduced entry into Canada on the basis of education and skills, not race (see also Chapter 8). Nonetheless, the Immigration Act has continued to designate a changing system of unequal power structures, delimiting which humans can lay claim to full human status and which humans cannot. This was most evident in the case of black female domestics and the Live-in Caregiver program in the 1960s and 1970s. From 1975 to 1976, 44.8 percent of all entrants to Canada’s domestic scheme were from the Caribbean, and only 0.3 percent from all countries in Asia (Bakan & Stasiulis, 1995, p. 316). In the past and before new legislative changes to the Live-in Caregiver program, domestic migrant workers had to fulfill a twoyear contract with their given employer, after which they were to return home or find some way of being sponsored by the same or another employer to remain in the country (Bakan & Stasiulis, 1995; Calliste, 1993; Daenzer, 1993). Not until 1981 were black female domestic workers allowed to apply for landed status after two years of employment. The race/gender and immigration restriction created structural, systemic, and racist stereotypical disadvantages for Caribbean women and their families, including social decay, NEL

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the racialization of black people as slaves embedded negative and racist images of black people that are still present today in the public imagination and institutions. Racialization is the process by which groups are demonized and vilified by the media and police and courts based on race, colour, creed, or ethnicity. Racialization draws attention to the process of making “race” relevant to a situation or context and thus requires an examination of the precise circumstances in which it occurs. Sources: Based on Crichlow (2014); Glynn (2014, p. 12).

destruction, spousal stress, lengthy mother–child separations, strained parental roles, and child–parent tensions. Further, black female domestic workers’ entrance into Canada was rife with racist undertones. For example, racist stereotypes of black female promiscuity meant that women entering Canada as domestic workers were treated chattel like: they were subjected to gynecological examinations to prove their suitability as caregivers (Macklin, 1992, p. 689). Caribbean women applying to the domestic worker program who had no children were deemed more suitable than women who were married and had children. In response, women who had children might lie about their status in order to become servants to white Canadian families. The extended family, once a part of the domestic worker’s life, was therefore weakened once she took employment with a Canadian family and experienced alienation, isolation, and erosion of her culture. The absence of females/mothers in families back in the Caribbean also led to the weakening of family units and bonds. Even more disturbing is when domestic workers tried to sponsor their family members from the Caribbean to Canada. Many of their employers got angry with them, and racist immigration polices also got in their way. A Caribbean domestic worker was often expected to adopt her employer family as her new family. For live-in domestic workers from the Caribbean then and now, surviving and thriving as families, despite multiple encounters with racism or stereotyping, may require a different type of resolve than typical, mainstream families experience in balancing

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work, family, and class, or overcoming difficult immigration adjustments. W. E. B. Du Bois (1903) coined the concept of “double consciousness,” whereby black subjects and families are essentially forced to have two identities and are pressured to view themselves as they are perceived by the dominant white majority. Just as black domestic identity and family responsibilities are divided among two conflicting sets of family values, so, too, are workers’ children and families, coping with a mother’s absence. To understand the paid work and family experiences of black Caribbean domestic workers today, we need to interrogate the domestic worker program, as well as gender patriarchy, racism, and imperial colonial history, which was used to justify black female bodies as domesticated and abused. As Thomas (2007) notes in The Sexual Demon of Colonial Power: Over the last several decades, commercialized gender and sexuality talk in Western academia has had little or nothing to say about the neo-colonial context in which it is produced. The material and symbolic condition is instead embraced as an ordinary fact of life. This geopolitics of empire may be best illustrated by the vilification of nationalism (or nationality) in now-standard discussions of sexism and homophobia. The nationalism vilified is typically the nationalism of the colonized, not the colonizer who invents nationalism as a bourgeois form of rule. Hence, many people come to see Black “nationalism” as synonymous with any given evil …White nationalism is never conceived or mentioned as such, by contrast, let alone castigated as the ruling force of the globe. Why is this canonical criticism of sexism and homophobia couched as a criticism of colonized “nationalism,” in its insurgent mode? (p. 130) In attempting to make intelligible black Caribbean families and black mothers, in particular, it is critical to see and understand post-colonialism. Post-colonialism disguises colonialism as having good elements of civility for black and Caribbean families, thereby subverting all forms of resistance. Indeed, the experiences of domestic workers and their families suggest that Caribbean families were not successful in fighting off the yoke of colonialism. Fanon (1963) reminds us that emancipation within colonialism has two components. The first requires the physical removal of the colonist (and thus the coercive element 170

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of hegemony), and the second requires the removal of the colonizing effects of capital and the ideology of the colonizer (the consensual element) (p. 51). For Fanon, people must fight against poverty, illiteracy, and underdevelopment to develop a decolonized outlook on life and to develop agency. Hence, black Caribbean students and their families in contemporary society must understand the transition from slave field labour to domestic work as the “natural” progression for black women in the post-Emancipation period (Green, 2006, p. 14). Moreover, domestic workers’ lives and those of their families are subjected to ongoing structural violence. Deep structural elements of society mark some people as deserving worse treatment or even mark some people as less human. The structures responsible for the violence are also responsible for cloaking the violence. Colonialism, racism, and class difference are examples of structures that engender histories of difference—difference marked by violence. Attention to these structures requires attention to these histories; that is, to see the violence, one must see the structures (Price, 2012, p. 6). Black Caribbean families and their children have historically been positioned within Canadian society as at the bottom of the mosaic, viewed as disposable bodies and cheap labour. When economic opportunities arise for black women and men to apparently escape colonial prejudices, we can interrogate interesting tensions that arise, such as through the content outlined in “A Provocative Idea: Sport and Slavery as Intersections of Class and Race?” in Intersections, below.

The Alchemy of Storytelling Pedagogy: Challenging Racism For the past 15 years as an educator teaching in university settings, with students of criminology and social work and teacher education candidates, I have pedagogically employed storytelling. This storytelling with students is a way to innovatively frame discussions about decolonization, racialization, and institutionalized racism—as understood above—and their impact on families, and the need for gender, sexuality, and race equity, social justice, and democracy. While most of the students in my classes have an ancestral, communal, and cultural history of storytelling in their lives, they also learn the importance of storytelling as a way to close the gaps in the dominant educational canon by hearing and learning from the expertise and NEL

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INTERSECTIONS A PROVOCATIVE IDEA: SPORT AND SLAVERY AS INTERSECTIONS OF CLASS AND RACE? Black athletes make up 79 percent of the National Basketball Association(NBA) (Lapchick & Guiao, 2015), and approximately 65 percent of National Football League (NFL) players are black (Tapp, 2014). • NBA and NFL ownership is dominated by whites who trade and sign their players akin to chattel slavery. Ownership of sweat-glistened black male bodies, with concrete physiological, phenotypical, and psychological characteristics, permits rich whites’ profit and personal gain. Black athletes perform work on NBA courts and on NFL fields similar to plantation and chattel slavery for the profit of white owners. Do you agree or disagree? • These statistics perpetuate stereotypical racialized assumptions, such as the argument that blacks are the best NBA and NFL players but not good hockey players. The idea is that our genes and cultural background dictate the prowess of an individual sportsperson. We divide members of racial minorities and their families into innate biological and phenotypically detached races, while reducing their ability, behaviour, and morality in the process. This kind of thinking is then passed on from one generation to the next, creating a racist ghettoization and selffulling prophecy which leads to the creation of racial hierarchies: dominant versus subordinate groups, whites versus blacks. Do you agree or disagree?

Afro-Caribbean, Indian/Black, Arab, LGBT, Eastern European, Latino, and English as a second language students enjoy the practices of storytelling and potlucking. These allow them to discover a great deal about themselves and others, including their family dynamics, while they work with and across their differences and similarities. Students are sometimes resistant to tell their stories, asking, “Why do you want me to share my life story?” Their question is completely fair so I always spend time explaining how invaluable storytelling or emotional pedagogy is to the learning process by linking the practice, for example, to the mission of universities and whiteness studies, which ask us to seek out objective, fair, and unbiased knowledge. I inform them that, according to Bell (1995, p. 899), critical race theory (CRT) writings are characterized by frequent use of the first person and “emotional pedagogical justice” which storytelling narrative employs. CRT originated in the 1970s from the work of legal scholars in response to lack of attention to how race intersects with the history and practice of law and the courts (Crenshaw, Gotana, Peller, & Thomas, 1995). This interdisciplinary theory insists on contextual/historical analysis of institutions to address marginalized groups; it challenges how various social identities and systems of oppression converge in ways that influence who has access to pri­ vilege (Bell, 1995). In application, CRT works toward eliminating racial oppression as part of the broader goal of ending all forms of oppression (Crenshaw et al., 1995).

experiences of students who otherwise would not be heard. We all were induced into some form of orality before entering “school.” As Fisher (1984) reminds us, storytelling is human nature. Therefore, since all students have a story, they should be given an opportunity to share or tell their story from a personal and in-class narrative, while finding their voices and developing new skills. In my classes, African, Asian, South Asian, Indo- and NEL

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© Wesley Crichlow

In my classrooms, I draw upon the sport/slavery analogy to highlight the similarities between legal slavery, sports, and the psychologically damaging effects that slavery had, and to some degree still has, on the psyche of black youth today, such as through their feelings of superiority or inferiority

Storytelling can be used as pedagogical and practical critical engagement with key themes on families. Storytelling can unleash empathy, creativity, courage, and even humour, while uniting us together in this world, suffering from a shortage of love and respect. In essence, it can bring us together, sometimes in surprising ways, and can positively change the way we think and become to know.

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A CLOSER LOOK An Outcome of Storytelling: Family Shift Sleeping Critical race theory storytelling education and emotional pedagogical justice make the curriculum culturally relevant by embodying what shapes students’ lives. For example, in some of my South Asian students’ narratives, I learned about the concept of “family shift sleeping.” In this situation, younger family members will attend university or college in the day and engage in security or other paid work by night to address the issue of family overcrowding in the home, thereby allowing older family members a good night’s rest or sleep. Many of these students also use the library and other quiet places on campus to sleep during the day. This situation has been common among Chinese family members, too, who schedule their work shifts around the sharing of one bed. This shift sleeping is grounded in historical and contemporary processes of colonization and racialization, especially the racialization of poverty. In 2012, 29 percent of Toronto children were living in low-income families. Compared to white Canadians, African and Middle Eastern individuals

From this perspective, CRT theorists inform us that any “story” that claims to include or refer to the lives of subordinated peoples is incomplete until it takes into account and includes the voices of people who have lived the experience of subordination (Delgado, 1989; Solórzano & Yosso, 2001). (See “An Outcome of Storytelling: Family Shift Sleeping” in A Closer Look.) Storytelling is another way to break the predictable manner and method of teaching about racialized and immigrant families (or any other sociology subject), making teaching and learning unpredictable, exciting, and engaging. When a student story is told orally, the storyteller’s pitch, accent, tone of voice, gesture, pronunciation, emphasis, and some other salient speech features help improve students’ listening skills and attention span, while reducing pedagogy boredom. Ringo Ma (1994) argues that storytelling is an efficient teaching strategy for non-white instructors in U.S. higher education: “the logos, ethos, and pathos derived from storytelling can make a non-native instructor both meaningful and attractive to students” (p. 7). When students begin to share their stories pedagogically, I find they learn about themselves through vulnerable moments; in turn, some request that this format be used in every classroom setting. Examples of 172

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were three times more likely to be living on low incomes (Polyani, Johnson, Khanna, Dierie, & Kerr, 2014). As well, racialized Canadian workers earned only 81.4 cents for every dollar paid to non-racialized Canadian workers (Block & Galabuzi, 2011, p. 3). Racialized women and men earn less than their non-racialized counterparts. In 2005, racialized women earned 55.6 cents for every dollar non-racialized men earned and 88.2 cents for every dollar that non-racialized women earned (p. 11). Moreover, this income gap among racialized and immigrant families severely affects students’ health and experience of and achievement in education through the horrifying shift sleeping conundrum. According to Kevin Kruger, president of NASPA, Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, in the United States: “Low-income students who work more than twenty hours have much lower degree progress and completion rates than those students who work less than twenty hours” (New, 2016, n.p.).

vulnerable moments include the stories highlighted in A Closer Look (see “An Outcome of Storytelling: The Story of J” and “An Outcome of Storytelling: Family Shift Sleeping”). Other examples from my years of teaching include students talking about the course content and how the reading materials changed their perceptions of justice; immigration and refugee family stories; LGBTQ coming-out stories; stories of poverty and other social issues; and sharing of past abuses and traumas in their lives or their families. Others talk about how this form of learning and sharing allows them to confront writing illiteracy, replacing it with oral literacy. By reclaiming storytelling, it is hoped that students will develop a more critical, structural awareness of racism in Canadian society and law and its implications for families: one specifically geared toward dealing with the realities of white supremacy and the role that whites play in perpetuating this complex system. Functional literacy is a serious concern in white dominant societies such as Canada, where Caribbean and other black students face systemic disadvantages in the education system prior to reaching university (Dei, 2008; James, 2012). Additionally, students from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and elsewhere may relate storytelling to ancestral oral traditions. Students are sometimes reminded of NEL

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A CLOSER LOOK A  n Outcome of Storytelling: The Story of “A Black Male Student” The political, economic, cultural, and gendered survival moment of storytelling for some young black men in my class is witnessed by their ability to share about caring, performative moments with their mothers. The stereotypical hypermasculine weaponized masculinity (Crichlow, 2014) and hyperaggressive performance of working-class black masculinity that posits women as passive, compliant, and fragile is void of men’s narratives in my classroom. For example, a high number of my students have family or work responsibilities outside the classroom. A moving and emotionally charged moment of storytelling occurred when one of my Black male students shared his caregiving story about his mom. He informs us through his storytelling that his mother made many sacrifices for him to be who he is today and his focus is on the completion of this degree, while taking care of his mom. He further informs us through storytelling that taking care of his mom has taught

the conviviality of storytelling in their parents’ country of origin while they are vacationing, listening to storytelling in a family member’s yard, in a barbershop, or at the market. In spaces where black people’s stories have not been part of the historical or official records, conversational traditions also become an important means to pass on information. For example, “old talk” is defined in the Dictionary of Caribbean Usage as idle chitchat (Allsopp, 2003), but it is much more. It is open to exaggeration, elaboration, humour, self-critique, critical thinking, contestation, and a back-and-forth communication that enriches stories, while offering an informal means for reflecting and analyzing collective knowledge among storytelling participants (Mohabir, 2012). In this context, shared storytelling practice also becomes a decolonizing practice that draws attention to alternative pedagogical, cultural practices and embodied ways of knowing. A decolonizing teaching practice, employing storytelling, allows for the most reticent and marginalized students who would traditionally not reveal their thoughts or feelings to readily bring their voices to the classroom, gain confidence, and become engaged using I: “I think, I feel, I see, I hear.” Storytelling employed in my university teachings allows students the opportunity to share their own lived experiences of NEL

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him much about himself, care, compassion, and love. What touches me most about Black male student is his ability to balance care for his mother, university education, and paid work without the support of another sibling or family member. While male students are less likely, overall, than female students to be caregivers, I am starting to witness a change. I think this story is important to be shared with readers on family because it is rarely heard. It has the potential to create a caring compassionate community of young black men, and it helps erase the tropes of racist stereotyping about black men and the performance of care and love. But what is of greater importance is Black male student’s performance of care alongside his scholarly achievement and appreciation of his mom’s sacrifice. Black male student’s story sends a message about the meaning of masculinity and his ability to challenge traditional, gendered, and patriarchal norms about child care and parental caregiving.

race, identity, sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity, and/ or Indigeneity, especially as it relates to their families as they know them. We also avoid reinforcing the cult of the expert by giving students an opportunity to teach and share their own powerful living testimonies and stories. This is important so that students learn not only from theory and secondary research, but also from the theorization of their complex lived experiences or lives. A text without a context is pretext: we must start all journeys with ourselves. The use of personal knowledge is a way of giving voice to the unique perspectives and lived experiences of people of colour and the marginalized. We all know that students who are socially marginalized by intellectual categorizations are further alienated by the text that serves as authority. But we can allow them to locate their voices in the classroom and can recognize that the text requires teachers to switch roles and see themselves equally as learners, regardless of professional credentials. Delpit (1995) informs us that we do not really see through our eyes or hear through our ears, but through our beliefs. To put our beliefs on hold is to cease to exist as ourselves for a moment—and that is not easy. It is painful as well, because it means turning yourself inside out, giving up your own sense of who you are, and being willing

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to see yourself in the unflattering light of another’s angry gaze. It is not easy, but it is the only way to learn what it might feel like to be someone else and the only way to start the dialogue. (pp. 46–47) Poulton (2014) suggests that we also hold our assumptions in abeyance when interacting and learning about others because assumptions can cloud our perceptions, judgments, and behaviour. CRT storytelling, as experienced by my students, allows for the formation of perception of self, family, culture, community, identity, and politics. By embracing CRT storytelling education, we are decolonizing and Indigenizing our teaching practices; this can be of the greatest value for marginalized voices, particularly when their storytelling foregrounds social and family relationships otherwise disrespected by mainstream culture. Storytelling demonstrates how members of non-Western cultures (not reliant on paper trails) can pass on histories and cultures while affirming the link with their past and present sense of self. CRT storytelling “uses counter-narratives as a way to highlight discrimination, offer racially different interpretations of policy, and challenge the universality of assumptions made about people of colour” (Harper, Patton, & Wooden, 2009, p. 391). CRT operates between two distinct storytelling paradigms: majoritarian stories, as told by privileged white persons, and counter-stories, as told by subordinated black and racialized persons (Delgado, 1989; Solórzano & Yosso, 2001). Pedagogically employing storytelling supports retention, interests, and motivation in learning, unlearning, and relearning. As Stuart Hall (1995) writes in Negotiating Caribbean Identities: that … identity is not only a story, a narrative which we tell ourselves about ourselves; it is stories which change [and shift] with historical circumstances…. Far from only coming from the still small point of truth inside us, identities come from outside, [identities] are the way in which we are recognized and

then come to step into the place of the recognition which others give us. Without the others, there is no self, there is no self-recognition. (pp. 3–14) Thus, individuals’ empowerment can occur through our listening to others’ stories and validating the self of which they tell stories about (Crichlow & Visano, 2009). “The recognition of the experiential knowledge of people of color” (Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993, p. 6) can be used to counteract the stories of the dominant group. Just as Delgado (1989) suggests that there are at least three reasons why it is important to name one’s reality in legal systems, I would argue that the same is true of education systems: (1) much of “reality” is socially constructed; (2) stories provide to members of outgroups a vehicle for psychic self-preservation, and (3) the exchange of stories from teller to listener can help overcome ethnocentrism and the dysconscious (King, 1992) drive or need to view the world one way. (p. 2073) By employing storytelling to validate one’s experience, we are also affirming the rhythm that characterizes the linguistic patterns of blacks and members of racial minorities, including the historical and present-day oral incantations. Additionally, CRT allows for an awareness of the social context of each person in question and awareness of knowledge of the prevalence of racism, sexism, and homophobia. CRT storytelling is based on the centrality of several tenets that challenge the manner in which the social construction of race is manifested in society. My ultimate goal in using CRT storytelling with my students learning and relearning about racialized and immigrant families is to humanize and validate their feelings and aspirations—where they are seen by their peers and themselves as having multiple identities and needs—and ensure that they do not feel as if they are just disconnected brains on campus or in life in general. Storytelling and narrative analysis that deviate from the traditional educational canon are clearly core methods in exploring the experiences of ethnocultural minority families in Canada.

CHAPTER SUMMARY This chapter has established the argument that the study of Indigenous and racialized families should be undertaken with a deliberate acknowledgment of how family practices are grounded in past and current processes of colonization, racialization, and institutionalized racism. To not do so is to ignore how the impacts of colonialism and racial injustice are ongoing. Working 174

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with and teaching racial minority students requires understanding how racial hierarchies and exploitation are experienced as links of the past to the present. This needs to be understood very carefully. This understanding, in turn, allows us to make intelligible how historical, economic, political, cultural, gendered, and social conditions of that community came into existence. While Indigenous families continue to face colonization, black families experience double consciousness. As for immigrant families, they must negotiate two cultures at once: that of their family and that of the Canadian culture in which they live. They may have to learn a new language, face potential unemployment, or put in long work hours in low-paying jobs. The ongoing racism, colonization, and discrimination experienced by these families and their children pose many challenges to the development of a secure understanding of selves as individuals and families. As well, I have demonstrated storytelling, as per critical race theory, as an innovative way in which to grasp how historical realities have contemporary meanings in families. CRT storytelling allows a window into understanding the socio-dynamics of racialized and immigrant families, such as the experience of family shift sleeping. Racialized storytelling also provides a platform for intellectual debates on the historical and anthropological evidence about what constitutes self and identity in its multidimensional and multiple meanings, its contestations, its applications, and its limitations. But there is a critical caveat we must consider: storytelling, or emotional pedagogical justice, is a decolonizing project that allows me to connect with my students while enhancing their academic performance; their stories mirror some of my own experiences as an immigrant Caribbean faculty member. Studies and anecdotal evidence have repeatedly shown that students often connect best with people who look and sound like them, bringing different worldviews, as well as strategies for survival. Both have important implications for relearning and for overall academic success.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. How does learning about ongoing colonization and racialization shift our perceptions about the contemporary experiences of Canadian families today? 2. How is slavery in Canada silenced and made invisible? 3. What are some contemporary examples of how immigration policy intersects with racialization? 4. How successful is Canada in achieving social justice and human rights for racialized families living below and within the poverty line?

APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. Compare the historical experiences of Indigenous and black families in Canada. Have these families experienced colonization similarly? differently? Why is it important to see differences in these families’ experiences? 2. Return to the Intersections feature, “A Provocative Idea: Sport and Slavery as Intersections of Class and Race?” What do you think about the relationship between the trading of black athletes and slavery? How might you analyze this relationship differently than depicted here? 3. Describe critical race theory and how it is used in storytelling. Consider how you would tell a story about your current family life from this perspective. 4. How might storytelling be used in the study of any topic in sociology of the family? NEL

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FURTHER RESOURCES Indigenous Healing Foundation. www.ahf.ca/publications/residential-school-resources. This foundation offers supports to Indigenous persons who experienced residential schooling and provides resources to educate others on the importance of healing. Wellesley Institute. www.wellesleyinstitute.com. The institute examines social problems relevant to health in urban communities. Black History Canada. http://blackhistorycanada.ca/topic.php?id5150&themeid56. This portal site provides an online history of Canada’s black community. Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. www.pier21.ca/research/immigration-history /chinese-immigration-act-1923. Here you will find a survey of Canadian immigration history.

KEY TERMS chattel slavery: where blacks were considered the property of whites: bought, sold, and inherited (p. 166) critical race theory: understands marginalized persons’ relationships with institutions (e.g., the law) as underpinned by racism; supports research that challenges how oppression and privilege are institutionalized; pursues social justice (p. 171) dehistoricized: to be deprived of historical context (p. 165)

racialization: a process by which groups are demonized and vilified by the media and police and courts based on race, colour, creed, or ethnicity (p. 169) racism: the socially constructed belief that some races are superior compared to others and that those constituted as superior can dominate those deemed inferior (p. 166) settler colonialism: Indigenous persons being forcibly removed from their territory, home, and native land by foreigners (p. 164)

REFERENCES Aboriginal Healing Foundation. (2014). A condensed timeline of events. Retrieved from http://www .ahf.ca/publications/residential-school-resources Allsopp, R. (2003). Dictionary of Caribbean English usage. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Bakan, A., & Stasiulis, D. (1995). Making the match: Domestic placement agencies and the racialization of women’s household work. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 20(2), 303–335. Bell, D. (1995). Who’s afraid of critical race theory? University of Illinois Law Review, 1995(4), 893–910. Berberoglu, B. (2005). An introduction to classical and contemporary social theory. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Black History Canada. (2016). Retrieved from http://blackhistorycanada.ca/topic. php?id5150&themeid56 Blackside (Producer). (2009). Eyes on the prize: America’s civil rights years, 1954–1965 [DVD]. Available from PBS Home Video. Block, S., & Galabuzi, G.- E. (2011). Canada’s colour coded market. The gap for racialized workers. Toronto, ON: Wellesley Institute; Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Bredhoff, S., Schamel, W., & Potter, L. A. (1999). The arrest records of Rosa Parks. Social Education, 63(4), 207–211. Calliste, A. (1993). Women of “exceptional merit”: Immigration of Caribbean nurses to Canada. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 6(1), 85–103. Cooper, A. (2006). The hanging of Angelique: The untold story of Canadian slavery and the burning of Old Montréal. Toronto, ON: HarperCollins. [Published in French in 2007 as La pendaison d’Angelique (André Couture, Trans.). Montréal: Les éditions de L’Homme]. 176

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Cooper, A. (2007, March 25). The invisible history of the slave trade. Toronto Star. Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/opinion/2007/03/25/the_invisible_history_of_the_slave_trade.html Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Thomas, K. (Eds.). (1995). Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement. New York, NY: New Press. Crichlow, W. (2003). Western colonization as disease: Native adoption & cultural genocide. Journal of Canadian Social Work, 5(1), 88–107. Crichlow, W. (2014). Weaponization & prisonization of Toronto black youth. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 3(3), 113–131. Crichlow, W., & Visano, L. (2009). The impact of colour in “correcting” youths: A program of action. In R. Barmaki (Ed.), Law and justice: A critical inquiry—A collection of essays (pp. 107–131). Toronto, ON: APF Press. Daenzer, P. M. (1993). Regulating class privilege: Immigrant servants in Canada, 1940s–1990s. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars’ Press. Dei, G. J. S. 2008. Racists beware: Uncovering racial politics in contemporary society. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Delgado, R. (1989). Symposium: Legal storytelling. Michigan Law Review, 87, 2073. Delpit, L. (1995). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York, NY: New Press. Diène, D. (2004). Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination: Commission on Human Rights. Sixtieth Session Item 6 of the provisional agenda. Mission to Canada, UNHRC, E/CN.4/2004/18/Add.2. Disease. (2000). In Dorland’s illustrated medical dictionary (29th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: W. B. Saunders Company. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The souls of black folk. New York, NY: Gramercy Books. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1935). Black reconstruction in America: An essay toward a history of the part which black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in America, 1860–1880. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace. Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth. New York, NY: Vintage. Fanon, F. (1986). Black skin, white masks (C. L. Markmann, Tran.). London, UK: Pluto Press. (Original work published 1952) Fisher, W. R. (1984). Narration as a human communication paradigm: The case of public moral argument. Communication Monographs, 51(1), 1–22. Glynn, M. (2014). Black men, invisibility and crime: Towards a critical race theory desistance. London and New York: Routledge. Green, C. A. (2006). Between respectability and self-respect: Framing Afro-Caribbean women’s labour history. Social and Economic Studies, 55(3), 14. Griffith, D. W., Dixon, T., & Triangle Film Corporation. (1915). Birth of a nation. Los Angeles, CA: Triangle Film. Hall, S. (1995, January–February). Negotiating Caribbean identities. New Left Review, 209, 3–14. Harper, S., Patton, L., & Wooden, O. (2009). Access and equity for African American students in higher education: A critical race historical analysis of policy efforts. Journal of Higher Education, 80(4), 389–414. Heagerty, B., & Peery, N. (2000). Moving onward: From racial division to class unity. Chicago, IL: People’s Tribune. Indian Act, RSC 1985, c I-5. Iverson, S. (2007). Camouflaging power and privilege: A critical race analysis of university diversity policies. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43(5), 586–611. James, C. (2012). Life at the intersection: Community, class and schooling. Halifax, NS: Fernwood Press. NEL

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Jobb, D. (2009, April/May). Ticket to freedom: Today, they call her Canada’s Rosa Parks. but back in 1946, Viola Desmond seemed an unlikely civil rights activist. The Beaver: Canada’s History Magazine, 24. Kallen, E. (2010). Ethnicity and human rights in Canada. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press. Kamado, K. (2004). Sexing the Caribbean: Gender, race, and sexual labour. New York, NY: Routledge. Keung, N. (2000, December 19). Chinese Canadians sue over head tax: No other immigrant had to pay entry fee. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from https://globalfactivacom.ezproxy.library. yorku.ca/ha/default.aspx#./!?&_suid5145731054917404562058981973678 Krauter, J. F., & Davis, M. (1978). Minority Canadians: Ethnic groups. Toronto, ON: Methuen. Lambertson, R. (2009). Domination and dissent: Equality rights before WWII. In J. Miron (Ed.), A history of human rights in Canada: Essential issues (pp. 11–27). Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars’ Press. Lapchick, R., & Guiao, A. (2015). The 2015 racial and gender report card: National Basketball Association. Orlando, FL: The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDE), University of Central Florida’s College of Business Administration. Lorde, A. (1992). Age, race, class, and sex: Women redefining difference. In M. Anderson & P. H. Collins (Eds.), Race, class, and gender: An anthology (pp. 495–502). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Ma, R. (1994, November). Story-telling as a teaching–learning strategy: A nonnative instructor’s perspective. Paper presented at the 80th annual meeting of the Speech Communication Association, New Orleans, LA. Macklin, A. (1992). Foreign domestic worker: Surrogate housewife or mail order servant? McGill Law Journal, 37, 681–760. Marshall, A. R. (2011). The way of the bachelor early Chinese settlement in Manitoba. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. Matsuda, M. J., Lawrence, C. R., Delgado, R., & Crenshaw, K. (Eds.). (1993). Words that wound: Critical race theory, assaultive speech, and the first amendment. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Mohabir, N. (2012). The last return indenture/ship: Diaspora, decolonization and Douglarized spaces (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Leeds, Leeds, England. Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage. (2016). Beothuks. Retrieved from http://www.heritage .nf.ca/articles/Indigenous/beothuk.php New, J. (2016, February 1). Paid not to work? Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www .insidehighered.com/news/2016/02/01/temple-u-offers-grant-exchange-students-agreeingwork-less-study-more Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1986). Racial formation in the United States. New York, NY: Routledge. Ontario Black History Society. (2016). Underground Railroad. Retrieved from http://www .blackhistorysociety.ca/underground_railroad_en_238cms.htm Polyani, M., Johnson, L., Khanna, A., Dierie, S. & Kerr, M. (2014). The hidden epidemic: A report on child and family poverty in Toronto. Toronto, ON: Children’s Aid Society of Toronto. Retrieved from www.torontocas.ca/app/Uploads/documents/cast-report2014-final-web71.pdf Poulton, D. (2014). It’s not always racist but sometimes it is: Reshaping how we think about racism. Bloomington, IN: Archway. Price, J. (2012). Structural violence: Hidden brutality in the lives of women. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Rubinstein, W. D. (2004). Genocide and historical debate: William D. Rubinstein ascribes the bitterness of historians’ arguments to the lack of an agreed definition and to political agendas. History Today, 54(4), 36. Satzewich, V. (1998). Racism and social inequality in Canada: Concepts, controversies and strategies of resistance. Toronto, ON: Thompson Educational.

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Solomos, J. (1986). Varieties of Marxist conceptions of “race,” class and the state: A critical analysis. In J. Rex & D. Mason, (Eds.), Theories of race and ethnic relations. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press Solórzano, D., & Yosso, T. (2001, Fall). From racial stereotyping and deficit discourse toward a critical race theory of teacher education. Multicultural Education, 9(1), 2–8. Sun, W. (2007). Minority invisibility: An Asian American experience. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Tapp, J. (2014). NFL census: Data on players’ race, weight, and height. Heavy. Retrieved from http://heavy.com/sports/2014/09/what-percentage-of-nfl-players-are-black-white Thomas, G. (2007). The sexual demon of colonial power: Pan-African embodiment and erotic schemes of empire. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Vorst, J., & Society for Socialist Studies. (1991). Race, class, gender: Bonds and barriers (Rev. ed.). Winnipeg; Toronto: Garamond Press. Walker, J. (1997). Race rights and law in the Supreme Court of Canada: Historical case studies. Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press. Winks, R. W. (1966). Blacks in Canada. Montréal: McGill-Queens University Press. Winks, R. W. (1969). Negro school segregation in Ontario and Nova Scotia. Canadian Historical Review, 50(2), 164–191. Winks, R. W. (1997). The blacks in Canada: A history (2nd ed.). Montréal: McGill-Queens University Press. Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387–409.

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Chapter 12 Families Caring for Children in the 21st Century Rachel Berman

Chapter 13 Caregiving and Support for Older Adults Nancy Mandell and Vivian Stamatopoulos

Chapter 14 Families Experiencing Dis/ability Deborah Davidson and Nazilla Khanlou

C

aring, a practice common to family life “then” and “now,” is the focus of this part of Continuity and Innovation. Caring and the provision of social support are processes that continue over the life course; specifically, this refers to the care and support we receive from, provide to, or reciprocally exchange with others regardless of age. Here, we differentiate between caring for and about children, older persons, and family members who are able-bodied or not. Despite these distinctions, however, it is important to note that caring or providing support for dependants is rarely so exclusive. In Chapter 12, Berman focuses on families with children and discusses the challenges of parenting children over the life course, including older adults parenting young adult children. The assumptions made about parents and the meanings assigned to parenting styles and practices, often gendered, are discussed. Socialization, in particular, is highlighted as the critical means by which parents teach meanings, practices, and processes to children. While the act of parenting is observed as an experience that has remained remarkably

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PART 6

Care Work and Social Support

consistent over space and time, this is offset by a focus on the creativity involved in parenting, for example, in the raising of gender nonconforming children. Mandell and Stamatopoulos provide important insights into caregiving for and among older persons in Chapter 13. Here, they explore how caregiving needs and practices differ by gender, ethnicity, class, age, and health status, and draw attention to the pressures that an aging population places and will continue to place on decisions regarding care provision. Of timely significance is their discussion of how immigrant and racialized family members have specific cultural needs with regard to care and support that often go unmet by resources in the formal health and long-term care systems. As a main message in the chapter, Mandell and Stamatopoulos confirm the importance of understanding caregiving as a social process that is both consistent and variable within families, and, more important, as an experience that has been continuously associated with families, particularly as a woman’s responsibility.

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In Chapter 14, Davidson and Khanlou reveal how practices of care and support may increase in complexity when not all family members are able bodied in the same ways. Particular attention is given to how the very meaning of disability in families, specifically, how beliefs about parenting someone labelled as “disabled”

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are socially constructed. Davidson and Khanlou reveal a special engagement with intersectionality theory in their own research through an important discussion on the experiences of immigrant parents who are raising children with physical and/or mental challenges in Canada.

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CHAPTER 12 Families Caring for Children in the 21st Century

Dear Chairperson, My daughter is a student in Professor X’s class. She needs to have her presentation date moved. I trust the issue will be looked into and can be resolved in a timely

Courtesy of Rachel Berman

Rachel Berman

manner that is acceptable to our daughter and Professor X. Sincerely,

L E AR NI NG O B JE C T I V E S

Mrs. Doe

After you have read this chapter, you will be able to:

The email that opens this chapter was sent to the head of my department. My colleague, who is the nameless Professor X, shared this story with me as she was amazed that a parent would insert herself into her adult child’s life in this way. Apparently, the student in question did not know her mother was taking this step and was quite embarrassed. This kind of parental behaviour, however, is not an isolated incident. University administrators relay stories of parents contacting them to walk them through their child’s online application as the parent fills it out, along with selecting their young adult child’s program of study at university; further, employers tell stories of parents accompanying their adult children on job interviews. Not surprisingly, journalists, as well as casual observers on the Internet and elsewhere, accuse 21st century parents of helicopter parenting, or hovering over their children and not letting them grow up. Such parents, like the parent in the above example, are said to micro-manage every aspect of their children’s lives through early childhood right up to and including adulthood, seeking to protect them from various difficulties and dangers, and to smooth their journey through life. At the same time, we read about childhood obesity reaching epidemic proportions and the dangers that technology poses and ask: Where are the parents? Why aren’t they taking better care of their children and protecting them from cyber bullies and sexting? What’s going on? Are parents today too hands-on or too hands-off? Is helicopter parenting really a new phenomenon? What’s the same and what’s changed about how parents raise children today compared to 50 years ago? What can sociologists tell us about raising children? NEL

• identify the perspectives sociologists use to explore raising children • differentiate between ethnic-racial, gender, and social class socialization • explain the culture of “intensive parenting” and its connection to social class • describe some contemporary parenting challenges • discuss some present-day parenting pioneers

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This chapter focuses on the raising of, and caring for, children. Though not every person will parent, parenting can be thought of as a common practice of family life for many people and one that does not end when children become adults; moreover (as discussed in “Siblings as Carers” in Intersections), it is not always the parents doing the caring within the family. This chapter reviews the perspectives sociologists use to examine raising children and discusses research on ethnic-racial, gender, and social class differences in parenting. It investigates the current culture of intensive parenting, or helicopter parenting, and its connection to social class. Parenting challenges that previous generations of parents did not face are discussed, and research on parenting pioneers—parents who are carving out new and innovative parenting paths with their children—is presented. More specifically, this chapter begins with a review of socialization theories, which include deterministic models, such as the functionalist and reproductive models, as well as the relational model, also known as the bidirectional model. Socialization along dimensions of difference is explored: dimensions include socialization as it relates to ethnicity and race, gender, and social class, or social-economic status (SES). The next section of the chapter looks at parenting in the 21st century and discusses the concept of parenting culture and changes therein. Particular attention is paid to the current parenting culture of intensive parenting, including intensive mothering and the “new” father, after which Diana Baumrind’s parenting styles are outlined. Contemporary parenting challenges are then discussed, including cyber bullying, sexting, and censorware. Finally, the chapter closes with a discussion of parenting pioneers and a brief section on queer youth and straight parents. Various boxed features within the chapter highlight particular issues, such as immigrant siblings caring for younger siblings, boomerang kids, and pathologized parents.

Socialization Theories Most sociologists use some variation of the socialization perspective when researching and writing about raising children. According to those who follow a deterministic model, socialization is the lifelong process of acquiring the physical and social skills needed 184

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to become a social being and a capable member of society (Handel, Cahill, & Elkin, 2007). While sociologists examine many agents of socialization, for example, the mass media, neighbourhoods, schools, peers, and siblings, the most significant socializers are said to be parents.

The Deterministic Model of Socialization The focus in the deterministic model is how the environment in which we live shapes who we are. Corsaro (2015) discusses the deterministic model of socialization: Within the deterministic model, two subsidiary approaches arose that differed primarily in their views of society. The functionalist models, on the one hand, saw order and balance in society and stressed the importance of training and preparing children to fit into and contribute to that order. The reproductive models, on the other hand, focused on conflicts and inequalities in society and argued that some children have differential access to certain types of training and societal resources. (p. 8) Talcott Parsons’s (1927–1973) structural functionalist theory is an example of the functionalist model. Parsons (1951), who was influenced by the view of children held by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1865– 1939), saw the child as someone who must be tamed. The parents must do this taming by ensuring that their child internalizes the appropriate adult values and conventions; no matter the culture or society, some kind of socialization needs to occur. Another example of a functionalist model is behaviourist theory. Popular in the first half of the 20th century, behaviourism was introduced by John Watson (1878–1958) and expanded upon by B. F. Skinner (1904–1990). In this approach, the child’s behaviour is shaped by rewards and punishments. Social learning theory, developed by Albert Bandura (1925–), builds on behaviourist theory. It understands parents to socialize their children through direct reinforcement, communicating directly that certain behaviours are “good” (through smiles, praise, hugs, and so forth) leading to such behaviours being repeated, or “bad” (criticism, removal of privileges,

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annoyed looks) leading to such behaviours not being repeated. Parents may also indirectly communicate what behaviour is expected of children through modelling, performing normative actions and interactions, no matter what is said directly.

A Relational Approach to Socialization An approach that moves away from viewing socialization in the family as a one-way process with the child as a passive recipient is referred to as a relational, or bi-directional, perspective (Kuczynski, 2003). The focus in this approach is not so much on parenting techniques, but more on the parent–child relationship, how it forms and changes over time. Parents and children are seen as interdependent people who have both shared goals and conflicting goals and influence one another (Kuczynski, 2003). Sevón (2015) adopts this approach in her qualitative study where she analyzes how children between ages 4 and 7 describe and make sense of parental control and the negotiations that take place between children and parents. Ideas of relational processes, or those that are bi-directional, have yet to be taken up in popular discussions of parenting, which will become apparent in the section on parenting in the 21st century in this chapter.

Socialization and Difference In the sections on socialization and “race” or ethnicity, gender socialization, and social class and socialization, the reproductive model of socialization comes into play. It is important to point out that although racial, gender, sexual, and social class socialization are treated, for the most part although not entirely, as distinct sections in this chapter, they are intertwined and should be thought about in an intersectional manner (see also Chapters 8 and 14).

Socialization and “Race” or Ethnicity* For parents in ethnic minority families, communicating to children about family ethnicity and race is usually a key component of their parenting (Hughes et al.,

2006). Strategies may include promoting cultural pride, cultural knowledge, and cultural traditions (see also Chapter 8). This type of socialization is referred to as ethnic socialization, ethnic-racial socialization, or racial socialization (Hughes et al., 2006). Calliste (1996) examines racial socialization which, in her work, is defined as “raising emotionally and physically healthy black children in a society in which being black has negative connotations” (Peters, cited in Calliste, 1996, p. 266). Calliste reports on a number of strategies that black families in her qualitative Canadian study adopt: these include families teaching black heritage, stressing to children that they are as good as other people, teaching their children about their experiences of racism and how they resisted, and affirming the value of education. While

INTERSECTIONS SIBLINGS AS CARERS Lee and Pacini-Ketchabaw’s (2011) qualitative study examines experiences of immigrant girls in British Columbia who provide unpaid daily care to younger siblings. Eldest daughters in these astronaut families, referring to when family members reside in different parts of the world, are the preferred caregivers, even when another family member is available, for social, economic, and cultural reasons. Two participants interviewed were sisters from Korea who describe themselves as “almost parents” to their younger brother and expected to eventually return to Korea with their brother. Their father gives them various directives regarding their brother’s care via phone calls. They struggle somewhat with how to do gender socialization, as they note that the expectations for a male in Korea differ from a male in Canada. They carry out ethnic socialization by passing on cultural values and knowledge, including the Korean language. They take on the roles of cultural translator, monitor, and coach, raising their sibling with a hybrid identity. These caregivers, like most siblings who care in a variety of ways for their brothers or sisters, are invisible to policymakers, educators, and service providers who remain unaware of the contribution such girls make to the lives of their siblings and families.

*As Gunaratnam (2003) argues, “‘race’ and ethnicity are not ‘objective,’ stable, homogeneous categories, but are produced and animated by changing, complicated, and uneven interactions between social processes and individual experience” (p. 9). NEL

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some parents told their children that they need to be “twice as good” as whites to compete in the education system, other black parents felt that this put too much pressure on children and simply encouraged their children to do their best. White parents do not usually engage in discussions about race due to the belief that race does not matter; however, this colour-blind approach to racial socialization still sends a message to children. Handel and colleagues (2007) discuss ethnic socialization practices in North America by “white European ethnics,” for example, Italian Canadians, Greek Canadians, or Latvian Canadians, which are affected by the timing of immigration and assimilation into Canadian culture, among other factors. (For discussion of racial socialization and bi-racial children, see Rollins and Hunter (2013).) Hughes et al. (2006) report that several studies have found that ethnic and racial socialization is a bi-directional process. Journalist Desmond Cole (2015), writing about his experiences of racism in Toronto and elsewhere in Ontario, remembers his parents’ strategies and tells us about his reaction to racial socialization as a child: My parents immigrated to Canada from Freetown, Sierra Leone, in the mid-1970s. I was born in Red Deer, Alberta, and soon after, we moved to Oshawa, where my father was a mental health nurse and my mother a registered nurse who worked with the elderly. Throughout my childhood, my parents were constantly lecturing me about respecting authority, working hard and preserving our family’s good name. They made it clear that although I was the same as my white peers, I would have to try harder and achieve more just to keep up. I tried to ignore what they said about my race, mostly because it seemed too cruel to be true. (p. 40) For a snapshot of ethnic socialization in another Canadian immigrant family, see “Siblings as Carers” in Intersections. (For a discussion of Indigenous ways of caring for children, see Chapter 7.)

Socialization and Gender Gender socialization is defined as “the process whereby an individual acquires a gender identity and gendered ways of acting, thinking and feeling” (Nelson, 2010, p. 111). Parents may engage in gender socialization before children are born, something that is known as anticipatory socialization. This is especially facilitated today by ultrasound examinations 186

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that determine the biological sex of the child. With this information, parents can select what they see as a suitable name for the baby, pick the “right” colour to paint the child’s bedroom walls, and buy the “appropriate” kind of clothing and toys (Nelson, 2010), preparations that would have seemed inconceivable to parents before the latter part of the 20th century. Most parents today believe that they are raising their child in a gender-neutral manner, although research does not bear this out. Differentiated gender socialization continues throughout childhood and into the teen years; for example, sons are granted more freedoms while more restrictions are placed on daughters, daughters and sons are disciplined differently, and household chores are assigned differently. Gender socialization practices, blatant or otherwise, are closely tied to beliefs or norms that engage with heteronormativity. This term refers to the processes and practices through which heterosexuality is normalized and maintains an exclusive hold on what is regarded to be “natural” sexuality (Butler, 1990). Heteronormativity relies on the idea of gender binaries (male or female). So, if we step outside the conventional or “normal” ways of being a female or male we are (implicitly or explicitly) punished, but if we behave “normally,” we are similarly rewarded. Thus, gender socialization, which occurs within the context of a society that rewards heteronormativity, also involves socializing a child to grow up to be part of a heterosexual union, and to become a mother or a father (see also “Parenting Pioneers” on page 191).

Socialization and Social Class Socialization is said to vary by social class. Gilbert and Kahl (as cited in Handel et al., 2007) divide up class into six categories by occupation and income; the capitalist class (the 1%), the upper middle class, the middle class, the working class, the working poor, and the underclass. Social scientists sometimes prefer the term socioeconomic status, or SES, to the term social class, as SES gets at the idea that class is about more than economic status. The level of education can be included in discussions of class membership, but this is not straightforward as it is possible for someone with a higher level of education to be in a lower category of social class. There are said to be class differences in skills, habits, and styles; the idea is that social classes have particular cultural norms. Although social mobility exists

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in society in Canada (moving up the social class ladder), the social class a child is born into sets the initial level of a child’s life chances (Handel et al., 2007). Lareau (2003) reports that, although all the parents in her qualitative ethnographic study of American middle-class, working-class, and poor families, both white and black, want their children to be happy and thrive, social class makes a difference in how they parent. Middle-class parents, both white and black, promote what she calls “concerted cultivation,” a focus on children’s individual development. These children are enrolled in many adult-organized and adult-managed after-school activities, their experiences in schools are closely monitored, and parents consistently make requests of teachers regarding their children’s instruction. Children are reasoned with, taught to speak up with doctors, coaches, and other adults in their lives, and develop an “emerging sense of entitlement.” Middle-class black parents also engaged in racial socialization. Contrastingly, parents in working-class families promote “the accomplishment of natural growth.” After school, children play outside with siblings and cousins and watch television. Parents use directives rather than reasoning, and the children negotiate much of their life, including school, on their own as their parents are distrustful of contact with the school and healthcare facilities. These children develop an “emerging sense of restraint” or compliance to authority. Middle-class advantage in institutional settings, such as schools or healthcare facilities, is borne out in qualitative research by Calarco (2014), who reports the middle-class students in the classrooms she studied are “coached for the classroom” by their parents to take up a “by-any-means-necessary” approach. They expect help and often approach the teacher directly (p. 1016). Working-class students are coached to adopt a “no-excuses” approach to problem solving, tend to be more patient and less proactive, raising their hands and waiting for the teacher to offer help (p. 1016). The middle-class students received more help and completed their assignments more quickly and correctly (Calarco, 2011).

Parenting in the 21st Century Lee, Bristow, Faircloth, and Macvarish (2014) make the argument that today in the Western world, what it means to be a good parent has shifted greatly from the more relaxed approach in the 1970s, and that since NEL

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the 1990s we have been living in a culture of hyper parenting. This change has affected the practices of parenting and the dynamic interactions that constitute family life. Before we discuss intensive parenting, we need to briefly define culture and parenting culture.

Culture and Parenting Culture Culture is all around us. It makes up our habits and our routines, and guides our actions. Like a fish in water, we exist in culture, but we may not readily see it, especially if we are members of the dominant culture (with white, middle-class values). We may become aware of the distinctiveness of our culture only when we are immersed in a different culture as a traveller, an immigrant, or a refugee; this may be referred to as “culture shock.” If you are part of a family that engages in ethnic socialization, you may also be more keenly aware of cultural differences that exist in society. Daly (2004) writes about parenting culture and explains that “for parents, this often means that the everyday decisions of parenting are shaped by non-specific, background undercurrents that guide what seems right, natural or appropriate” (p. 4). Whereas in the 1960s and 1970s, parenting culture was referred to as “custodial” (O’Reilly, 2006, p. 40), where there was greater separation between the worlds of adults and children, and a more hands-off approach taken (although mothers, in particular, were still seen as responsible for a child’s well-being), a dominant cultural script that guides ideas about appropriate parenting today centres on intensive parenting, which as we have seen from the research of Lareau (2003) and Calarco (2011, 2014), is tied to middle-class ideas about appropriate parenting, in particular, about appropriate mothering.

Intensive Mothering, Helicopter Parenting, and the “New” Fathers Sharon Hays (1996) describes the current model of socially appropriate, or “good,” mothering, as involving mothers spending a “tremendous amount of time, energy and money in raising their children” (Preface, p. x). She calls this intensive mothering and argues that such mothering has been increasingly normalized from the 1980s onward (Hays, 1996). According to this ideology, a good mother must attend to all her child’s needs at every stage of the child’s emotional and

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cognitive development and constantly keep up with expert advice, for example, on early brain development. Intensive mothering involves the imperatives of risk avoidance and risk management: the notion that children are at risk and that it is up to individual parents to safeguard their health and well-being (Faircloth, 2014). Nelson (as cited in Faircloth, 2014) adds that technology has served only to intensify intensive mothering with the use of baby monitors, and as the child ages, smartphones, encouraging parents to check in on their child’s whereabouts. Thus, innovations in technology are linked to new(er) practices of parenting. As Fox (2006) writes, “In recent decades, expectations about the work needed to raise a child successfully have escalated at a dizzying rate: the bar is now sky high” (p. 236). While some seek to raise the bar of intensive mothering even higher, for example, Amy Chua’s (2011) book promoting strict Asian “Tiger Mothers,” there has been a simultaneous backlash in the media against intensive mothering, or helicopter parenting, a term that Fox (2015) explains is usually used in connection to the intensive mothering or parenting of young adult children (although sometimes used in the media when describing mothering or parenting of younger children as well). In addition to intensive mothering, Faircloth (2014) discusses intensive parenting. Intensive parenting is described as a form of “deterministic parenting” in that “… parents are wholly responsible for their children’s outcomes” (p. 31). It is worth keeping in mind a point made by Fox (2015) that, although intensive mothering is exhausting, time consuming, and expensive, depending how it is done, children may benefit from

Sociologists of the family see “new” fathers as those who are intimately involved in the everyday care of infants.

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particular versions of this kind of parenting, as was the case for the middle-class children in Calarco’s qualitative research (2011, 2014). Furthermore, Milkie, Nomaguchi, and Denny (2015) make the point that it may depend on when in a child’s life the mother’s care is, if not intensive, readily available. In their largescale quantitative study using time diary and survey data where they assessed time spent engaged with and accessible to their offspring, children ages 3 to 11 and adolescents ages 12 to 18, they found that more engaged time with mothers in adolescence was related to fewer delinquent behaviours. The shift in cultural expectations since the 1970s about what constitutes “good” mothering has also been accompanied by a shift in what constitutes “good” fathering. Although fathers, like mothers, particularly working-class and poor mothers, have been under scrutiny for their supposed parenting ineptitude for decades, in the not-so-distant past, fathers who were the (main) breadwinners and the disciplinarians were deemed to show good fathering, as opposed to their counterparts, the “dead beat dads” or absent fathers. Today “good” fathers are more hands-on, especially with their young children, changing diapers, feeding, and so forth; these are the “new” fathers (Wall & Arnold, 2007). Wall and Arnold (2007) point out that the extent to which fathers are taking up the role of the hands-on dad today is subject to academic debate. Doucet (2006) makes the case that even when fathers try to become more hands-on, social policy has not kept pace with such goals, although a slight increase in hands-on child care has been reported. What is important to keep in mind is that the “new” father and intensive mothering are about idealized standards, what could be called “dominant discourses.” Ranson (2010) explains that the notion of intensive mothering acts as a moral yardstick for what mothers should do. Thus, although not all mothers engage in intensive mothering and other cultural scripts are emerging (e.g., “free range parenting”), intensive mothering remains a powerful cultural script, one that works to psychologically regulate mothers, via guilt and shame (O’Reilly, 2006); for a variety of reasons, including society’s double standards about gender, fathers are simply not under the same kind of pressure to adhere to the cultural script of the “new” father. It is also important to note that mothering, fathering, and parenting differ by race and by social class, and also within races and social classes (Fox, 2006; Wall, 2010).

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Baumrind’s Parenting Styles

• the authoritarian style, which emphasizes control and obedience, and little warmth—high in demandingness, low in responsiveness • the permissive style, which emphasizes self-expression and self-regulation in a context of warmth— low in demandingness, high in responsiveness • the authoritative style, which involves a blending of respect for the child’s individuality with an effort to instill social values in a context of warmth—high in demandingness, high in responsiveness Maccoby and Martin (1983) added a fourth style to this approach: • the neglectful or uninvolved style, to describe parents who focus on their own needs rather than the needs of the child in a context of hostility—low in demandingness, low in responsiveness Generally, studies on the impact of parenting styles have found that authoritative parenting has most commonly been associated with positive outcomes for children in Canada (Landy & Tam, 1996) and in the United States. In Asian societies, however, more authoritarian parenting combined with high levels of interest and encouragement is the cultural norm, and children raised in this way in these societies are also said to have positive outcomes (Williams-Washington, Melon, & Blau, 2008). A quantitative study conducted in 2015 involved a bit of a twist on Baumrind’s authoritative parenting style. Nelson, Padilla-Walker, & Nielson (2015) looked at warmth, the responsiveness dimension in Baumrind’s model, which they defined as parental availability to talk and spend time together, as related to helicopter parenting, which they defined as over-­ involvement (e.g., solving their child’s problems, intervening in conflicts, making important decisions for them). After surveying 438 undergraduate students from four U.S. universities, Nelson et al. (2015) report that lower self-worth and higher risk behaviour (such as binge drinking) were exacerbated by low levels of warmth; however, although high levels of warmth NEL

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In addition to studies on the culture of parenting, Diana Baumrind’s (1980, 1996) parenting styles approach has generated a great deal of research. These styles are measured along the dimensions of responsiveness and demandingness. Baumrind described three such parenting styles:

Adult children who leave home and then “boomerang” back can create challenging family dynamics for those who share the household.

reduced these negative effects, they did not eliminate them. The study’s authors conclude that over-involved parents have a negative influence on their young adult children even if such control is done in the context of love and support, giving credence to popular claims that helicopter parents may be doing more harm than good. Other studies on helicopter parenting of university students, for example, LeMoyne & Buchanan (2011), have also found negative outcomes. However, this is not necessarily the case when it comes to parenting young adults older than university age (see “Boomerang Kids,” in In the Media).

The Challenges of Technology for Contemporary Parenting While the mainstream media, and many parents, urge parents to back off, the flip side of this coin, which is also frowned upon, is the idea of being too hands-off when it comes to the online world (Bristow, 2014). “Good” parents today are expected to engage in cyber socialization, a term proposed here to include the ways parents socialize, or are supposed to socialize, their children to be safe and to behave ethically online. Taken a step further, in some cases, parents are encouraged to spy on their children’s Internet activities. Cyber

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IN THE MEDIA BOOMERANG KIDS In 2011, over 42.3 percent of Canadians 20 to 29 years old lived with their parents in contrast with 26.9 percent of such children in 1981 (Daly, 2013). This new living arrangement goes beyond Canadian borders; it’s a worldwide phenomenon. Stories about young adults’ “failure to launch” or adult children returning to the parental home—the boomerang kids—creating a “cluttered nest” abound in the media and usually focus on individual developmental failures or parenting failures. In other words, this arrangement is often viewed as a (failed) outcome of intensive parenting. Daly (2013) discusses the pros and cons of the situation for both parents and young adult children and suggests ways that this arrangement may succeed or become more difficult for all involved. He notes that along with increased cultural diversity in Canada and larger parental homes, the economy also plays an important role in this new living arrangement. Indeed, sociologists working within the framework of feminist political economy argue that the pressures of income security, youth unemployment, and escalating

socialization and surveillance are obviously parenting practices previous generations of parents did not have to think about.

Caring for Tweens and Teens: Cyber Bullying, Sexting, and Censorware The case of Amanda Todd, a teen from British Columbia who was cyber-bullied and took her own life at age 15, made headlines across Canada and around the world. Todd met someone online and at his request, took off her shirt. He took a picture and used it to blackmail her. For example, when she refused to engage with him further, he sent her picture to her classmates. She endured both online and face-to-face bullying by her peers. Changing schools did not help her escape her persecutors. How is cyber bullying defined? Shariff (2008) describes two main forms of cyber bullying: (1) peer against peer, where school peers are singled out for ridicule and harassment through blogs, 190

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home and educational costs are having an impact on families in key ways, including adult children continuing to live at home, or, returning to the family home after ostensibly moving out for good (Duffy, Cormon, & Pupo, 2015; Fox, 2015). Citing the work of both Nelson and Newman, Fox (2015) notes working-class families have long provided economic help to their children, but that the current economy is also making this type of assistance a reality for middle- and upper-middle-class parents. Because middle- and upper-middle-class parents are better able to, and choose to, provide housing, food, and other kinds of support, their children have a greater chance of attaining advanced credentials, decent jobs, and even home ownership. In short, being a middle-class boomerang kid can make for a softer landing (Fingerman et al., 2012). As Gazso and Kobayashi note in Chapter 1, the boomerang kid may be something new in the world of families, but this phenomenon also demonstrates that people, as they have in the past, continue to rely on and care for family members throughout their lives.

chat rooms, and so on; and (2) anti-authority forms of cyber bullying (e.g., online harassment of teachers). Todd was first bullied by an adult male from another country (“stranger danger”) and then also by her peers. Shariff and Churchill (2010) make the case that although cyber bullying is generally treated as a separate entity unto itself, it is grounded in intersecting and interlocking systemic and social forms of expression, abuse and threats rooted in homophobic, sexist, racist and discriminatory attitudes. Regrettably, most academic research on this subject over the last two decades persistently ignores these systemic barriers and discriminatory attitudes that are rooted, reinforced and modeled in adult society. Bullying and cyber-bullying is not separate from these social attitudes. (p. 3) They remind us that when thinking about cyber bullying, a variety of factors must be considered: these include social circumstances, poverty, school contexts, and outdated curricula. Cyber bullying is punishable under the Canadian Criminal Code.

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Sexting involves peer-to-peer exchange of sexual messages using digital technologies (Livingstone & Görzig, 2014). Livingstone and Görzig’s (2014) quantitative study with 25,000 European adolescents between the ages of 11 and 16 distinguished between risk (teens who were more likely to receive these messages) and harm (those more likely to be upset about receiving the messages). They report that the main predictors of those most likely to receive or see these messages include being an older adolescent, having higher tendencies for sensation seeking (which, they note, is not always a negative as it may help to build resilience), greater psychological difficulties, and risky online and offline behaviour. Those most likely to feel harmed by receiving such messages include girls, younger children, and those who face psychological difficulties. Livingstone and Görzig (2014) conclude that the incidence of risk is small, and the incidence of harm is even smaller. In doing so, they cite Ringrose, Gill, Livingstone, and Harvey (2012) who argue it is important to distinguish between what is coercive and what is voluntary, between what is sexting and what is bullying, and that interventions need to be discussed in health and physical education classes. In addition to fears about cyber bullying and sexting, parents’ concerns include a child meeting strangers online, or “stranger danger.” Certain software companies are quite happy to suggest that parents protect their children through parental surveillance software, or “censorware,” as Nolan, Raynes-Goldie, and McBride (2011) point out in their review of surveillance, autonomy, and privacy in children’s use of social media. Indeed, they note that surveillance is presented as a moral imperative; it’s what “good” parents do. They recommend that rather than restricting, surveilling, and controlling the online activities of young children (ages 5–11), which research finds curtails children’s autonomy and independence, parents take on the role of nurturing individual autonomy through “parental mentoring and critically reflective software and social technology use” (p. 24). Time spent online or using technology is not all cyber bullying, sexting, and stranger danger. A report by the Pew Center in the United States, released in August 2015, found that the teens (ages 13–17) in their quantitative study use the online world as a way of spending time with friends when they cannot physically be with them, and for expanding their friendship networks. Interestingly, the study’s authors suggest that NEL

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perhaps helicopter parents may be contributing to the time teens spend online, as youth are on a tighter leash today than in the past (Lenhart, Smith, Anderson, Duggan, & Perrin, 2015).

Parenting—You’re Doing It Wrong Another popular script regarding contemporary parents is the idea that parents are too indulgent; this is reminiscent of the permissive style as identified by Baumrind. This take on contemporary parents was espoused by the Prime Minister of Britain in early 2016 and by Canada’s Maclean’s magazine (Gulli, 2016), both of whom told parents to take responsibility for their out-of-control children. (See “Pathologized Parents” in A Closer Look.) So, is it too much helicoptering or too much indulgence that is the problem with parents today? Geinger, Vandenbroeck, and Roets (2014) point to what they call the “parenting turn,” the idea that parenting is the solution to social problems and must be regulated and corrected, as opposed to strengthening the social welfare state.

Parenting Pioneers Parenting Gender Nonconforming Children Parents who choose to honour their child’s choices regarding gender nonconformity can be considered parenting pioneers, in part, because they consciously resist the heteronormative assumption of gender socialization, discussed above, in their creation of parenting practices. As Rahilly (2015) notes, “[o]nly recently has the prospect of raising children as categorically ‘gender-variant’ or ‘transgender’ surfaced on the cultural landscape … This visibility is due in no small part to the parents who raise these children and reject traditional reparative interventions” (p. 339). Rahilly (2015) carried out in-depth interviews with 24 parents of 16 gender-variant or gender nonconforming children. Through her qualitative analysis of the data, she identifies a variety of practices parents use to support their children’s gender nonconformity,

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A CLOSER LOOK Pathologized Parents Parents are continuously under scrutiny for how they parent, or don’t parent, or supposedly parent, but some parents find their relationships with their children particularly pathologized. For example, while parenting a child on the autism spectrum (AS) is challenging given the lack of support, understanding, resources, and so forth, it is important not to merely view this relationship through a deficit lens, assuming that the mother–child relationship is negative. Charles and I conducted feminist-informed qualitative research with mothers with a child on the autism spectrum (Charles & Berman, 2009). We found that mothers experience the mother–child relationship as positive and one that develops as a result of the mothers’ self-reflection and growth. The mothers attribute this self-evolution to the influence of their children, which, in turn, affects their mothering practices and strengthens connections to their children, who continue

including “gender hedging,” “gender literacy,” and “playing along.” She describes “gender hedging” as creative efforts at allowing small concessions and gives the example of buying a son who identifies as a girl pink socks but not a dress. “Gender literacy” involves parents dialoguing with their child about how to talk about who they are with their peers and others, warning them about prejudice and harassment, or providing information about sex reassignment surgery. It also involves these parents engaging in an intensive parenting script as Rahilly (2015) points out. White, middle-class, well-educated parents in her sample worked with teachers and administrators to coordinate gender-inclusiveness training. The practice of “playing along” involves navigating when not to correct a stranger’s misperceptions, which is often at their child’s request, versus determining when revealing or educating someone about their child’s nonconforming identity is prudent. In the not-too-distant past, had they sought advice from a doctor, their child may have been referred to a psychiatrist, diagnosed with “gender identity disorder,” and subjected to psychiatric treatment. While the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), which is used by psychiatrists in many countries to make diagnoses, dropped the term gender identity disorder in 2013 and replaced it with the 192

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to influence them. Their positive relationship is a process of continuous bi-directionality. Some parents find that it is not the way they parent or their relationship with their child that is the issue; the “problem” is simply who they are. Our research team held a focus group with 10 young parents, 9 mothers, and 1 father currently in their early 20s (Berman, Silver, & Wilson, 2007). We wanted to hear about their experiences in a parenting program geared for young parents. While we heard about the program, we also heard about their frustration at being labelled social problems because of their age or their perceived age. One participant said, “Yeah, people ask me all the time ‘How come you’re a baby having a baby?’” Most of the parents in the group had encountered acts of open hostility (outside the program) from strangers and healthcare workers. (See also the section “LGBTQ Parents” in this chapter.)

term gender dysphoria (the key difference being that a person must be distressed with their cross-gender identification to be considered living with a disorder), the American Psychiatric Association still argues that children, unlike adolescents and adults, may outgrow gender dysphoria. Thus, while they are no longer pathologized in the same way as they would have been as recently as 2012, gender nonconforming children are still not taken seriously by the DSM-5. The parents in Rahilly’s (2015) study are taking their children’s gender nonconformity seriously and are doing so in response to their child. Rahilly (2015) explains what could be seen as the relational, or bi-directional, practices that take place within these families: [P]arents’ responses are largely child-driven. Rather than parents practicing gender progressive politics from the outset, these parents come to a new gender consciousness by virtue of their children’s assertions, as they are expressed in the daily unfolding of family life. In this way, parents and children alike are co-constituents in the pushand-pull of a normative gender order. (p. 357) These parents, alongside their gender nonconforming children, are carving out new ways of caring for children.

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LGBTQ Parents With regard to LGBTQ (Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual Trans Queer) parents, as Epstein (2012) points out, queer parenting is not a new phenomenon. What is fairly new is that queer and trans people are choosing to parent in the context of queer and trans identities. Parenting as an openly queer parent is not without risks. LGBTQ parents are often pathologized and the well-being of children raised in their families questioned (Epstein, 2005). However, in a groundbreaking review published in 2001, Stacey and Biblarz reported that, compared to children of heterosexual parents, children of lesbian and gay parents show higher self-esteem, better mental health, better communication with parents, more empathy toward social diversity, and less traditional gender stereotyping. There is little research, however, on the children of trans parents. Studies that do exist have found that children’s adjustment is not so much affected by the transition but by parental conflict and the age of the child (Pyne, Bauer, & Bradley, 2015). There is even less research on trans parents. A recent quantitative study in Ontario, where 24.1 percent of trans people are parents, found that trans parents face transphobia and multiple stressors, including physical and emotional abuse, having their family hurt or embarrassed, and having child custody removed or limited because they are trans (Pyne et al., 2015). Although a struggle for the recognition of LGBTQ families and relationships occurs, Epstein explains that “rather than aiming to win acceptance

by the dominant culture, we aim to change the self-understanding of that culture to broaden the range of sexualities and family forms that are recognizable and legitimate” (Warner, as cited in Epstein, 2005, p. 12). In other words, such families seek to be pioneers.

LGBTQ Youth and Straight Parents What about queer youth who come out to straight parents? Parenting of LGBTQ youth is not a new phenomenon (consider, for example, that PFLAG, formerly known as Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, was founded in the United States in 1972). What is new is that more is known about adolescents coming out to parents. Some studies have found that parents may initially experience negative emotions, including pain and anger and fear that their child will suffer from prejudice. In some families, an already difficult relationship is made worse, but in others, the relationship has been strengthened. A 2015 quantitative study in Québec employed the parent–child unit and found youth with supportive parents more likely to be confident in disclosing their sexual orientation and less likely to develop suicidal thoughts. If parents expressed difficulty with their child’s sexual orientation, however, the more the youth expressed negative attitudes toward gay, lesbian, and bi people, which the authors suggest may have repercussions for their psychological adjustment and identity (D’Amico, Julien, Tremblay, & Chartrand, 2015).

CHAPTER SUMMARY The objectives of this chapter were to explore parenting, involving caring for and about children, in the 21st century in view of what has changed or stayed the same. This chapter identified the perspectives sociologists use to explore raising children, socialization and relational, or bi-directional, approaches among them. It explored ethnic-racial, gender, and social class socialization, as well as intensive mothering, helicopter parenting, and “new” fathers. Some contemporary parenting challenges related to the use children and youth make of technology were examined. More specifically, cyber bullying, sexting, and surveillance were considered. Finally, the chapter explored ways that parents are pathologized and also discussed parenting pioneers, that is, parents innovating in the practice of parenting; these include parents of gender nonconforming children, LGBTQ parents, and parents of LGBTQ youth. NEL

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. Did you (or do you) help care for younger siblings, or do you know someone who has? If so, what impact do you think the experience has had on your life or the lives of other carers? 2. Can you think of ways your parent(s) socialized you with regard to gender? Would you change anything they did? Would you change some things? Why or why not? 3. Do you consider your parent(s) to be helicopter parents? Has this helped you? Has it hindered you? Explain. 4. Reflect on ways you have engaged in bi-directional socialization with your parents. In other words, how did you participate in your own socialization?

APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. Compare racial socialization in black families and white families as discussed in the chapter. Does this relate to your experiences growing up? If so, how? If not, why not? 2. Compare “concerted cultivation” to “the accomplishment of natural growth.” 3. What are the parenting practices Rahilly (2015) describes in her discussion of genderfluid parenting? How do these differ from anticipatory gender socialization practices?

FURTHER RESOURCES Father Involvement in Canada: Diversity, Renewal and Transformation, edited by Jessica Ball and Kerry Daly (Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press). This 2012 collection explores contemporary fathering in Canada and how fathering has changed over time. “Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids,” CBC’s Doc Zone. www.cbc.ca/doczone/episodes/hyper -parents-and-coddled-kids. This Canadian documentary film about the cultural pressures to “over-parent” explores what this kind of parenting looks like and what possible impact this parenting approach might have on these children as they move into adulthood. “The Sextortion of Amanda Todd,” the fifth estate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v5 uQRnSIa-qQM. This episode of the Canadian investigative TV program focuses on the B.C. teenager who was cyber-bullied and sexually extorted, and who took her own life at age 15. “Raising a Child Gender Neutral,” by Jayne Poisson in the Toronto Star. www.thestar.com/ life/parent/2013/11/15/remember_storm_we_check_in_on_the_baby_being_raised_genderneutral.html. Canadian parents raising their child as “gender neutral” and the reactions that have ensued are explored in this newspaper article.

KEY TERMS anticipatory socialization: engaging in gender socialization before children are born (p. 186) authoritarian style: a parenting style in Baumrind’s approach that emphasizes control and obedience, and little warmth— high in demandingness, low in responsiveness (p. 189) authoritative style: a parenting style in Baumrind’s approach that involves a blending of respect for the child’s individuality with an effort to instill social values in a context of warmth— high in demandingness, high in responsiveness (p. 189) 194

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behaviourist theory: a theory that focuses on the impact of certain stimuli in the environment on observable behaviour, in other words, the belief that a child’s behaviour can be shaped by rewards and punishments (p. 184) boomerang kids: adult children who leave the parental home and then return for a variety of reasons (p. 190) culture: that which makes up our habits and routines, and guides our actions (p. 187)

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cyber bullying: (usually) involves peer-against-peer activities where school peers are singled out for ridicule and harassment though blogs, chat rooms, and so forth (p. 190) cyber socialization: the ways parents socialize, or are supposed to socialize, their children to be safe and to behave ethically online (p. 189) demandingness: meaning control; one of two dimensions along which Baumrind’s parenting styles can be classified (See, also, responsiveness.) (p. 189) deterministic model: how the environment in which we live shapes who we are (p. 184) direct reinforcement: communicating directly that certain behaviours are “good,” leading to such behaviours being repeated, or “bad” as a way to prevent such behaviours from recurring: an aspect of social learning theory (p. 184) ethnic socialization, ethnic-racial socialization or racial socialization: parents in minoritized families communicating to children about the family’s ethnicity and/or race; may include promoting cultural pride, cultural knowledge, cultural traditions, and teaching about racism (p. 185) gender socialization: the process whereby an individual acquires a gender identity and gendered ways of acting, thinking, and feeling (p. 186) helicopter parenting: a parenting approach that involves hovering over and running children’s lives; usually used in connection with the intensive parenting of young adult children (p. 183) heteronormativity: the processes and practices through which heterosexuality is normalized and maintains an exclusive hold on what is regarded to be “natural” sexuality (p. 186) intensive mothering: (mostly middle-class) mothers who spend a great deal of time, energy, and money in raising their children (See, also, intensive parenting.) (p. 187) intensive parenting: a cultural script that dictates parents are wholly responsible for their children’s outcomes (See, also, intensive mothering.) (p. 187) modelling: an aspect of social learning theory whereby parents are said to indirectly communicate what behaviour is expected through modelling, no matter what is said directly. Two types of modelling are said to take place: (1) direct imitation occurs immediately; (2) observational learning involves observing behaviour that may not be acted upon until a much later time. (p. 185) neglectful or uninvolved style: a parenting style based on Baumrind’s approach to describe parents who focus on

their own needs rather than the needs of the child; parenting takes place in a context of hostility—low in demandingness, low in responsiveness. (p. 189) “new” fathers: today’s fathers who are expected to be more hands-on than fathers in the past, especially with their young children, by changing diapers, feeding, and so forth (p. 188) parenting culture: everyday decisions of parenting that are shaped by dominant cultural scripts about parenting that guide what seems right, natural, or appropriate (p. 187) parenting pioneers: parents who are breaking new ground, for example, parenting as an openly queer parent or parenting a gender nonconforming child in a creative and supportive way (p. 191) permissive style: a parenting style in Baumrind’s approach that emphasizes self-expression and self-regulation in a context of warmth—low in demandingness, high in responsiveness (p. 189) queer: a term, that while originally derogatory, has been re-claimed (by much of) the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans communities or cultures and used proudly (p. 193) relational, or bi-directional, approach: socialization in the family as a two-way process, with the child as active agent; the focus is on the parent–child relationship, how it forms and changes over time. (p. 185) reproductive models: an approach to socialization where the focus is on the advantages that those with access to greater resources benefit from (p. 184) responsiveness: meaning warmth; one of two dimensions along which Baumrind’s parenting styles can be classified (See, also, demandingness.) (p. 189) sexting: peer-to-peer exchange of sexual messages using digital technologies (p. 191) social class: a group that shares a common social status based on factors such as wealth, income, education, and occupation (p. 186) socialization: the lifelong process of acquiring the physical and social skills needed to become a social being and a capable member of adult society (p. 184) Social learning theory: Albert Bandura’s theory that builds on behaviourist theory (See direct reinforcement and modelling.) (p. 185) trans: a term for a person whose gender identity does not match society’s expectations of someone with their physical sex characteristics; the terms gender nonconforming and gender-variant are also used. (p. 193)

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Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble and the subversion of identity. New York, NY: Routledge. Calarco, J. M. (2011). “I need help!” Social class and children’s help-seeking in elementary school. American Sociological Review, 76, 862–882. doi: 10.1177/0003122411427177 Calarco, J. M. (2014). Coached for the classroom: Parents’ cultural transmission and children’s reproduction of educational inequalities. American Sociological Review, 79(5), 1015–1037. Calliste, A. (1996). Black families in Canada: Exploring the interconnections between race, class and gender. In M. Lynn (Ed.), Voices: Essays on Canadian families (pp. 244–269). Toronto, ON: Thomson Nelson. Charles, N., & Berman, R. (2009). Positive constructions of the mother–child relationship: Listening to mothers with children with ASD. Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering, 11(1), 180–198. Chua, A. (2011). Battle hymn of the tiger mother. New York, NY: Penguin Books. Cole, D. (2015, May). The skin I’m in. Toronto Life, pp. 39–45. Corsaro, W. A. (2015). The sociology of childhood (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Daly, K. (2004). The changing culture of parenting (Contemporary Family Trends). Ottawa, ON: Vanier Institute of the Family. Daly, K. (2013). Prolonged parenting: Extending the limits of active parenting. Transition, 43(2), 5–9. D’Amico, E., Julien, D., Tremblay, N., & Chartrand, E. (2015). Gay, lesbian, and bisexual youths coming out to their parents: Parental reactions and youths’ outcomes. Journal of GLBT Family Studies, 11, 411–437. Doucet, A. (2006). Do men mother? Fathering, care and domestic responsibilities. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Duffy, A., Corman, J., & Pupo, N. (2015). Family finances: Fragility, class, and gender. Canadian Review of Sociology, 52(2), 222–231. Epstein, R. (2005). Queer parenting in the new millennium-resisting normal. Canadian Woman Studies, 24(2 & 3), 7–14. Epstein, R. (2012). Queer parenting in Canada: Looking backward, looking forward. In M. FitzGerald & S. Rayter (Eds.), Queerly Canadian: An introductory reader in sexuality studies (pp. 367–385). Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars’ Press. Faircloth, C. (2014). Intensive parenting and the expansion of parenting. In E. Lee, J. Bristow, C. Faircloth, & J. Macvarish (Eds.), Parenting culture studies (pp. 25–50). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Fingerman, K. L., Cheng, Y., Wesselmann, E., Zarit, S., Furstenberg, F., & Birditt, K. S. (2012). Helicopter parents and landing pad kids: Intense parental support of grown children. Journal of Marriage and Family, 74(4), 880–896. Fox, B. (2006). Motherhood as a class act: The many ways in which “intensive mothering” is entangled with social class. In K. Bezanson & M. Luxton (Eds.), Social reproduction: Feminist political economy challenges neo-liberalism (pp. 231–262). Montréal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Fox, B. (2015). Feminism on family sociology: Interpreting trends in family life. Canadian Review of Sociology, 52(2), 204–211. Geinger, F., Vandenbroeck, M., & Roets, G. (2014). Parenting as a performance: Parents as consumers and (de)constructors of mythic parenting and childhood ideals. Childhood, 21(4), 488–501. Gulli, C. (2016, January 7). The collapse of parenting: Why it’s time for parents to grow up. Maclean’s. Retrieved from http://www.macleans.ca/society/the-collapse-of-parenting -why-its-time-for-parents-to-grow-up Gunaratnam, Y. (2003). Researching race and ethnicity. London, UK: Sage. 196

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Handel, G., Cahill, S. E., & Elkin, F. (2007). Children and society: The sociology of children and childhood socialization. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury. Hays, S. (1996). The cultural contradictions of motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hughes, D., Rodriguez, J., Smith, E. P., Johnson, D. J., Stevenson, H. C., & Spicer, P. (2006). Parents’ ethnic-racial socialization practices. Developmental Psychology, 42(5), 747–770. Kuczynski, L. (2003). Beyond bidirectionality: Bilateral conceptual frameworks for understanding dynamics in parent–child relationships. In L. Kuczynski (Ed.), Handbook of dynamics in parent– child relations (pp. 1–24). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Landy, S., & Tam, K. K. (1996). Yes, parenting does make a difference to the development of children in Canada. In Human Resources Development Canada and Statistics Canada, Growing up in Canada: National longitudinal survey of children and youth (pp. 103–118). Ottawa, ON: Author. Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: Class, race and family life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lee, E., Bristow, J., Faircloth, C., & Macvarish, J. (2014). Parenting culture studies. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Lee, J., & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2011). Immigrant girls as caregivers to younger siblings: A transnational feminist analysis. Gender and Education, 23(2), 105–119. LeMoyne, T., & Buchanan, T. (2011). Does “hovering” matter? Helicopter parenting and its effect on well-being. Sociological Spectrum, 31(4), 399–417. Lenhart, A., Smith, A., Anderson, M., Duggan, M., & Perrin, A. (2015, August). Teens, technology and friendships. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www. pewinternet.org/2015/08/06/teens-technology-and-friendships Livingstone, S., & Görzig, A. (2014). When adolescents receive sexual messages on the Internet: Explaining experiences of risk and harm. Computers in Human Behavior, 33, 8–15. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2013.12.021* Maccoby, E. E., & Martin, J. A. (1983). Socialization in the context of the family: Parent–child interaction. In P. H. Mussen & E. M. Hetherington (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 4. Socialization, personality, and social development (4th ed.). New York, NY: Wiley. Milkie, M. A., Nomaguchi, K. M., & Denny, K. E. (2015). Does the amount of time mothers spend with children or adolescents matter? Journal of Marriage and the Family, 77, 355–372. doi: 10.1111/jomf.12170 Nelson, A. (2010). Gender in Canada (4th ed.). Toronto, ON: Pearson Education. Nelson, L. J., Padilla-Walker, L. M., & Nielson, M. G. (2015, March 17). Is hovering smothering or loving? An examination of parental warmth as a moderator of relations between helicopter parenting and emerging adults’ indices of adjustment. Emerging Adulthood, 3, 282–285. doi: 10.1177/2167696815576458 Nolan, J., Raynes-Goldie, K., & McBride, M. (2011). The stranger danger: Exploring surveillance, autonomy, and privacy in children’s use of social media. Canadian Children Journal, 36(2), 24–32. O'Reilly, A. (2006). Rocking the cradle: Thoughts on motherhood, feminism and the possibility of empowered mothering. Toronto, ON: Demeter Press. Parsons, T. (1951). The social system. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Pyne, J., Bauer, G., & Bradley, K. (2015). Transphobia and other stressors impacting trans parents. Journal of GLBT Family Studies, 11, 107–126. doi: 10.1080/1550428X.2014.941127 Rahilly, E. P. (2015). The gender binary meets the gender-variant child: Parents’ negotiations with childhood gender variance. Gender & Society, 29(3), 338–361. Ranson, G. (2010). “Bringing up” and “growing up”: Parents, children and family life. In D. Cheal (Ed.), Canadian families today: New perspectives (2nd ed., pp. 47–64). Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press. NEL

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Ringrose, J., Gill, R., Livingstone, S., & Harvey, L. (2012). A qualitative study of children, young people and “sexting”: A report prepared for the NSPCC. London, UK: National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Rollins, A., & Hunter, A. G. (2013). Racial socialization of biracial youth: Maternal messages and approaches to address discrimination. Family Relations, 62(1), 140–153. Sevón, E. (2015). Who’s got the power? Young children’s power and agency in the child–parent relationship. International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies, 6(4.1), 622–645. Shariff, S. (2008). Cyber-bullying: Issues and solutions for the school, the classroom, and the home. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Shariff, S., & Churchill, A. (2010). Appreciating complexity: Detangling the web of stakeholder influence and responsibility. In S. Shariff & A. H. Churchill (Eds.), Truths and myths of cyberbullying: International perspectives on stakeholder responsibility and children’s safety (pp. 1–26). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Stacey, J., & Biblarz, T. J. (2001). (How) does the sexual orientation of parents matter? American Sociological Review, 66(2), 159–183. Wall, G. (2010). Mothers’ experiences with intensive parenting and brain development discourse. Women’s Studies International Forum, 33(3), 253–263. Wall, G., & Arnold, S. (2007). How involved is involved fathering? Gender & Society, 21(4), 508–527. Williams-Washington, K. N., Melon, J., & Blau, G. M. (2008). Childhood growth and development within a family context. In T. P. Gullotta & G. M. Blau (Eds.), Family influences on childhood behavior and development (pp. 21–38). New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

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CHAPTER 13

Nancy Mandell and Vivian Stamatopoulos

“I think about what my life is going to be like as a senior for myself and for my husband and sisters. I mean, who is going to care for us? I get concerned that the current political climate around healthcare issues because we know that healthcare

monkeybusinessimages/Thinkstock ©©Ken Burns/iStockphoto.com

Caregiving and Support for Older Adults

dollars are stretched beyond what they have ever been in the past. You worry about the quality of care that you will have as a senior. I worry about being able to provide quality care for my own mom, who is now 86. (Even though she is) in

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good health, she is elderly.” (South Asian female, age 62) (Interview excerpt from Mandell et al., 2015)

After you have read this chapter, you will be able to: • recognize the diverse care

Half a century ago, old age was mythologized as the “golden years.” Today, in sharp contrast, aging provokes uneasiness. Vexing questions nag Canadians. Who will care for older Canadians? And, in turn, what caregiving will older persons be expected to provide in their families and to others? In this chapter, we examine informal and formal caregiving for older persons as a reciprocal, interdependent, nuanced, and complex phenomenon. Paying special attention to the diversity of older Canadians in terms of gender, ethno-racial, and economic categories allows us to distinguish among different types of care and support available and required. We stress that changing family structures, combined with an aging population, have led to new and diverse family structures characterized by increased intergenerational interdependence, transnational caregiving, and flexibility in the delivery of care and support for older adults.

needs of older Canadians • understand how gender, race, and age shape caregiving and receiving • analyze the gaps in care provision • understand strategies that families use to provide care • generate discussion of new ways to provide care and support

Families in Later Life The global rise of the aging population has emerged from the convergence of four demographic trends: longevity, fertility, gender, and life course. People are living longer, birth rates are decreasing, more women than men are becoming old-old, and seniors increasingly find themselves in life stages for which no cultural scripts exist (Mandell, Wilson, & Duffy, 2008). NEL

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© Don Mason/Thinkstock

called upon to provide some level of care (Bengtson, Lowenstein, Putney, & Gans, 2003).

With greater longevity, the intimacy of caring relations can be satisfactory for many years for some couples.

These global trends have altered generational structures of caregiving and support in unprecedented ways. Improvements in life expectancy have resulted in joint survivorship. The shift from a high-mortality, high-fertility society to a low-mortality, low-fertility society means that never before have so many grandparents and great-grandparents coexisted (Bengtson, Rosenthal, & Burton, 1995). It is not unusual for three or even four generations to share a significant part of their lives together. Grandparents and great-grandparents have more opportunities to invest in their grandchildren’s lives (Villar, Celdrán, & Triadó, 2012). Multi-generational versus nuclear bonds are becoming more important ties for family well-being and support (Settles, 2014). The emergence of diverse types of families has given rise to complex family relationships. Families are now more frequently childless, smaller, and/or with divorced and remarried partners; they include stepchild-parents, unmarried cohabitators, and LATers (individuals “living apart together”) (see also Chapter 4). Older Canadians age into roles and situations for which few traditions guide their behaviour (Mandell et al., 2008). Finally, more complex and diverse families, coupled with greater longevity, results in more interaction and interdependence among generations (Lowenstein, Katz, & Biggs, 2011). Multiple forms of caregiving, for longer periods of time, result in different possibilities for more generations to both give and receive physical, emotional, and financial care. While adult daughters remain the default for family care, there are potentially more family members, new technologies, community organizations, and state-funded services that can be 200

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Theorizing Care Over the Life Course: Social Reproduction Care and support of older adults is what political economists call “social reproduction” (Bezanson & Luxton, 2006). Social reproduction refers to the processes involved in maintaining and reproducing people, specifically, the labouring population and their labour power on a daily and generational basis (Bezanson & Luxton, 2006). It involves the provision of food, clothing, shelter, safety, and healthcare, along with the development and transmission of knowledge, social values, and cultural practices and the construction of individual and collective identities (Bezanson & Luxton, 2006). It takes place in families and in and outside households (see Chapter 5) both episodically and over the long term. While social reproduction includes both the unpaid, informal work and the paid, formal work, by far the most common, yet still largely unrecognized, form of care and support for older adults remains unpaid and informal. Informal care can be defined as the mainly unpaid support and assistance provided to individuals based on an existing relationship (Armstrong & Kits, 2004). It can include any variety of tasks, ranging from more personal care tasks, such as bathing, dressing, and the administration of medicine, to more practical care tasks, including laundry, shopping, and transportation-based assistance. A 2012 study by the Health Council of Canada (2012) found that the economic cost to replace family caregivers of 45 years and older who provide care to those of 65 years or older with a long-term health condition, with paid workers at market rates would be a staggering figure: up to $27 billion (Stonebridge, Hermus, & Edenhoffer, 2015). Social reproduction theory offers a basis for understanding how various institutions (such as the state, the market, the family/household, and community agencies) intersect in providing the care and support that older adults require. Analyzing the social, economic, and cultural reproductive work within families and society involved in the care and support of older adults

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interrogates who devotes time to caregiving, who bears the financial cost, and what personal and collective sacrifices are made. Underlying all of these debates about social reproduction are ideological questions of how families and society ought to be organized to best meet older adults’ care needs, especially when elders can no longer provide for themselves. Is there a social responsibility to care for older individuals, or is it solely a private problem? Is care of older adults a set of tasks that all members of a household should participate in, or is it solely the responsibility of a few? For example, the state can underwrite many of the costs associated with providing care to the most frail older persons, or such care can be left to the private market to provide for a price or to the family to give as unpaid labour (Bezanson & Luxton, 2006). Contemporary social reproductive care work takes place within a political economic system and a set of ideologies described as neo-liberal. Neo-liberalism is defined as a modern, political-economic theory favouring free trade, privatization, minimal government regulation, lower taxes—especially for elites and corporations—and reduced public expenditure on social services (Braedley & Luxton, 2010) (see also Chapter 6). By prioritizing free markets, minimal government interference in business, and reduced commitment to providing health and social services, neo-liberal practices and policies enable predatory capitalism, a savage form of free-market finance capital, to concentrate wealth and decision making in the hands of small global elites while simultaneously intensifying income inequality (Broadbent Institute, 2014; Piketty, 2014). Neo-liberalism relies on an ideology of “family first” as central in deciding to what extent the state and its institutions ought to be involved in providing and managing the care and support of older adults. Familialism represents a privatized ideology of care that privileges individuals within families as those most suitable and responsible for caregiving. It also justifies the privatization of care work, including the shift of paid formal care in public institutions to informal care settings where “clients” are forced to rely on non-familial home-care workers or members of their immediate or extended family (Benoit & Hallgrimsdottir, 2011). As both process and rhetoric, the ideology of familialism individualizes social problems and their costs. For example, providing a tax credit to households who have to pay for disability or end-of-life care, praising corporations that provide time off for family NEL

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members who need to look after terminally ill relatives and friends, and enlarging state-funded opportunities for community groups to initiate programs for older persons all represent ways the state, and its attendant institutions, downloads responsibilities for the social reproduction of older adults to individuals and family units (Braedley & Luxton, 2010). Mapped onto a social reproduction analysis is the perspective of life course. A life course approach examines an individual’s life history and traces how early decisions and experiences shape later situations, giving particular attention to the connection between individuals and the historical socio-economic conditions in which they live (Bengtson & Allen, 2009). A life course perspective follows the trajectory of care work as it unfolds over the life course by paying attention to the intersections of gender, race, and economics as they unfold throughout the life course. Individual and family practices around care and support of older adults represent the intersection of social and historical factors and gendered, raced, and ethnic practices and traditions, as they play out in individual and collective biographies (Elder, 1985). When life course theory is combined with political economic analysis of the effects of social reproductive practices, the interplay of macroeconomic and micro-relational processes is revealed. Within a limited range of societal opportunities, individuals construct family and work paths that enable them to navigate structural barriers. Asking your mother to migrate as an elder to care for your children or prevailing upon grandchildren to take over the care of older adults represents an intergenerational response to demands placed on aging families. Life course theory allows us to see the many ways in which family lives are linked and interdependent.

Giving and Receiving Care A demographic tsunami is sweeping the country. In 2015, for the first time in Canadian history, we reached a population tipping point: the number of persons aged 65 years and older outnumbers children aged 0 to 14 years (Statistics Canada, 2015). Nearly one in six—that is, just under 6 million Canadians, is of age 65 years or older (Statistics Canada, 2017a). By 2024, nearly 20 percent of the population will consist of older Canadians.

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The massive shift in the age distribution of the population means that the bulk of older adults at the top are being cared for by a smaller number of young Canadians at the bottom and middle-aged Canadians in the middle. Picture a long, thin tree or a beanpole structure with fewer children and multiple generations of older adults. Within these structures, vertical relationships increase in significance as family members provide and exchange a wide variety of resources intergenerationally (Brannen, Moss, & Mooney, 2004).

Care by Older Adults Care provided to older persons is defined as providing for the needs or well-being of another person (Glenn, 2000, p. 86). It involves both the routine, day-to-day tasks of daily living (shopping, cooking, laundry, housekeeping, phone calls, visiting) and emotional support as well as the more intermittent tasks of arranging and monitoring outside paid home care or institutional care for frail older individuals, and maintaining older adults’ living accommodations. Older adults care for other older adults. Older men provide about 20 hours per month versus older women

(aged 65 and older) who provide about 33 hours per month of care for other older persons (Sinha, 2013). Since over 90 percent of Canadian older adults live in private households (Turcotte & Sawaya, 2015), the caregiving they give and receive takes place in their homes. In 2012, 78 percent of (4.2 million) caregivers of older Canadians provided care to an older person living in a private household; 62 percent (3.3 million) of these caregivers helped older individuals living in a private household separate from theirs, and the remaining 16 percent (881,300) helped an older adult living with them in the same household (Turcotte & Sawaya, 2015). Among Canadians aged 80 years and above, 39 percent of women and 46 percent of men are cared for entirely by friends and family (Sinha, 2014). Increasingly, innovative care strategies are emerging. Robots and other digital technologies are being introduced in care settings to augment the care being provided. (See “Robo-care” in In the Media.)

Gendered Care Care of older adults is gendered. All measures of care work identify women—young women, midlife women, and older women—as spending more

IN THE MEDIA Robo-Care Did you ever imagine having a robot to help care for older adults? Global aging has precipitated the development of robot-caregiver prototypes for numerous functions: to provide supportive companionship for older adults; to assist stressed caregivers with lifting patients; to remove bodily waste and eliminate the need for bedpans; and to reduce the high rates of neglect and abuse of older adults (Aronson, 2014, p. SR4). Japan has been using robotic caregiving devices for over a decade. Paro is the most popular Japanese robot because it looks like a baby seal and responds to human speech. In Toronto, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) has introduced robotic animal therapy for those with dementia and depression. In Canada, engineering professor Goldie Nejat and her team at the University of Toronto have built three robotic caregiving prototypes. Tangy is a bingo-playing robot who recently made its debut as part of a pilot study at a longterm care facility in Toronto. Brian functions as a robotic

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dinner companion for nursing home residents, and Casper is being designed for household use to aid older Canadians with simple repetitive tasks such as meal preparation and reminding older adults to eat and take their medicine. New technologies come with challenges. They are expensive. Toronto-based robots may cost as much as $10,000 when they are marketed in coming years. Robots are being designed primarily for nursing homes, where only a small proportion of older Canadians reside (Cuttler, 2015). Robotic interactions are not seen as providing meaningful relationships. Others find offloading human responsibilities and human relationships onto robots as unethical care for older adults, fearing an increase in feelings of objectification, infantilization, and loss of control. They wonder whether older Canadians will feel at ease or frightened of robots (Sharkey & Sharkey, 2012). Sources: Cuttler (2015); Falconer (2012); Sharkey & Sharkey (2012). Paraphrased from the sources.

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that sons tend to provide care only when daughters are not available, preferring to offer monetary assistance or supervision while women are more likely to support elders emotionally and physically.

Co-Residence

© Dominic Bracco Ii/The Washington Post/Getty Images Paro is one of the earliest robots to be used in dementia care.

time and providing more intense and obligatory amounts of caregiving throughout the life course than men. On average, women spend 35 years of their lives devoted to caring for children, siblings, friends, other relatives, grandchildren, and older people (Calasanti & Slevin, 2001). Even into old age, grandmothers provide more care to grandchildren than grandfathers do. Seventeen percent of women of all ages, as compared to 11 percent of men, report spending 20 or more hours each week on caregiving tasks. Tasks are gendered. Women tend to take on the “inside” hands-on personal care tasks such as household chores, shopping, basic hygiene, and cooking (Sinha, 2013). Men are more likely to provide home maintenance and financial management, thereby taking the “outdoor” tasks. Taken altogether, women continue to provide most in-home care to family members at every stage of the life course. Both men and women are increasingly likely to be “sandwiched”: providing care for both their children and older relatives. Sandwiched caregivers report higher absenteeism, stress, and burnout, are more likely to turn down promotions at work, experience a drop in productivity, and reduce the number of hours they work (Duxbury & Higgins, 2012). Older adults provide the bulk of care and support to other older adults. Typically, spousal caregivers spend 14 hour per week while caregivers of grandparents and friends spend the least amount of time at 2 hours per week (Sinha, 2013). When adult children are involved in caregiving, daughters are usually the main caregivers. When sons are involved, they tend to perform different types of care work than daughters. In their study of white Canadians, Chinese Canadians, and Hong Kong Chinese, Chappell and Funk (2012) found NEL

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About 4 percent of all Canadian households are multi-generational (Milan, Laflamme, & Wong, 2015). In 2016, just shy of 520,000 older adults shared a household with grandchildren (Statistics Canada, 2017b). For older adults, co-residence can be a way of dealing with spousal loss, declining health, or economic insecurity. Adult children may also promote co-living as a way to obtain practical domestic and childcare support and financial help, especially in economically insecure households (Albuquerque, 2011). In about 35 percent of co-resident households, grandparents are the primary financial providers (Milan & Hamm, 2003). Immigrant families have the highest rates of co-residence. Recent immigrants are twice as likely as the Canadian born to live in multi-generational families (Milan & Hamm, 2003). Recent older immigrants, especially women, often live with family members (Das Gupta & Man, 2014; Ng, Northcott, & McIrvin Abu-Laban, 2007). In 2011, 13 percent of immigrant women and 41 percent of recent immigrant women aged 65 and over lived with at least one relative, compared to only 4.6 percent of Canadian-born women (Hudon, 2015). Two studies have explored ethno-racial trends among immigrant families in Canada. Mujahid, Kim, and Man (2011) focused on Chinese immigrant families from mainland China and Hong Kong. Mandell et al. (2015) investigated what members of 12 different ethnic sub-groups from the following populations do: East Asian, South Asian, West Asian, Caribbean, South American, and European. Both studies found that older parents often reside with their children and grandchildren to accomplish intergenerational mutual support and have a buffer against income insecurity. (See “Economic Security for Later Life Canadians” in A Closer Look.) Despite familial interdependence, when assessing their living arrangements and relationships with extended family members, older adults often express ambivalence, or mixed feelings. On the one hand, they feel grateful for the attention, assistance, and

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A CLOSER LOOK Economic Security for Later Life Canadians The following describes a three-year SSHRC-funded project, carried out in collaboration with 12 ethno-racial community groups in the Greater Toronto Area, examining patterns of economic security among older Canadians. Our goal was to understand what structural, familial, and community factors limit economic security for older Canadians. We specifically asked about work and family experiences, caregiving activities, immigration patterns, and community involvement. Data gathering had three stages. First, we used Census data to map high, medium, and low economic security across Canada. We then undertook 13 focus groups with 111 immigrants from medium- and low-income groups. Finally, we did in-depth interviews with 31 older immigrants. Participants were recruited through established community groups and were organized by ethnicity and language. We found that migration shapes economic security in later years and that there were more differences within than between immigrant groups. Age at migration and duration of residence in Canada have an impact on life course experiences

sustenance they receive from all household members. On the other hand, they long for relationships they left behind (Man & Cohen, 2015). Often, co-resident older adults report feeling isolated and lonely, claiming that their grandchildren and adult children are “too busy” to spend much time with them (Mandell et al., 2015). Lai (2004) found that older Chinese immigrants feel that their disadvantaged socio-economic status often leaves them vulnerable to depression and abuse, citing a loss of parental prestige and authority because they are financially dependent on their adult children whose ideas of generational relations have been influenced by Western culture. Zhou’s (2012) older Chinese immigrants living in extended households described their identity in terms of what they are not: they are not masters (they cannot make decisions for the family), they are not guests (they do housework and child care), and they are not servants (they are not paid). When recent immigrants are compared to longterm immigrants, we see differences in forms of care and support. Older recent immigrants are just as likely as Canadian-born older adults to receive care, but they are more likely to be provided care 204

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in work and family. Those who migrate later in life have a more difficult time establishing economic security in their later years. Sponsored seniors are the most at risk of economic insecurity. Immigrant women and men experience aging differently because the interaction of gender and migration produces very different life courses, welfare rights, and spheres of participation. Discrimination and racism have a negative impact on the lives of many immigrants. Community groups play an essential role in advancing immigrant integration. Despite considerable challenges, immigrants remain resilient. Academic Researchers: Nancy Mandell, Valerie Preston, Ann Kim, and Meg Luxton Community Researchers: Human Endeavour, Bernard Betel Centre, York West Active Living Centre, Kababayan Multicultural Centre, The Lighthouse Centre, First Chinese Seniors Association of Vaughan, KCWA Family and Social Services, Vaughan African Canadian Association, Hong Fook Mental Health Association, Unison Health and Community Services, and Vietnamese Association of Toronto.

exclusively by informal sources like family than are Canadian-born and long-term immigrant older adults (McDonald, 2011). Among all groups, filial piety or obligation (children feeling responsible for the care of parents and grandparents) remains important. Keefe, Rosenthal, and Béland (2000) report that Southern European, Asian, and East Indian families were twice as likely as those of British origin to provide three hours or more a week of care to older family members. Gee (1999) found that older Chinese widows reported being less willing to live with an adult child while Kobayashi (2000) found that among second- and third-generation Japanese Canadian families, the value of filial obligation remained strong and positive.

Immigration Shapes Caring Immigration shapes care experiences for older adults, even decades after people have arrived in Canada (Canadian Centre for Elder Law, 2013). Gendered and racialized norms of reciprocity among generations and cultural traditions of filial piety play a significant role in the delivery of care and support to older adults.

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Sponsorship programs discourage recent immigrants from accessing formal health and social services offered by communities. Those who have entered under the family reunification system can find themselves financially dependent on their sponsors for 20 years, limiting recent and sponsored immigrants’ use of community resources and creating an additional care burden for their families (Man & Cohen, 2015; Stewart et al., 2006). The new Parent and Grandparent Super Visa requires that a sponsoring individual has a minimum annual income (e.g., a family of four needs a minimum of $45,000 per year) and makes a written statement that the visitor will be provided with financial support and have valid medical insurance coverage for one year. Clearly, the intent is to reduce the number of sponsored older persons from taking up permanent residency in Canada (Government of Canada, 2016).

Formal Care Support needs for older adults increase with age. At age 65 and over, about 18 percent of women and 14 percent of men receive informal assistance for domestic or personal activities due to a chronic health condition. By age 85, that number more than doubles. Older women and men need help with transportation for shopping and banking, and help with meal preparation and household tasks, including meal cleanup, house cleaning, laundry, and sewing (Milan & Vézina, 2011). For frail older adults, a decline in physical or cognitive functioning often triggers a need for paid care. Formal, or paid, care includes a wide range of living arrangements from live-in caregivers to residential homes that provide a range of services, such as nursing, housekeeping, laundry, exercise, and social programs. Most formal care is unaffordable for most Canadians (Armstrong et al., 2012). Given that the average income of an older woman is about $25,000 per year and $38,000 for an older man, there is little room in their budgets for paid care. Low income accounts, in part, for the alarming rise in the number of older adults with unmet home-care needs. About half a million aged and ailing Canadians reported unmet homecare needs in 2014 (Turcotte, 2014). Older adults living alone and older immigrants abandoned by their adult children find themselves isolated, often with worsening health and no one to care for them (Canadian Centre for Elder Law, 2013). NEL

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For those receiving formal care, early reports suggest underfunding affects quality and quantity of care received (Armstrong et al., 2012). Long-term care residents report high rates of depression, understaffing, some resident abuse, and high infection rates (Berta, Laporte, & Valdmanis, 2005; McGregor, 2006). Increased longevity means that more residents are sicker and older when admitted than incoming residents were a decade ago. Vulnerable individuals, such as members of visible minorities, recent immigrants, and refugees, face barriers when accessing formal care: these include language, cultural insensitivity, lack of time and transportation, and difficulty in locating or accessing free services due to limited networks (Canadian Centre for Elder Law, 2013; Hudon, 2015; MacAdam & Joshi, 2007; Stewart et al., 2006). Some do not speak English or French, may be financially dependent on their families, and may be reluctant to use services if family members are not present. Others do not know what services are available and need the help of family members to access services. When they do use formal services, they report that mainstream agencies fail to offer an inclusive environment. (See “LongTerm Ethno-specific Care” in Intersections.) Many do not qualify to receive Old Age Security pensions. Addressing underfunding and inaccessibility requires innovative initiatives, such as peer support, services in different languages, service information, and short- and long-term respite services for caregivers. Unless Canada moves to encourage broad intersectoral collaboration among community agencies, settlement services, academic organizations, and state funding, many vulnerable older Canadians will continue to have unmet care needs.

Transnational Caregiving Transnationality and globalization are interconnected: globalization precipitates transnational migration and transnationality contributes to globalization through reconfiguring families. Migrants are connected to both local and international networks, and Canadian-born of immigrant families connect with cross-cultural places and activities without ever leaving home (Treas, 2008). As longevity and migration increase, conceptualizations of care as an individual obligation are being replaced by ideas of care as shared across generations and locations (Phillipson, 2003). The movement of

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INTERSECTIONS LONG-TERM ETHNO-SPECIFIC CARE Long-term care provides ongoing and indefinite care for those unable to fully care for themselves. Nursing and medical care or social services, such as income-supported housing, recreation, and therapy programs, and meal and housekeeping services constitute long-term care, most of which is provided in seniors’ homes. Only about 9 percent of senior women and 5 percent of senior men live in collective or institutional settings, and most of these seniors are more than age 80 (Milan & Vézina, 2011). Living in an institution is an end-of-life option, mainly for frail elderly women who cannot care for themselves any longer. Canada is facing a rising demand for ethno-specific long-term care. In Ontario, older immigrants from Asia, Central America, South America, and Africa are less likely to use home-care services than the Canadian-born and older immigrants from the United States, Europe, and Australia (Maurier & Northcott, 2000). A growing demand exists for designated ethnic or religious longterm care facilities (e.g., Italian, Jewish, Greek, Chinese, Indigenous). With incredibly long wait times due to a shortage of beds, sometimes upward of 10 years, many ethnoculturally diverse elderly are forced to reside in “Western-style facilities,” where language barriers and unfamiliar cultural practices exacerbate their social exclusion (Kay, 2012). Ethno-specific providers need to incorporate translation services and interpreters; provide multilingual information materials; offer culturally appropriate programs and services, such as meals; train staff in culturally competent service delivery (Silversides, 2011); expand outreach strategies, such as faith groups and social clubs (Lum, 2009); and offer more ethno- or religious-specific facilities and programs.

older and younger people around the globe to provide intermittent or continuous amounts of child and elder care provides evidence of a “global care chain” (Hochschild, 2001) in which generational and network-based ties are sustained across different countries. The Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) is the most well-known of such Canadian policies in which mostly women are brought in as temporary foreign workers, often from the Philippines, to provide care in private households for children, elderly persons, or persons 206

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with disabilities. Sponsored seniors represent another example of intergenerational care and support. About 2 percent of all older Canadians have followed their adult children and moved to Canada. Whether permanently sponsored or arriving in Canada temporarily under the new Super Visa program, older migrant individuals provide much needed domestic and child care and play a critical role in promoting the success and survival of their extended families (Treas, 2008). Transnational family care ties exist for long-term older immigrants, as well. The majority of immigrants who have “aged in place” have spent 30 or 40 years as Canadian citizens before they reach old age (Turcotte & Schellenberg, 2007). Many maintain ties with their home countries by sending money, keeping in touch with relatives, sponsoring kin, and facilitating marriages for their children. Others are involved in various familial, social, economic, political, organizational, and religious relationships across national borders. New digital communication technologies—email, Skype, texting—enhance contact and communication among family members. In these ways, recent and long-term immigrants create hybrid households with more complicated but more generational resource exchanges (Torres, 2006).

Grandparent Caregiving and Receiving As Canadians live longer, more experience grandparenting and even great-grandparenting. For the first time in Canadian history, four-generation families are increasingly common (Harper & Ruicheva, 2010). In 2011, Canada had about 7 million grandparents, each with an average of 4.2 grandchildren (Milan et al., 2015). How much support grandparents provide varies from occasional or auxiliary help to full-time care of grandchildren (custodial grandparenting). Most grandparents live apart from their grandchildren. Some provide daily support such as delivering and picking them up from daycare and school, providing lunch or after-school care, and driving them to activities. This help has an economic benefit in that it reduces childcare expenses for parents. It also functions as a safety net, a resource needed when parents face work–family conflicts. Still other grandparents provide occasional care and support, offering weekend help, babysitting, and

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financial support. In some, more rare situations, during times of family crisis, parental divorce, and remarriage, and in single-parent families, grandparents assume an increased role, becoming “family safety nets,” monitoring family needs and providing help when required (Villar, Celdrán, & Triadó, 2012). While grandfathers seem to be increasingly important in caregiving, grandmothers are still identified as the central grandparent (Villar, Celdrán, & Triadó, 2012). Grandmothers are the kin keepers who maintain interpersonal and family ties (Villar, Celdrán, & Triadó, 2012). Both grandparents extend money, care, and emotional support to their adult children and grandchildren. Involvement from all grandparents decreases as grandchildren age, if grandparents live a long distance away, if grandparents are working full time, if grandparents are in ill health, and if the grandfather is married to someone who is not the biological grandmother (Danielsbacka & Tanskanen, 2012). There has been an increase in the number of skip-generation households, that is, grandparents living with their grandchildren in households where no parent is present. Between 1991 and 2001, the numbers of skip-generation families increased by 20 percent (Kier & Fung, 2014). By 2011, there were 72,700 custodial grandparents across Canada, the proportions of which were higher for those of an Indigenous (27%) or immigrant identity (22%) compared to the nonIndigenous population (11%) (Milan et al., 2015). According to Fuller-Thompson (2005), incarceration rates, chemical dependency, and child welfare placements account for most of the increase in custodial grandparents. Divorce or separation, mental health problems, teen pregnancy, child abuse or neglect, or death of an adult child also make it impossible for parents to care for their children (Milan & Hamm, 2003). Colonialism and racism have weakened Indigenous families (see also Chapters 7 and 11). The cumulative and ongoing effects of the state-structured Indigenous crisis of dependency have meant that grandparents have emerged as a vital force in preserving family and culture (Thompson, Cameron, & Fuller-Thomson, 2012). Social suffering, unresolved psychophysical harms of historical trauma, and cultural dislocation have severely limited opportunities of First Nations members for self-sufficient, healthy, and autonomous lives (Alfred, 2009). The joint social and material consequences of Canada’s century-long policy of forcible assimilation have led to diminished opportunities for NEL

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Indigenous populations to live well and thrive on their own terms. The relative proportion of Indigenous children in foster care has hovered between 30 and 40 percent of all children and youth placed in out-of-home care in Canada (Farris-Manning & Zandstra, 2003).

Young Carers Canadian children and youth represent an understudied group providing significant amounts of care to older persons. Young carers include all those children and youth under the age of 25 years who provide substantial and ongoing support to a family member for reasons such as parental absence, disability, mental health, and problems with alcohol or other drugs. An increasing number of these youth are providing care to grandparents who are suffering due to chronic illness or frailty. Given that most older Canadians do not reside in long-term care, are excluded from coverage by the Canada Health Act, and are often economically insecure, relying on children and youth to meet the growing demand for senior care has become a financial and practical necessity. Recent Canadian research reveals that more than 1.18 million youth aged 15 to 24 provided some level of unpaid familial caregiving in 2006—close to half a million (473,570) of these provided dedicated care to “seniors”—representing a 13.5 percent increase from 1996 (Stamatopoulos, 2015). Similar to the gendered nature of adult-based caregiving, 53 percent of all those young carers providing unpaid senior care were female, a gendered trend that remained constant as youth aged: 56 percent of 20- to 24-year-old females provided unpaid elder care (Stamatopoulos, 2015). Global research on young carers documents a range of personal and professional costs incurred by young carers, including lower levels of educational completion; higher rates of school absences; lower rates of employment participation (Cass, Smyth, Hill, Blaxland, & Hamilton, 2009); lowered self-esteem; victimization from bullying; depression and sleep difficulties (Dearden & Becker, 2002; Salter, 1999); and exhaustion and physical injury (Barber & Siskowski, 2008). Some countries have recognized children’s legal rights, which allow them access to educational, employment, and financial-based supports to help reduce financial, emotional, and physical risks they encounter in caregiving. In the United Kingdom—the founding nation and

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most advanced global model of young carer awareness and programming—over 350 programs service more than 30,000 young carers (Becker, 2007). While Canada has yet to implement government policies to support the needs of young carers, as their numbers grow, so, too, does the demand for state intervention. Additional research needs to be conducted on the impact of their caregiving on their short- and long-term activities.

Consequences of Caregiving Care work has both positive and negative consequences for care providers and recipients. On the one hand, caregiving provides intimacy, satisfaction, and affection between caregivers and receivers. Rather than seeing their caregiving as a burden, adult children and grandchildren report feeling indebted to and obliged to care for their parents and grandparents who have over the years devoted so much time and resources to them. They also feel appreciative and grateful to have an opportunity to reciprocate. They describe caregiving as giving meaning to their lives (Mandell et al., 2015). In a review of Canadian survey data, when asked to evaluate their experience of care provision, 92 percent of caregivers felt that providing care was a rewarding

2,609,200 1,564,008

experience and 70 percent said that their relationship with the care recipient had grown stronger over the previous 12 months (Sinha, 2013). On the other hand, care work is generally undervalued in society and can have negative consequences for providers. Care providers’ social lives are curtailed. Friendships decline as caregivers lack the time and energy needed to invest in maintaining social networks. Women are more likely than men to limit their social activities and holiday plans. Providing care and support is socially, physically, and emotionally draining. Providers experience overload and burnout, resulting in insomnia or broken sleep patterns as well as increased anxiousness, irritability, depression, and memory and concentration issues (Healthy Balance Research Program, 2004). Caregivers report lower levels of life satisfaction, feeling angry or irritable, unhappy, and alone or isolated because of their responsibilities (Turcotte, 2013). Given that between 70 and 80 percent of the care given in the community to older adults is provided by family and friends and that these demands will only increase as the population ages, workplaces will need to incorporate more flexible policies for mid-life and older caregivers. They need more flexible working

2,885,522

1,698,157

1,940,096 1,129,467

1,045,192

Spent less time with friends

1,187,365

810,629

Spent less time on Changed or social activities or cancelled holiday hobbies plans Total

Female

1,488,119 916,783 571,336 Did not to make holiday plans due to caregiving

Male

FIGURE 13.1  Caregiver Activity Limitations over the Past 24 Months by Sex, Canada, 2012 Source: Author created using Statistics Canada’s 2012 General Social Survey public use microdata file (individuals file) [Data file and code book]. Retrieved from http://researchguides.library.yorku.ca/ gssdata#cycle26

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During the past 12 months, have your caregiving responsibilities caused you to . . . experience disturbed sleep?

35.4

experience a loss of appetite?

12.4 21.4

feel depressed? feel resentful?

18.9

feel short-tempered or irritable?

36.7 34.9

feel overwhelmed? 19.6

feel lonely or isolated?

57.4

feel worried or anxious? feel tired?

52.7 20

0

40 Percentage

60

80

FIGURE 13.2  Consequences of Caregiving Cited by Canadians, 2012

hours, leaves of absence to provide acute care, and more options to complete work at home (Duxbury & Higgins, 2012). Governments provide tax credits and

exemptions for acute care provision but little recognition or financial support for ongoing, unremitting chronic care needs.

CHAPTER SUMMARY For both marginalized and middle-income older Canadians, two crises are looming: a crisis in providing and receiving care and support, and a financial crisis. The demand for care for older adults is expected to double by 2030. At the same time, older adults increasingly find themselves with fewer family members able to provide the care and support they require, unable to afford privatized care, and unable to access affordable public care services. Aware of the growing demand for care and support for older adults, both federal and provincial governments have shifted their emphasis away from enhancing collective, public, state provision of care to stressing an individualized and privatized model which highlights home care. This neo-liberal turn means that families, especially women, have been asked to pick up the work no longer provided by the state. Families who cannot afford to contract-out care tasks by hiring help or paying any form of assisted living (e.g., retirement residences, nursing homes) are under enormous pressure to provide the material support that the state refuses to provide (Bezanson & Luxton, 2006). In this chapter, using social reproduction theory, we examined caregiving for older persons as a reciprocal, interdependent, nuanced, and complex phenomenon by looking at how the diversity among older Canadians (in terms of gender, ethnocultural/racial, and economic categories) mediates the different types of care and support available and required. Our aging Canadian population, alongside changing family structures, has created added diversity, flexibility, and complexity in the processes of caregiving and care receiving. By examining such issues as expanded caregiver cohorts (e.g., young carers and custodial grandparents) and the challenges ushered in by an older immigrant population, this chapter highlights NEL

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emerging trends and issues for the support of older persons while also highlighting areas for future research and policy programming. Population change will revolutionize our ways of giving and receiving care and support for older adults. Innovative strategies for caregiving are demanded by such change. Already, older adults are drawing on wider social and community networks for support, especially as their adult children remain in the workforce. Increasingly, digital technologies, such as robots and care apps for providing routine and emergency care, are being used by members of all generations. Private and public institutions are developing innovative forms of communal and community housing for older adults. Financial institutions, community agencies, and entrepreneurs are implementing creative social and financial programs to meet the care needs of an aging society. Aging societies offer a wide range of opportunities for innovation and creativity. As a society, we need to embrace these challenges.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. Who provides elder care in Canada? 2. What are some of the issues to consider regarding ethnocultural long-term care? 3. What are some of the consequences of caregiving?

APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. In what ways do gender, income, and ethnocultural diversity affect caregiving and care receiving? 2. Compare and contrast the long-term care experiences of ethnoculturally diverse versus Canadian-born older persons. 3. What role does the government have in reducing the burden of care experienced by family members? For example, what impacts would the public financing of long-term care (as part of the universal coverage that currently applies to physician and hospital services) have in the level of unpaid care provided by family members?

FURTHER RESOURCES National Seniors Council. www.seniorscouncil.gc.ca/eng/home.shtml. Established to advise the government of Canada on all matters related to the well-being and quality of life of seniors, this website provides up-to-date information and publications on Canada’s aging population. “Lucky,” The Young Carer Rap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v59pJGAQ69T3o. A video of Tricky P, a hip hop artist and caregiver, was produced in 2012 by Elder Caring and the Vanier Institute of the Family to highlight the challenges facing young carers. Government of Canada, Information for Seniors. www.seniors.gc.ca/eng/sb/ie/index. shtml. This website provides national, regional, and provincial information on a range of issues of interest for seniors, including financial, social, and community resources. Parliament of Canada, PDAM: Special Joint Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying. www.parl.gc.ca/Committees/en/PDAM. The special committee was created to make consultations and recommendations on the framework for a federal response to physician-assisted dying.

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KEY TERMS ambivalence: holding contradictory feelings (p. 203) co-residence: different generations of kin living together (p. 203) familialism: privatized ideology of care that privileges individuals within families as those most suitable and responsible for caregiving (p. 201) formal, or paid, care: a range of care public (e.g., state, government) and private (e.g., assisted living) services purchased (p. 205) informal care: unpaid support and assistance provided to someone with whom the carer has an existing relationship (p. 200)

social reproduction: the processes involved in maintaining and reproducing people, specifically, the labouring population and their labour power on a daily and generational basis (p. 200) young carers: children and youth under the age of 25 years who provide substantial and ongoing care support to a family member due to factors such as familial or parental absence, disability, mental health, and drug or alcohol use (p. 207)

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Bezanson, K., & Luxton, M. (2006). Social reproduction and feminist political economy. In K. Bezanson & M. Luxton (Eds.), Social reproduction: Feminist political economy challenges neoliberalism (pp. 3–10). Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Braedley, S., & Luxton, M. (2010). Neoliberalism and everyday life. Kingston and Montréal: McGillQueen’s University Press. Brannen, J., Moss, P., & Mooney, A. (2004). Working and caring over the twentieth century: Change and continuity in four-generation families. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Broadbent Institute. (2014). Haves and have nots: Deep and persistent wealth inequality in Canada. Ottawa, ON: Author. Calasanti, T. M., & Slevin, K. F. (2001). Gender, social inequalities and aging. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press. Canadian Centre for Elder Law. (2013). Older women’s dialogue project: Phase one: Consultation and report. Vancouver, BC: CCEL. Retrieved from http://www.bcli.org/project/older-womens-dialogue-project Cass, B., Smyth, C., Hill, T., Blaxland, M., & Hamilton, M. (2009). Young carers in Australia: Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of their care-giving (Social Policy Research Paper No. 38). Canberra, Australia: Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Chappell, N., & Funk, L. (2012). Filial responsibility: Does it matter for care-giving behaviours? Ageing & Society, 32(7), 1128–1146. Cuttler, M. (2015, January 21). Robot caregivers aim to improve seniors’ quality of life. CBC News. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/robot-caregivers-aimto-improve-seniors-quality-of-life-1.2921377 Danielsbacka, M., & Tanskanen, A. O. (2012). Adolescent grandchildren’s perceptions of grandparents’ involvement in UK: An interpretation from life course and evolutionary theory perspective. European Journal of Ageing, 9(4), 329–341. Das Gupta, T., & Man, G. (2014). Class borders: Chinese and South Asian Canadian professional women navigating the labor market. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 23(1), 55–83. Dearden, C., & Becker, S. (2002). Young carers and education. London, UK: Carers UK. Duxbury, L., & Higgins, C. (2012). Causes, consequences, and moderating factors of strain of caregiving among employed caregivers (2012 National Study on Balancing Work and Caregiving in Canada, Report 2). Ottawa, ON: Carleton University, Sprott School of Business. Elder, G. H., Jr., (1985). Life course dynamics: Trajectories and transitions, 1968–1980. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Falconer, J. (2012, October 1). ROBOHELPER robots promise relief for caregivers. New Atlas. Retrieved from http://www.gizmag.com/japanese-care-robots-nurses/24367 Farris-Manning, C., & Zandstra, M. (2003). Children in care in Canada: Summary of current issues and trends and recommendations for future research (Unpublished manuscript). Fuller-Thomson, E. (2005). Grandparents raising grandchildren in Canada: A profile of skipped generation families. (SEDAP Research Paper No. 132). Retrieved from McMaster University http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/sedap/p/sedap132.pdf Gee, E. M. (1999). Ethnic identity among foreign-born Chinese Canadian elders. Canadian Journal on Aging, 18(4), 415–429. Glenn, E. N. (2000). Creating a caring society. Contemporary Sociology, 29(1), 84–94. Government of Canada. (2016). Guide 5772: Application to sponsor parents and grandparents. Retrieved from http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/applications/guides/5772ETOC.asp Harper, S., & Ruicheva, I. (2010). Grandmothers as replacement parents and partners: The role of grandmotherhood in single parent families. Journal of Interpersonal Relationships, 8(3), 219–233.

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Health Council of Canada. (2012). Seniors in need, caregivers in distress: What are the home care priorities for seniors in Canada? (GC Catalogue No. H174–27/2012E-PDF). Toronto, ON: Author. Healthy Balance Research Program. (2004). Caregiver resilience and the quest for balance. Halifax, NS: Author. Hochschild, A. (2001). Global care chains and emotional surplus value. In A. Giddens & W. Hutton (Eds.), On the edge: Globalization and the new millennium (pp. 130–146). London, UK: Sage. Hudon, T. (2015). Immigrant women. Women in Canada: A gender-based statistical report (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 89–503-X). Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89– 503-x/2015001/article/14217-eng.pdf Kay, M. (2012, July 13). Toronto’s ethnic nursing homes have long waiting lists. Toronto Star. Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/life/fashion_style/2012/07/13/torontos_ethnic_ nursing_homes_have_long_waiting_lists.html Keefe, J., Rosenthal, C., & Béland, F. (2000). Impact of ethnicity on helping older relatives. Canadian Journal of Aging, 19(3), 317–342. Kier, C. A., & Fung, T. (2014). Adult outcomes of being raised by grandmothers: Can social networks play a role? Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, 12(2), 141–166. Kobayashi, K. M. (2000). The nature of support from adult sansei (third generation) children to older nisei (second generation) parents in Japanese Canadian families. Journal of Cross-cultural Gerontology, 15(3), 185–205. Lai, D. W. (2004). Health status of older Chinese in Canada: Findings from the SF-36 health survey. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 95(3), 193–197. Lowenstein, A., Katz, R., & Biggs, S. (2011). Rethinking theoretical and methodological issues in intergenerational family relations. Ageing & Society, 31(7), 1077–1083. Lum, J. (with Sladek, J., Spriner, J., Ying, A., & Clark, J.) (2009, July). Diversity: Ethnoracial issues in home and community care. [CRNCC] InFocus Fact Sheet (Canadian Research Network for Care in the Community, Toronto). MacAdam, M., & Joshi, A. (2007). Equitable access to health care for Ontario’s ethnocultural minority seniors (Draft report). Malenfant, É. C., Lebel, A., & Martel, L. (2010). Projections of the diversity of the Canadian population, 2006–2031 (Statistics Canada, Demography Division Catalogue No. 91-551-X). Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada. Man, G., & Cohen, R. (Eds.). (2015). Engendering transnational voices: Studies in family, work and identity. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Mandell, N., King, K., Preston, V., Weiser, N., Kim, A. H., & Luxton, M. (2015). Transnational family exchanges in senior Canadian immigrant families. In G. Man & R. Cohen (Eds.), Engendering transnational voices: Studies in family, work and identity (pp. 75–96). Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Mandell, N., Wilson, S., & Duffy, A. (2008). Connection, compromise, and control: Canadian women discuss midlife. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Maurier, W. L., & Northcott, H. C. (2000). Aging in Ontario: Diversity in the new millennium. Calgary, AB: Detselig Enterprises. McDonald, L. (2011). Theorising about ageing, family and immigration. Ageing & Society, 31(7), 1180–1201. McGregor, M. J. (2006). Care outcomes in long-term care facilities in British Columbia, Canada— Does ownership matter? Medical Care, 44(10), 929–935. Milan, A., & Hamm, B. (2003, Winter). Across the generations: Grandparents and grandchildren. Canadian Social Trends (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 11-008).

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Milan, A., Laflamme, N., & Wong, I. (2015). Diversity of grandparents living with their grandchildren. Insights on Canadian Society (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 75-006-X). Milan, A., & Vézina, M. (2011). Senior women (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 12-591-X). Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada. Mujahid, G., Kim, A. H., & Man, G. C. (2011). Transnational intergenerational support: Implications of aging in mainland China for the Chinese in Canada. In H. Cao & V. Poy (Eds.), The China challenge: Sino-Canadian relations in 21st century (pp. 200–221). Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. Ng, C. F., Northcott, H. C., & McIrvin Abu-Laban, S. (2007). Housing and living arrangements of South Asian immigrant seniors in Edmonton, Alberta. Canadian Journal on Aging, 26(3), 185–194. Phillipson, C. (2003). From family groups to personal communities: Social capital and social change in the family life of older adults. In V. L. Bengtson & A. Lowenstein (Eds.), Global aging and challenges to families (pp. 54–74). New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter. Piketty, T. (2014). Capitalism in the twenty-first century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Salter, J. (1999). The health needs of young carers: A pilot study. Wessex, UK: The Children’s Society. Settles, B. H. (2014). Global grandparents: New roles and relationships. In H. Selin (Ed.), Parenting across cultures (pp. 393–409). Netherlands: Springer. Sharkey, A., & Sharkey, N. (2012). Granny and the robots: Ethical issues in robot care for the elderly. Ethics and Information Technology, 14(1), 27–40. Silversides, A. (2011). Long term care in Canada: Status quo no option. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions. Sinha, M. (2013). Portrait of caregivers, 2012. Spotlight on Canadians: Results from the General Social Survey (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 89-652-X). Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada. Sinha, M. (2014). Canadians’ connections with family and friends. Spotlight on Canadians: Results from the General Social Survey (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 89-652-X). Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada. Stamatopoulos, V. (2015). One million and counting: The hidden army of young carers in Canada. Journal of Youth Studies, 18(6), 809–822. Statistics Canada. (2011). Portrait of families and living arrangements in Canada: Families, households and marital status, 2011 Census of population (Catalogue No. 98-312-X2011001). Ottawa, ON: Author. Statistics Canada. (2015, September 29). Canada’s population estimates: Age and sex, July 1, 2015. The Daily. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/150929/dq150929b-eng.htm Statistics Canada. (2017a). Census Profile, 2016 Census. Catalogue no. 98-316-X2016001. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page. cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=PR&Code1=01&Geo2=&Code2=&Data=Count&SearchText=Canada&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=All&TABID=1 Statistics Canada. (2017b). Family characteristics of children aged 0 to 14 including presence of grandparents in private households for the population by age group 0 to 14, 2016 counts, Canada, provinces and territories, 2016 Census—100% Data. Retrieved from http://www12. statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/hlt-fst/fam/Table.cfm?Lang=E&T=41&Geo=00 Stewart, M. J., Neufeld, A., Harrison, M. J., Spitzer, D., Hughes, K., & Makwarimba, E. (2006). Immigrant women family caregivers in Canada: Implications for policies and programmes in health and social sectors. Health and Social Care in the Community, 14(4), 329–340. Stonebridge, C., Hermus, G., & Edenhoffer, K. (2015). Future care for Canadians seniors: A status quo forecast. Ottawa, ON: Conference Board of Canada. Retrieved from http://www .conferenceboard.ca/e-library/abstract.aspx?did57374

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Thompson, G. E., Cameron, R. E., & Fuller-Thomson, E. (2012). Achieving balance on the red road: First Nations grandparents speak. Transition, 42(2), 3–5. Retrieved from http://www .vanierinstitute.ca/include/get.php?nodeid52231 Torres, S. (2006). Culture, migration, inequality and “periphery” in a globalized world: Challenges for ethno- and anthropo-gerontology. In J. Baars, D. Dannefer, C. Phillipson, & A. Walker (Eds.), Aging, globalization and inequality: The new critical gerontology (pp. 231–244). Amityville, NY: Baywood. Treas, J. (2008). Transnational older adults and their families. Family Relations, 57(4), 468–478. Turcotte, M. (2013). Family caregiving: What are the consequences? Insights on Canadian Society (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 75 006-X). Turcotte, M. (2014). Canadians with unmet home care needs. Insights on Canadian Society (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 75-006-X). Turcotte, M., & Sawaya, C. (2015). Senior care: Differences by type of housing. Insights on Canadian Society (Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 75-006-X). Turcotte, M., & Schellenberg, G. (2007). A portrait of seniors in Canada, 2006 (Statistics Canada, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Catalogue No. 89-519-XIE). Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada. Villar, F., Celdrán, M., & Triadó, C. (2012). Grandmothers offering regular auxiliary care for their grandchildren: An expression of generativity in later life? Journal of Women & Aging, 24(4), 292–312. Zhou, Y. R. (2012). Space, time and self: Rethinking aging in the contexts of immigration and transnationalism. Journal of Aging Studies, 26(3), 232–242.

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CHAPTER 14 Families Experiencing Dis/ability

Maryanne: Mark was born on May 10, 1983. The day after he was born, he was seen by a pediatrician. He said Mark was healthy, but somehow I felt something was wrong—mother’s intuition? I asked how he was mentally. That is when the doctor told me he suspected Mark may have Down syndrome. They would have to take a blood

©©Ken RobBurns/iStockphoto.com van Esch/Shutterstock

Deborah Davidson and Nazilla Khanlou

sample and it would take three weeks for the results. Mark was our first child. My pregnancy was a normal pregnancy and we expected a normal child. We were in shock.

L E AR NI NG O B J E C TI V E S

The first few days were extremely difficult for us. Not knowing for sure about his diagstaff completely ignored me and no one even spoke to me; it was a terrible feeling,

After you have read this chapter, you will be able to:

having a baby who likely had problems and no one to talk to or give us any information.

• recognize and explain key

nosis was bad enough, but I was not treated well in the hospital. The entire medical

We were glad to bring our newborn son home, but since we did not know if Mark

concepts related to the social

had Down syndrome for sure, we did not want to say anything to family or friends

construction of disability

until we got the test results. It was not easy to pretend that everything was fine. Once we found that Mark did have Down syndrome, we began to tell family and friends. They were all in disbelief as Mark truly was a beautiful baby and there

• use and relate the social model of disability to the

could not be anything wrong with him. We were relieved that others knew. We

life course perspective when

were very fortunate in that our family and friends accepted Mark from the start

thinking sociologically about

and always gave us much needed love and support.

disability

Tom: We did not initially know what to do, who to turn to, who to talk to, where

• formulate your own ideas of

to go, where to get information. We were alone. It was an embarrassing situation

how disability is experienced

for us. After five weeks or so, we looked up “retarded” and “mentally retarded”

by families from different

in the phone book, and saw a listing for “Mississauga Association for the Mentally

social locations using the

Retarded.” Maryanne made the phone call, and support descended upon us. We were told we fell through the cracks as no one referred us to this great resource and support. Shortly after we contacted the Early Infant Stimulation Department, an occupational therapist began coming to our home to work on strengthening

social model and life course perspective • reflect on and assess the

Mark’s muscle tone as well as developing his cognitive skills. This was very thera-

consequences of your own

peutic since finally there was something we could do to help our son.

behaviour as enabling or

Maryanne: The early years were easiest once we got through telling people about

disabling for families experi-

Mark and accepting it ourselves. He was not far behind babies of his age in his

encing disability

early years. As time went by, the gap grew. Source: Unpublished data from email interview. Tom and Maryanne have consented to the use of their real names in this chapter; Mark has also consented to the use of his real name.

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Understanding Disability as a Social Construction How, as Canadians, we think about and respond to disability illustrates this text’s focus on both continuity and innovation. Ideas about disability vary by time and place, and disability is defined differently, depending on its use in personal narratives, socio-political, medical-therapeutic, legal, educational, and academic thought, policy, or practice. In other words, disability is socially constructed. We can see this in how disability is varyingly understood historically (Davidson & LaMonica, 2011). Until relatively recently, however, the social construction of disability, even within sociology, has continued to be based against what is seen as “normal”; thus, disability has been seen as an “abnormal” way of being (Davis, 2013). That being disabled makes one “abnormal” is an idea that we challenge in this chapter, something that is particularly relevant to the themes of continuity and innovation. While ideas about disability and related social practices and policies have changed significantly, resistance to these innovations remains and is reinforced and reproduced in some forms of language and practice. There are consequences for families experiencing disability. From ancient Greece times through the 19th century, disability was understood primarily through religious beliefs. In the 19th century, those with perceived physical, intellectual, and social differences were excluded from “normal” society, being housed on poor farms and in asylums. Consistent with the shift from religion to science as arbiter of normalcy, the early 20th century saw the rise in eugenics theory and the increase in the sterilization of those who were

CHAPTER 14

Courtesy of HealthWrights

What does it mean to be disabled? Is disability something intrinsic to an individual, or does being disabled mean that barriers outside of the individual challenge ability? It is our hope that by the end of this chapter, you will think differently about the meaning of “disability,” persons experiencing disability, and the consequences disability has for families. While the types of disabilities people experience vary over the life course, at one time or another, whether temporary or permanent, those of us who live long enough will experience disability. Mark’s story, which is woven throughout this chapter, introduces some challenges and rewards experienced by families with a child with Down syndrome. This chapter is organized as follows. First, we look at disability through a sociological lens that is consistent with critical disability studies and focus primarily on how a family of a child who is disabled may experience disability. Next, we describe research on family practices and relations, specifically those of immigrant mothers of children who are disabled. This research, with Nazilla Khanlou as the primary investigator, was conducted by the Office of Women’s Health Research in Mental Health at York University. At the end of this chapter, we invite you to synthesize our research findings with your new understanding of disability in relation to the contemporary meanings and practices of Canadian families. The overall disability rate in Canada, as in many nations, is on the rise. In countries such as Canada, this is due primarily to people living longer, more babies with impairments due to surviving preterm birth and being born as multiples, improved methods for diagnosis, and a broadened interpretation of disability. According to a 2009 report from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, 14.3 percent of the Canadian population reported they were disabled in 2006. This was up from 12.4 percent in 2001 (Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, 2009, p. 5). So, across a life course, it is likely that any one family member will either have a disability or have an immediate or extended family member who is disabled. Sociology helps us understand the significance of disability for families. To do so, we use both the critical disability studies’ social model of disability and the life course approach as frameworks. But first, to think specifically about how Canadian families experience disability, we need to understand disability as a social construction.

“Nothing about us without us” signals that people with disabilities must be represented in policymaking and advocacy forums.

Fami l ies E x p erien c in g D is / a b i l it y

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considered disabled. By the mid-20th century, the prevailing model of disability argued for medicalization to cure, and rehabilitation to re-educate (Davidson & LaMonica, 2011). Each way of understanding disability had consequences for families who experience disability. Beginning in the 1970s, following from the women’s movement and the civil rights movement, the disability rights movement gained momentum. This development was a significant response to how individuals experiencing disabilities, along with their families, were largely excluded from participating in the spheres of social life to the same extent as able-bodied persons. The slogan “‘Nothing about us without us’… meant pressuring for representation by people with disabilities in policy-making and advocacy forums” (Stienestra, 2012, p. 10). With this came a shift of the locus of power from professionals toward persons who are disabled, and a growing recognition of ability over (dis)ability. In the case of a child, this meant a shift to the locus of power to parents, as decision makers for their child. During this time, we also saw the interdisciplinary study of disability, along with the emergence of critical disability theory and the social model of disability. Whereas the medical/rehabilitative model that prevailed for decades understood disability as an individual problem, a person with a disability to be cured, or the disability as pathology to be eradicated or alleviated through rehabilitation or re-education, disability was understood differently through the social model (Barnes & Mercer, 2010; Oliver, 2009; Shakespeare, 2013). (See “The Language of Disability” in A Closer Look.)

Understanding Disability Through the Social Model The social model of disability recognizes that it is the barriers in our environments—physical (both natural and built), systemic, and attitudinal—that disable people with impairments. When thinking sociologically through the social model, first, we need to recognize the difference between an impairment—or a limitation based on physical, sensory, cognitive, neurological, or psychological differences—and a disability, as society’s response to impairments (Barnes & Mercer, 2010; Oliver, 2009; Shakespeare, 2013). A society’s 218

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response to impairments can be either enabling or disabling or some combination of both. Let us use an example to illustrate the difference between an impairment and a disability as understood through the social model and as a lived experience. First, rather than thinking of a wheelchair user as being “confined” to a wheelchair, let us think of the wheelchair as a form of mobility required because of an impairment, because of an injury, illness, or loss of a lower limb. It is not the impairment but the barriers, including physical, systemic, and attitudinal ones, that disable individuals and their families. For example, how does the wheelchair make its way up steep inclines or stairs, or push through doorways, or access public transportation? What happens in situations where there is snow and ice that must be navigated? These are the physical barriers to mobility; some are natural, or occurring in nature, such as hills, and some are built, as in stairs, steep inclines, and doors without assistive devices. Systemic barriers are those “policies, procedures, or practices that … discriminate and can prevent individuals from participating fully in a situation” (Council of Ontario Universities, 2013, n.p.). Consider what “policies, procedures, or practices that … discriminate and can prevent individuals from participating fully” with family and friends in a seemingly simple outing. A 10-year-old child who is a wheelchair user, his mother, and a younger sibling who requires a stroller want to spend an afternoon at a movie theatre. For such a family, going to the movie theatre is no easy task. (See “Children Who Are Disabled in Canada: An Income Perspective,” in A Closer Look.) The family does not own a car, and two transfers would have to be made using public transit. And how would the mom navigate both a wheelchair and a stroller? She will need to arrange a ride with a bus that is equipped for the wheelchair and that will eliminate transfers. The plan for this outing must be made well in advance to arrange for the strict transportation scheduling. If the family has last-minute circumstances that prevent them from going, they will be put on a list of “no shows” and will be at risk of not being able to book the bus another time. The mom has arranged to meet her child’s friend and her mom at the theatre. At the theatre, there is a specified place for wheelchairs. The limited space is set off from the “normal” seats and does not allow for the child’s friend and her mom to sit with them. Laughter can be heard from

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A CLOSER LOOK The Language of Disability The language used to describe and discuss disability is highly contested in theory, policy, and practice. In 1998, the Canadian government, in their “efforts to adapt … policies and programs to reflect the fact that persons with disabilities should be full participants in society” (Council of Canadians with Disabilities, 2013, n.p.) developed an approach to the use of language around disability. In efforts to put the person before the disability, this approach advocated and even went so far, in some instances, mandated the use of what was termed “person first language.” In an attempt to unify how disability is used in language, “person with a disability” rather than the objectifying term “the disabled” was advocated (Titchkosky, 2001). It was thought that the use of “disabled person” put the disability before the person. However, we will see that this the term “disabled person” can also be understood differently. You may notice that we use a variety of terms to describe and discuss disability in this chapter. First, it is important to note that impairment is part of the human condition, but that disability is socially constructed. If we let ourselves understand that persons with disabilities are just people with disabilities, then we negate, fail to acknowledge, fail to work to eliminate the disabling barriers, oppression, and marginalization experienced by persons who are disabled. If we say “person with a disability,” we recognize that disability does not define a person; however, it might not allow recognition that there are barriers the person faces. If we say, for example, a “person is disabled” or a “person who experiences disability,” we recognize that disability is a result of barriers. Why do you think we sometimes refer to disability as “(dis)ability” or “dis/ability?” Throughout this chapter, we use the language of disability differently to help you understand that there is no inherent meaning in the term, but that what is important is how we think about disability and its consequences for individuals and families, and how we challenge or reproduce stereotypes and myths. Language to describe persons who are disabled has changed over time, though some terms that are exclusionary or stigmatizing remain hard to unsettle. Sometimes, terms such as handicapped, lame, or crippled are still used to describe persons with physical impairments, and for those

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with intellectual impairments, mentally retarded may still be used. Today, because these terms focus on personal flaws, rather than barriers people face, they are considered negative, discriminatory, and oppressive; they contribute to further marginalization of persons who are disabled. Continuity and innovation in understanding and responding to disability are seen in the definitions used by powerful voices such as the United Nations. In the mid-20th century, the United Nations, through its specialized agency the World Health Organization (WHO), demonstrated interest in disability issues with a focus on physical disabilities as they related to prevention and rehabilitation. By 1980, the WHO’s definitions of disability, impairment, and handicap addressed disability as an individual pathology, as “abnormality,” “loss,” and “lack” (World Health Organization, 1980). Shortly after, in the 1980s, Disabled Peoples’ International challenged such definitions of disability (Stienestra, 2012). And along with critical disability studies scholarship, the social model of disability emerged, challenging the idea of disability as pathology, shifting pathology to social and political processes that disable individuals. Furthering innovation in understanding disability, the WHO has recognized disability within a social model, noting the following: Disabilities is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations. Disability … is a complex phenomenon, reflecting the interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives. Overcoming the difficulties faced by people with disabilities requires interventions to remove environmental and social barriers. (World Health Organization, 2016, n.p.) However, what is interesting, in relation to continuity, is that references to the 1980 definitions are still seen and used as reference points, primarily by those thinking through a medical-therapeutic model of disability.

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A CLOSER LOOK C  hildren Who Are Disabled in Canada: An Income Perspective Children with disabilities are more likely to live in lowincome households than children without disabilities. In 2006, the average household yearly income for families with children with disabilities was $69,440, which is only 81.4% of the average household income for families with children with no disabilities ($85,294).

a group of children nearby who are allowed to sit together. The child in the wheelchair and his friend, in another section of the theatre, glance and wave at each other occasionally from distant seats. After the show, the families decide to visit an ice-cream parlour together until the mom whose child is a wheelchair user remembers that she is not allowed to rebook the pickup time for their transportation home. The moms also remember that the ice-cream parlour nearby is not accessible for wheelchairs or strollers. This scenario requires us to understand social exclusion as the key idea in thinking sociologically about disability through the social model. Social exclusion is an important determinant of the health and well-being of people who are disabled, their families, and their friends. In the example we are working with, we see that, although it seems to begin with physical barriers that prevent the child and his family from the access that most of us have to arrange our outings with relative ease and flexibility, there is also an example of social exclusion. Once they get to the theatre, the family is prevented from sitting with friends and enjoying a spur-of-the-moment decision to continue the outing, and if they could, they would have to find an accessible venue nearby. This difficulty precludes equal access to social engagement. The family and their friends are subjected to restrictions, experiencing disabling barriers. To understand why these barriers exist, we examine attitudinal barriers to inclusion. Attitudinal barriers consist of “behaviours, perceptions, and assumptions that discriminate against persons with disabilities. These barriers often emerge from a lack of understanding, which can lead people to ignore, to judge, or have misconceptions about a 220

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Moreover, 19.1% of families with children with disabilities have a household income less than the after-tax low income cut-off (LICO), compared to only 13.4% of families with children without disabilities. Source: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (2011, p. 14). Excerpted from the source.

person with a disability” (Council of Ontario Universities, 2013, n.p.). This child, his family, and, by extension, their friends, are judged to have social needs that are either different or of lesser importance than those who do not experience disability. Meanwhile, children who are disabled age and become teenagers and adults. Adults who are disabled may develop intimate relationships, get married, and have children. As you process this information, now is a good time to reflect on your own behaviours, perceptions, and assumptions and whether these reinforce misconceptions and discrimination. To help you in your reflection, consider some myths and misconceptions about disability, as noted by Disabled Peoples’ International (DPI), “a network of national organizations or assemblies of disabled people, established to promote human rights of disabled people through full participation, equalization of opportunity and development” (Disabled Peoples’ International, 2016, n.p.). Myths and misconceptions about disability are common. These incorrect assumptions are often triggered by fear, lack of understanding, and prejudice. Promoting negative images of disability is a form of discrimination because it creates barriers to full citizenship for people who have a disability (Disabled Peoples’ International, 2016, n.p.). DPI notes the following responses to misconceptions about disability. People are not defined by their disability; someone is not “an epileptic,” but rather has an illness known as epilepsy. Illness and disability are different. People with disabilities are not sick; disability is not an illness. People experiencing disability are not tools from which we are to derive inspiration or bravery, as this would imply that disability is a personal

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Courtesy of Angus Maguire

pathology to be endured. The disabling barriers, not the people, are the pathologies to be fixed. Similarly, disability is not a personal tragedy deserving of pity. Thinking that people experiencing disability always require help is an unsafe assumption built on the myth of helplessness, tragedy, and pity. Just ask! Persons experiencing disability are as diverse as those who are not experiencing disability, as they vary by type of impairment and their social locations, such as by race, age, gender, social class, status, and sexuality. It is important to recognize that how disability is experienced varies by these and other attributes that are subject to change over time; therefore, note that no one person experiencing disability is representative of all people experiencing disability, just as no one student is representative of all students. No parent of a child who is disabled has the same experience raising children as another parent of a child who is disabled. To make this more concrete, think back to the family of the child who uses a wheelchair. If the family income had been sufficient to have access to a specially equipped car, their experience of social exclusion would have been mediated by more efficient transportation. Such differences will be seen later in this chapter when we discuss immigrant mothers of children with disabilities. Furthermore, to label a person who is disabled by barriers as “special” indicates status difference and fuels stereotypes, or widely held and erroneous or oversimplified ideas. These misconceptions are also used to stigmatize and are reflected in the policies and practices that affect the lives of persons who are disabled. Stigma is an important concept in sociology and significant in understanding, rather than misunderstanding, disability. Recall earlier we noted that the idea of what is constructed as normal and abnormal is important to our sociological understanding of disability. Likely you have heard of the sociologist Erving Goffman and his interest in how people manage everyday social interactions. In Stigma, his highly influential work in understanding disability, Goffman (1963) discusses stigma as a mark of difference in one’s physical appearance, in how one’s body works, in one’s character, or in one’s group affiliation. These marks of difference are perceived as deviant, as abnormal, and serve as an instrument to socially exclude the stigmatized person or group. Have you ever been surprised to find out your friend’s mother uses a wheelchair and drives a car? Likely such a surprise is a result of the stigmatization

Equity and equality are deeply interconnected but do not mean the exact same thing.

of persons with substantial differences in the way their abilities are understood. (See “Lego’s Plastic Wheelchair Guy Is a Seismic Shift in a Toy Box,” in In the Media.) Changes to a vehicle can be made to “accommodate” differences in drivers. Now is a good time to consider the difference between equality and equity. Equality is about giving everyone the same and having the same expectations for the same success. Individuals have different needs in order to succeed, however. Equity is about accommodating these different needs.

Impairments Thus far, we have noted a lot about what disability is not. To review, a disability is not a person, an abnormality, something to be pitied, or something to be glorified. Disability is not an illness, unless the illness is constructed as a disability, such as in the case of chronic mental illness, which presents a complex set of questions beyond the scope of this chapter. Neither is disability to be ignored because it has consequences for individuals and families in both practice and policy. As we discussed earlier in this chapter, disability is a social construct and has thus been understood and experienced differently depending on time, place, and one’s social location. Consider how many people you know who require corrective lenses. Do they have a mark on their driver’s licence indicating that they are not legally allowed to drive without wearing those lenses? Poor eyesight is an impairment and becomes a disability only if one does not have access to corrective

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IN THE MEDIA Lego’s Plastic Wheelchair Guy Is a Seismic Shift in a Toy Box The message behind Lego’s wheelie boy is so much larger than his teeny-tiny stature. His birth in the toy box marks a seismic shift within children’s industries. There are 150 million children with disabilities worldwide, yet until now they have scarcely ever seen themselves positively reflected in the media and toys they consume…. Lego seems to have been unprepared for the excitement its wheelchair-using boy would cause…. The delighted response only highlights the size of the void that Lego’s wheelchair boy comes to fill. This beast is ravenous because we’ve never really fed it before. The toys, TV, films, games, apps, and books that entertain and educate our children barely feature children with any kind of impairment or difference. Their lives are not reflected. They are invisible. How do you grow a positive self-esteem when the culture around you appears to place no value on your existence? It does not celebrate you. On the rare occasions when you are depicted, it’s frequently as a disability stereotype—in a medical setting (toy hospital set), as an evil baddie (Captain Hook), or associated with charity

lenses. Poor eyesight is a sensory impairment, as is reduced hearing or deafness. There are many kinds of impairments. Physical impairments can be congenital or acquired after birth, and include, for example, cerebral palsy, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, arthritis, coordination disorder, amputations, genetic disorders, and those that result from disease. (See “What Is Down Syndrome?” in A Closer Look.) Developmental impairments may involve physical, learning, language, or behavioural delays or differences. Cognitive impairments include those that pertain to the capacity to process, store, and recall information; there are often related neurological impairments, or impairments located in the central and peripheral nervous system, such as epilepsy and autism spectrum disorder. Psychological or psychiatric impairments, sometimes termed “mental disorders,” are “characterized by alterations in thinking, mood or behaviour associated with significant distress and impaired functioning” (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2012, n.p.). Examples of psychological or psychiatric impairments include mood disorders (such as depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety), schizophrenia, 222

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(BBC’s Children in Need). Your hopes, dreams, imaginations and experiences are ignored. You are culturally marginalised. Washed away by the mainstream…. Everyone knows there’s something wrong with how we represent disabled people, but it seems no one knows quite how to fix it. We dance delicately around disability, scared to offend or get it wrong, so we don’t do it. This exclusion is causing damage to millions of children, yet the answer is quite simple. Just include it in an incidental, celebratory way. Move on from the baseline negative, which treats disability as somehow lesser, in need of fixing or overcoming, and see it for what it is—benign human variation, part of the spectrum of human life. Let’s hope that one day positive representations of disability are included so seamlessly across children’s industries that they cease to be noteworthy at all. Source: Atkinson (2016). Quoted and excerpted from The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/01/lego-wheelchair-toys-message-disabilities. © Guardian News & Media Ltd 2016.

and eating disorders. It is important to remember that not all impairments are visible.

How the Social Model Is Supported by the Medical Model Thus far, you have learned how the social model understands disability as posing barriers to ability and inclusion, both to disabled persons and their families. By contrast, the medical model of disability understands the inability of a person who is disabled “to join in society … as a direct result of having an impairment and not as the result of features of our society which can be changed” [emphasis added] (Moyne, 2012). The medical model advocates that the individual who is disabled needs to be “fixed” or “cured.” This understanding, then, supports significant medical intervention, while the social model advocates for social intervention. While sociological thought and advocacy support the social model, we also understand that enabling a person who is

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A CLOSER LOOK What Is Down Syndrome? • Down syndrome is a genetic disorder whereby a person has three copies of chromosome 21 instead of two. • Down syndrome is the most frequently occurring chromosomal disorder and the leading cause of intellectual and developmental delay in the … world. • Down syndrome has nothing to do with race, nationality, socioeconomic status, religion, or anything the mother or father did during pregnancy. • Today, the average lifespan of a person with Down syndrome is approximately 60 years. • As recently as 1983 [the year of Mark’s birth], the average lifespan of a person with Down syndrome was 25 years.

syndrome through the prenatal, early childhood, school years, adulthood, and retirement stages of life.

Our History

To empower Canadians with Down syndrome and their families. We raise awareness and provide information on Down

Source: Canadian Down Syndrome Society (n.d.). Quoted and excerpted from the source.

Source: Global Down Syndrome Foundation (2015). Quoted and excerpted from the source. The following text is featured on the home page of the Canadian Down Syndrome Society (CDSS).

The Canadian Down Syndrome Society There are 45,000 Canadians with Down syndrome.

Our Vision All people are valued, fully participating citizens.

disabled and his or her family to access the social services required to support social inclusion, as current policy and practice mandate, often depends on a medical diagnosis; once provided, there may be eligibility for services, respite care, funding, and accommodation. Furthermore, we need to remember that impairments may require medical attention. In this way, the dissonance that exists between access to services (via medical model) and human rights for all persons (via social model) is elucidated. In our studies with mothers, for example, we found that mothers juggle both models in order to get the services, dignity, and respect needed for their children with developmental disabilities (including equitable educational rights). NEL

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Courtesy of Jeff Iwasiw

Our Mission

The Down syndrome community in Canada and the CDSS have made great strides since our founding in 1987. [four years after Mark’s birth] We have seen advances to medical care, which enhance and save the lives of people with Down syndrome; life expectancy has more than doubled. Many people with Down syndrome live well into their 50s and 60s. We have seen the benefits of early intervention programs, inclusion in school and work and the development of accessible resources for people with Down syndrome, families and the community. Today, individuals with Down syndrome are going to post-secondary schools, working and getting married. People with Down syndrome are now given the opportunity to be fully contributing members of society. Despite the great advances made, much more needs to be done. We need to ensure the inclusion of individuals with Down syndrome in their schools, communities and workplaces. Your support will ensure this continues and allow us to speak for the 45,000 Canadians with Down syndrome.

Mark as a baby (All photos of Mark provided by, and printed with permission from his father, Tom Iwasiw).

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Mark’s Story* Tom: Getting Mark medical service proved frustrating. Maryanne ran into a number of doctors who seemed to not want to have Mark as a patient, or gave the impression of “What’s the point of treatment? After all, he had Downs.” While those words were never said, Maryanne came away more than once with that feeling. She did take things further, as in “up the ladder” with one particular doctor who she felt was very dismissive.* Maryanne: One of the challenges we have encountered is different attitudes from people in the medical profession. In addition to the lack of referrals from the doctors at his birth, we had one very bad experience with an Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) Specialist. Mark was plagued with ear infections from a very young age. When his wonderful ENT doctor passed away, we were referred to the top ear specialist in the city. The next time Mark got an ear infection we went to see this new doctor. After four or five different antibiotics and a leaky ear for several months, I questioned the doctor as to why Mark’s ear was still running. The doctor replied that “he has Down syndrome!” I quickly found another doctor who put Mark in the hospital for two days and low and behold he came home with dry ears. I’ve often wondered and worried if doctors give the same care to people with disabilities as their normal patients. Institutionally, we also had other issues. Schooling was one. Where would he go preschool? Who would accept him? Mississauga Association for the Mentally Retarded helped us get Mark into settings, but at age 2½, he was seriously physically attacked repeatedly by another young student. We felt that there seemed to be no urgency to come up with a solution by that preschool because … the preschool was doing us a favour by accepting Mark as a student, so put up with it … or leave. Leaving was an issue as it was not easy to get Mark into a preschool in the first place. Tom: When it came to enrolling Mark in Junior Kindergarten, subtle institutional barriers seemed to face us from the public elementary school that was

located at the end of our street. They had never had a child with Down syndrome and left us with the impression that they did not want to start accepting such a student when Maryanne went to inquire about registering him for Junior Kindergarten. Maryanne: Integration and mainstreaming in the school system was fairly new and certainly not widespread when Mark started Kindergarten. Mark attended our local school where he was in a regular classroom with a teaching assistant. It was an uphill battle since he was the first child with an intellectual disability in the school. Many teachers were very apprehensive since they did not know what to expect: fear of the unknown. I felt that I needed to educate them and did so by speaking to them, recommending books, and giving them videotapes to view. There were many ups and downs, but overall Mark had a good experience in elementary school. We felt that mainstreaming was the best placement for Mark for all areas of his development: intellectual, social, physical, and spiritual. He made great progress in all areas except socially. In the early years he made friends, played with other children during recess and attended birthday parties. As he got older and the gap between him and his peers widened, these activities ceased. As parents, it was difficult and disappointing to deal with the fact that Mark did not have any friends. Maryanne: Mark has two siblings, a brother 2½ years younger and a sister 8 years younger. His brother was sometimes put in an awkward position by teachers in the school. He would be called upon to take responsibility to talk to or coerce Mark if he was misbehaving. This was not something that a young child should be asked to do. This caused Jeff a lot of stress. Other children would also eagerly inform him of his brother’s wrongdoings. The best thing that happened when they got older was going to different high schools where they could both develop their own identities. Now that both Mark’s siblings are adults, having a brother with Down syndrome would be something positive. They are both empathetic, kind, and caring young adults who would help others in need.

*The stories of Tom and Maryanne included in this chapter were collected as part of a research project. This research was approved by the Research Ethics Review Board at York University in accordance with the Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethical Conduct. Tom and Maryanne were participants in this project. They have consented to us using their real names in this chapter; Mark has also consented to the use of his real name in this chapter.

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Courtesy of Jeff Iwasiw

However, he did have an issue at his first place of employment. It turned out one employee did not like or appreciate Mark. We found out indirectly that he was less than pleasant with his interactions with Mark. Mark did get into trouble with the employer over an issue that to us seemed very out of character for Mark, for which he was eventually terminated. There was no disputing that Mark did the deed—he took a bottle of pop from a cooler and did not pay for it—but we found out later that this employee made the report after telling Mark to go ahead and take a pop as it is free today. Mark had been set up. Hard to believe adults would do this sort of thing. Bullies are everywhere! Source: Unpublished data from email interview.

Mark, sister, and brother

In high school Mark was enrolled in the Planning for Independence Program (PIP) which consists of a contained classroom with approximately 10 intellectually challenged students, a teacher, and teaching assistants. The students have their core subjects such as language arts, math, and life skills in this class. If they are capable they can take other subjects such as computer science, geography, physical education, et cetera in the regular classes. Mark thrived in this program and loved his high school experience. His school made an effort to include all students in the many activities of a vibrant secondary school. The best thing about the Planning for Independence Program is the friendships he’s made. Mark met his best friend on his first day of high school. They have been true and fast friends ever since, 18 years now. We tried to keep Mark integrated into community activities as much as possible. For the most part, it was successful as we were there for and with Mark, supporting him as needed. Issues arose when leaders had no training with what to do with Mark when he strayed from the norm. They went about things the wrong way. This happened in Boy Scouts, and from time to time, in school with teachers who had no training for special needs students. This even happened in Special Olympics sports when a particular coach had no patience for Mark’s lack of knowledge about one aspect of the sport that he was playing. Strange! We have had a few other challenges. Mark is a hard worker who is appreciated by his peer workers. NEL

Understanding Disability Through a Life Course Perspective A life course perspective “refers to a multidisciplinary paradigm for the study of people’s lives, structural contexts, and social change” and “elaborates the importance of time, context, process, and meaning on human development and family life” (Mitchell, 2003, n.p.). Through this perspective, families are understood, not as isolated micro units, but as meso social groups functioning within macro social structures, and therefore subject to the support and constraint from those broader social structures (see also Chapter 2). We know that although disability is not illness, disability has significant consequences for the health of the individual who is impaired as well as those whose lives are linked to the individual. It is beneficial to use both the social model and life course perspective together. Nina Slota and Daniela Martin (2003) note that because disability affects our lives at various times and in various ways in our life course, a cross-pollination of these frameworks strengthens our understanding of disability. Both the social model and life course perspective understand disability within the family’s social location and relationships, and cultural context. We know that disability will affect most of us sometime in our lives. We may be the individual who experiences disability or be part of a family who also experiences the disability of one of its members, as in the examples seen here.

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Courtesy of Jeff Iwasiw Mark and his family

In this chapter, we have noted how time and place influence our understanding of disability and how disability is experienced. Most relevant to how families experience disability is the quality, quantity, and character of our social relations, or how our lives are linked to others. Maryanne: Today, Mark is a 33-year-old young man who is very happy, has a great sense of humour, and loves life. He works three days a week, is active in a number of sports in Special Olympics, and enjoys hanging out with his friends and family. Having Mark as my child has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. He has changed my life in positive ways. We have met many wonderful people and have had experiences which we never would have had otherwise. I even had a change in my career. When I went back to teaching, I became a Special Education teacher, wanting to help other children with special needs. Tom: We are in the process of finding Mark a place of his own. The big issue now is housing and navigating the agencies and support systems that could/ may be in place to assist Mark. Right now, it seems like everything about this is so big and so slow. We seem to be getting passed back and forth between agencies, in what we consider to be a strategy to wear us down. There’s not much support in this area, with parents on their own to find accommodation for their adult children. This has always been a 226

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worry. What will happen to Mark when we’re gone? This will be our future challenge. Getting Mark his own home is not affordable in the Greater Toronto Area where we live. Support from the Ministry probably will not meet his needs. Right now, we are at a real loss about where Mark’s life journey will take him. We fear that once we are no longer capable, the quality of his life will diminish dramatically and drastically in all areas, from recreation to medical services, as there will be no one there to look after his needs. This is very discouraging. Maryanne: Babies born now have it better than when Mark was born 33 years ago. People with disabilities are more accepted in our society today. The educational system is more open to and full of children who have all kinds of challenges. Students who want to become teachers are required to take a course with information on Special Education. This was not mandatory earlier. Mark was a ground breaker in education in Mississauga. Things are easier now for those with young children with special needs entering the school system. Schools are more likely now to not seem to try to turn children away. High school can still be a challenge as not all high schools have appropriate programming or, if they do, there may not be enough supports in place for the students with special needs. This is strictly a funding issue between the boards of education and the province. The board gets funding and then distributes it as they see fit to maximize the effectiveness of the dollars. This sometimes leads to more capable special needs students suffering so that boards can provide more support to more challenging special needs students. Maryanne and Tom: Our advice to other parents is this: “Don’t let institutions wear you down.” Document and record dates of conversations, commitments, and follow-up. Learn who the real people are who can allow for the change or service that you want and feel is warranted. Networking with other parents is critical. The biggest lesson we have learned as parents is to “aim high” in order that your child meets their full potential. Aiming high keeps more doors open and if the goal cannot be achieved, you can always lower your expectations. The other important lesson we learned very early is that you have to be your child’s advocate. If not you, then who? NEL

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Families Experiencing Disability: Another Layer of Analysis

INTERSECTIONS COMBINING INTERSECTIONAL THEORY WITH

As you learned in Chapter 2, there are a variety of ways to research the family or family relations. In our research with parents of children with developmental disabilities, we have found that adopting a systems framework along with an intersectional perspective is helpful. (See “Combining Intersectional Theory with a Systems Approach” in Intersections.) Intersectionality recognizes that we hold different identities, such as age, gender, ability, ethnicity, and social status. A systems approach pays attention to individual (micro), family (meso), and broader community and society (macro) level influences on the health and well-being of children and youth (Khanlou & Wray, 2014). In one of our community-based studies on families of children with disabilities, we examined the experiences of social support for immigrant mothers of children with disabilities (Khanlou, Haque, Davidson, & Dastjerdi, 2016).* We interviewed 30 mothers from diverse backgrounds and 27 service providers. We focused on mothers because prior research indicated that mothers are often primary caregivers of children with disabilities and that their own health may be affected if there is insufficient support. Furthermore, we focused on immigrant mothers because other research shows that immigrant status is an important

A SYSTEMS APPROACH One schematic way to consider intersectionality is presented in Figure 14.1. Although this figure is a simplistic representation of a complex analytic approach to examining experiences of difference among individuals, groups, and communities, it draws our attention to three of the key concepts of intersectionality: identities, context, and power. An intersectional approach recognizes that our identities are fluid, and depending on context they will overlap and intersect in different ways depending on what power we hold or lack. Each context shapes what type of power we hold and which of our identities is more salient than others. As context changes, so do our levels of privilege or experiences of oppression. For example, recall Mark’s story. Imagine now that his parents were new immigrants to Canada and English was a second language for them when Mark was born. In addition to holding the identity of “parents of a child with disability,” they would also hold “newcomer immigrant parent” identities. Their immigrant and ESL status could diminish the power they exert in advocating for educational accommodation of their son in school settings. In addition, because of reduced available social support and networks during initial years of resettlement, they may experience higher levels of isolation and stressors because of discriminatory attitudes both toward families of children with disabilities and immigrant groups. Finally, seeking appropriate and inclusive services for their son can be a significant financial challenge because of both underemployment of newcomer families and increased financial vulnerability of families parenting children with disabilities. Putting all these factors (macro level) together and seeing how they affect individuals (micro level) and families (meso level) is an example of combining systems approach with an intersectional perspective to better understand experiences of different groups who may share similar life circumstances.

Intersectionality

Context

Power

Identities

social determinant of health and newcomer groups often face downward social mobility after immigration (see also Chapter 8).

FIGURE 14.1 Intersectionality *This research was approved by the Research Ethics Review Board at York University in accordance with the Tri-Council Policy ­Statement on Ethical Conduct. NEL

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We asked mothers and service providers to identify facilitators and barriers to support and service across sectors. Mothers often referred to mesoand macro-level social support barriers, including increased financial burden on families due to cost of services, long waiting times, lack of awareness of the needs of children and families among some service providers, and reduced social networks and support following immigration: Eight months on wait list—so we went with private [speech] therapy—out of pocket in the beginning. $125 per session. My husband is not making that much money. (Mother 19) For me language was not a barrier. But the multitude of agencies, services scattered all over the place. There are so many. It took so much time, so much energy, so many services, faxes of diagnoses all over the place. So much…. Just one agency to provide proper support to us. Every one gives you a support booklet and you start digging when you should be taking care of the child. (Mother 25) More education amongst service professionals is needed. I got help from others, not professionals. (Mother 8) Yes, as an immigrant you don’t have close friends from childhood, or community, you feel isolated. You exaggerate the negative side and not the positive. With help of family members it gives you a different perspective and it pulls you out [of negative feelings]. (Mother 29)

navigate new systems, excessive paperwork, and dispersed services: The main difficulty is that forms are very long and complicated…. It is discouraging. It is like a fulltime job, there is so much work to coordinate…. What the mothers need is someone who will sit down with them and fill out forms for them and provide them with advice. (Service Provider 7) Limitations of services or knowledge among professionals were also recognized by service providers: Disability awareness as a whole is a problem. Yes, there is a special needs unit. [But] some children aid’s society workers don’t know what assistance is available for children with severe disabilities! They need to know more about that whole world. (Service Provider 18) The preceding quotation from a service provider brings attention to another important point. All disabilities are not alike. Nor is there a fixed continuum of disability. For example, developmental disabilities can range from mild to severe. However, if a social model of disability is adopted, persons experiencing disabilities and their families will have equitable access to social support, and their rights of participation in all facets of society will be embedded in policy and practice, enabling all to thrive. At present, while steps have been taken, much more can be done. Mothers consistently spoke about the ease associated with having information and services coordinated and available under the same roof:

Service providers were also aware of meso- and macro-level barriers for families (see Khanlou, Haque, Sheehan, & Jones, 2014). These included language and communication barriers, the need to

The best service was at _____. It is a wonderful place … lot of help from the staff, they offered speech, occupational therapy, psychologist services for [parents]…. They helped on the issue of diet of [my child] with autism and with alternative therapies. (Mother 5)

CHAPTER SUMMARY In this chapter, we set out to help you think sociologically about ways in which families experience disability when one of their members is disabled. To do so we first examined “disability” both as a social construction and as a lived experience. We see that the meaning of disability has been challenged and changed over time, and will continue to do so, and how disability may be experienced differently depending on an intersection of context, power, and identities. We discussed the social model of disability, emphasizing that physical, systemic, and attitudinal barriers disable, rather than an individual’s impairment. Along with 228

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the social model, the life course perspective “elaborates the importance of time, context, process, and meaning on human development and family life” (Mitchell, 2003, n.p.) and helps us understand continuity and change across the life course. We used Mark’s story, as well as our research with immigrant mothers of children who are disabled, to then illustrate how families experience the disability. Our sharing of Mark’s story was also to evoke change in your attitudes about and behaviour toward persons who are disabled. This change can be effected through your individual interactions with persons who are disabled and their families, your reactions to stigmatizing myths, and your political activism related to policies and practices that work toward social inclusion and equity. You can make a difference!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. Discuss the power of language as it relates to the social construction of disability. 2. How does Mark’s story relate to the life course perspective? 3. How does the difference between equity and equality help you understand the social model of disability, specifically as this model relates to families? 4. Relate the concept of intersectionality to our research on the experiences of social support for immigrant mothers of children with disabilities.

APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. What are “special needs” programs? When you went to school, did you participate in any activities with children with “special needs?” Were the children included in all aspects of school activities? If not, why not? How does this relate to social exclusion? Why have we put “special needs” in quotation marks? Can you envision a time when we will not have to use the term “special” in relation to the needs of children and families experiencing disability? Please comment. 2. Think about a time when you saw a person with a visible disability. What was your initial reaction? What was your reaction based on? How did you feel? What did you do? What will you do the next time you see a person who experiences disability? 3. How can you use the life course perspective to understand continuity and innovation as they relate to families experiencing disability?

FURTHER RESOURCES Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. www.un.org/disabilities/convention/ conventionfull.shtml. Recognizing that its 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was insufficient to protect the rights and dignity of persons who were disabled, the United Nations later adopted this convention as an international human rights treaty. The convention marks disability as a human rights issue, acknowledging social barriers as disabling. The Young Adults with Developmental Disabilities (YADD) Study. http://asdmentalhealth. blog.yorku.ca/2016/03/the-young-adults-with-developmental-disabilities-yadd-study. The YADD Study is one of the few studies that includes the perspectives of young adults with developmental disabilities as part of its data rather than relying only on others to speak for the young adults. The Boy in the Moon: A Father’s Search for His Disabled Son, by Ian Brown. This 2009 memoir was written by a father about his journey raising a son who was born with a rare genetic disorder. NEL

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In My Language, featuring Amanda Baggs. www.youtube.com/watch?v5JnylM1hI2jc. In the first half of the video, autism activist Amanda Baggs, aka “silentmiaow,” speaks in “her native language,” documenting movements and behaviours characteristic of some people understood to have significant language deficits due to autism spectrum disorder. In the second half, using type-to-talk computer software, “silentmiaow” communicates the same message in “our language.” Don’t miss the second half! Stella Young: “I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much,” TedxSydney. https://www.ted .com/talks/stella_young_i_m_not_your_inspiration_thank_you_very_much?language5en. One of the most pervasive myths about persons experiencing disability is that what they do or should offer to the world is “inspiration.” In her April 2014 Ted Talk, comedian and journalist Stella Young uses humour to correct this notion.

KEY TERMS attitudinal barriers: perceptions, assumptions, and behaviours against persons with disabilities (p. 220) disability: a contested and socially constituted term in response to people who experience impairments (p. 218) equality: sameness of opportunity or treatment (p. 221) equity: accommodating for difference in order to create fair opportunity and treatment (p. 221) impairment: limitation based on physical, sensory, cognitive, neurological, or psychological difference (p. 218) physical barriers: something that stops movement (p. 218)

social construction: the shared definition of reality based on what individuals think and how they interact (p. 217) social exclusion: the experience and perception of not being fully included, and instead experiencing and perceiving marginalization, in social interaction (p. 220) stigma: a mark of difference associated with an individual based on physical appearance, the way one’s body works, one’s character, one’s group affiliation, and so on (p. 221) systemic barriers: practices, processes, and policies that inhibit individuals’ full participation or impede their opportunities (p. 218)

REFERENCES Atkinson, R. (2016, February 1). Lego’s plastic wheelchair guy is a seismic shift in a toy box. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/01/ lego-wheelchair-toys-message-disabilities Barnes, C., & Mercer, G. (2010). Exploring disability (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Canadian Down Syndrome Society. (n.d.). About us. Retrieved from http://www.cdss.ca/about-thecanadian-down-syndrome-society.html Council of Canadians with Disabilities. (2013). In unison: A Canadian approach to disability issues. Retrieved from http://www.ccdonline.ca/en/socialpolicy/poverty-citizenship/ income-security-reform/in-unison Council of Ontario Universities. (2013). Understanding barriers to accessibility. Retrieved from http://www.uottawa.ca/respect/sites/www.uottawa.ca.respect/files/accessibility-couunderstanding-barriers-2013-06.pdf Davidson, D., & LaMonica, N. (2011). Disability definitions. In M. Z. Strange, C. K. Oyster, & J. E. Sloan (Eds.), The multimedia encyclopedia of women in today’s world. Retrieved from http:// dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412995962.n214 Davis, L. J. (2013). Introduction: Disability, normality and power. In L. J. Davis (Ed.), The disability studies reader (4th ed., pp. 1–13). New York, NY: Routledge. Disabled Peoples’ International. (2016). About us. Retrieved from http://www. disabledpeoplesinternational.org/aboutus Global Down Syndrome Foundation. (2015). What is Down syndrome? Retrieved from http:// www.globaldownsyndrome.org/about-down-syndrome/facts-about-down-syndrome/#Whatis 230

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Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. New York, NY: J. Aronson. Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. (2009). Advancing the inclusion of people with disabilities. Retrieved from http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2009/rhdcc-hrsdc/ HS61-1-2009E.pdf Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. (2011). Disability in Canada: A 2006 profile. Retrieved from http://www.esdc.gc.ca/eng/disability/arc/disability_2006.shtml Khanlou, N., Haque, N., Davidson, D., & Dastjerdi, M. (2016). Voices of immigrant mothers of children with disabilities: Availability and use of social support. Toronto, ON: York University. Khanlou, N., Haque, N., Sheehan, S., & Jones, G. (2014). “It is an issue of not knowing where to go”: Service providers’ perspectives on challenges in accessing social support and services by immigrant mothers of children with disabilities. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 17, 1840–1847. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10903-014-0122-8 Khanlou, N., & Wray R. (2014). A whole community approach toward child and youth resilience promotion: A review of resilience literature. International Journal of Mental Health & Addiction, 12(1), 64–79. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11469-013-9470-1 Mitchell, B. A. (2003). Life course theory. International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family. Retrieved from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3406900275.html Moyne, A. (2012, June). Social and medical models of disability. disAbility.ie. Retrieved from http://www.disability.ie/disability-ie-information-portal/site-sections/rights-legislation/ 185-society/538-social-and-medical-models-of-disability Oliver, M. (2009). Understanding disability: From theory to practice. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Public Health Agency of Canada. (2012). Mental illness. Retrieved from http://www.phac-aspc .gc.ca/cd-mc/mi-mm/index-eng.php Shakespeare, T. (2013). The social model of disability. In L. J. Davis (Ed.), The disability studies reader (4th ed., pp. 214–221). New York, NY: Routledge. Slota, N. E. P., & Martin, D. (2003). Methodological considerations in life course theory research. Disability Studies Quarterly, 23(2), 19–29. Stienestra, D. (2012). About Canada: Disability rights. Winnipeg, MB: Fernwood. Titchkosky, T. (2001). Disability: A rose by any other name? “People-first” language in Canadian society. Canadian Review of Sociology, 38(2), 125–140. World Health Organization. (1980). International classification of impairments, disabilities and handicaps. Geneva, Switzerland: Author. World Health Organization. (2016). Disabilities. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/topics/ disabilities/en

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Chapter 15 “Doing Family”: Lenses, Patterns, and Futures Anne Martin-Matthews

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art 7 consists of the core summary chapter, an important capstone to the collection. In the final chapter, Martin-Matthews is speculative and thought-provoking about Canadian families. Here she embraces our challenge to imagine the future, to think ahead to how families will continue to innovate but also stay the same; that is, she imagines how, in accordance with the conceptual framework of this

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PART 7

Deepening Continuity and Innovation

collection, some meanings, practices, and processes are likely to be part of family life for some time. In her closing thoughts, Martin-Matthews offers important insights into how the discipline of sociology may continue to alter its definition of families, what theories and methods will be particularly useful in the future, and how families may be affected by changing policy and practice in the years ahead.

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CHAPTER 15 “Doing Family”: Lenses, Patterns, and Futures

Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there

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Anne Martin-Matthews

are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history …, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones. —Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense (February 12, 2002)

Futures are difficult to predict. Some futures involve the follow-through and eventual realization of trends and patterns that have been anticipated for a long time—the “known knowns” as noted above. The aging of Canada’s population falls into this category and has many implications for families in the future. Nevertheless, much of the language and rhetoric around aging is cast with a sense of urgency, apocalypse, a catastrophe for society. This chapter addresses aging within families in the future with a focus on continuity and innovation. Other shifts profoundly affect individuals and families, and yet their timing was not anticipated. Societal responses to homosexuality, the recognition of gay rights, and the legalization of same-sex marriage are examples of such change. (“Known unknowns” perhaps?) Despite the obvious limitations of prediction, this chapter addresses this kind of innovation in families as well. Other changes bring unanticipated consequences or alter anticipated directions. Canadian researchers have long applied Mills’s constructs of private troubles versus public issues to the understanding of families and of trends in family lives, especially in the context of policy and practice (Martin-Matthews, 1991). With the rise of the welfare state, more personal troubles became public issues in Canada (national health insurance, old age security). With declines in the welfare state and the rise of neoliberalism in many parts of the Western world, however, and subsequent offloading of greater responsibilities for social and economic well-being onto families, will some public issues revert to being private troubles? How does (or how might) the rise of a “risk society” affect families now NEL

L E AR NI NG O B JE C T I V E S After you have read this chapter, you will be able to: • recognize the diversity of family forms and dynamics over the life course and into the future • understand how societal forces and individual factors have shaped, and will continue to influence, changes in family characteristics and structure • recognize how the unprecedented co-longevity of generations will affect families in the future • understand how the language used to describe family ties, and the methods used to study families, has an impact on what is known about families today and what is projected for tomorrow 235

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and in the future? Dramatic economic downturns may be cyclical “known unknowns” in contemporary societies, but may be experienced as “unknown unknowns” by families themselves. The unprecedented growth in wealth is, to varying degrees across societies, associated with a widening gap between rich and poor—again, with enormous and often “unknown unknown” implications for families. These issues are outside the scope of this chapter, but they are highly relevant to the wider context within which families live. Similarly, volatile housing and job sectors, access to affordable child care, the medicalization of many aspects of later life, and the rise of personalized medicine shape the societal contexts in which families live today and tomorrow, but are not considered here. Two caveats warrant attention. This chapter acknowledges the broad diversity of family structures and forms noted by Gazso and Kobayashi, and builds on the flexible, inclusive recognition of “family is as family does.” But it alone cannot reflect the breadth of understandings of family as acknowledged throughout the preceding chapters. That is a limitation. A second caveat is the recognition that I am a sociologist of aging. While I have spent much of my career in departments of Family Studies, my predominant research focus is on issues of life course, aging, transitional life events, and, most recently, on the intersection of the public and private spheres in the provision and receipt of care in later life. This is my lens in considering families of the future. In writing this chapter, I have been challenged to do some crystal-ball gazing, to think about families in the future. Gazso and Kobayashi’s introductory chapter considers “continuity” and “innovation” as guiding frames in thinking about families in Canada. This chapter picks up the threads of these issues. A central thread is the demographic character of families in Canada today. Today’s families are smaller, more people live to old age, and more people are living longer in old age. Family forms and practices are more diverse, both structurally and culturally. Other threads are the conceptual approaches to defining and studying families, and the research methods characteristic of family research. I consider where these threads are leading us in understanding families, both as concepts (such as ambivalence) emerge, and as research methods evolve. Current and anticipated policy and practice approaches to families shape futures, too. 236

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Throughout, I use the metaphor of the lens as framing what we see—recognizing that “looking back” provides some insight into where we are coming from. Past and current views suggest how to adjust the settings on this lens, as we then turn it to project the future.

A Long Lens on Families: Looking Back to See Where We Are Coming From Defining Families Families today look very different than they did 40 years ago, both in who they are, what they include, and how we measure them (see also Chapters 1 and 2). Census data reflect these changes, in the characteristics measured, when measurement started, and what definitions are used. Only recently have data been collected on the prevalence of cohabitation, common-law relationships, same-sex marriages, and step-parenting. Families innovate, relationships and ties change, and the way we measure families reflects these shifts. Changes have been especially evident in women’s patterns of marriage, in likelihood of widowhood, and in men’s patterns of singlehood. Put simply, widowhood is no longer a “given” feature of later life for women, with a 10 percent drop in the proportion of widows in young-old age. This is a huge transition at a population level. In Canada today, marriage is much less common among younger women and much more likely among older women (especially at ages 75 to 84) than previously. Medical advances mean that married women no longer lose their partners earlier in life. But the prevalence of marriage among older women is itself changing, as more women enter later life unattached due to increasing divorce and singlehood. Emerging trends in solo living are relevant to families in Canada, especially at younger ages (see also Chapters 3 and 4). The image of older bachelor brothers staying together to work the family farm was true at one time; however, today, men in young-old age (65 to 75 years) are less likely to be ever single or never married than before. And among younger men, the pattern is very different: they are much more likely to be single than in previous generations. The pace of

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future cohorts will, in selective and fundamentally important ways, be quite different from those of earlier cohorts. Gazso and Kobayashi noted the relevant rise in individualization and how intimacy and caring are not restricted to kinship roles. Instead of redefining “the family” to reflect these new and emerging intimacy patterns, they showed how others are suggesting a refocusing of the frame on “networks and flows of intimacy and care” (Roseneil & Budgeon, 2004, p. 154). Earlier discussed concepts, such as Pahl and Spencer’s (2004) focus on “personal communities” and the nascent sociology of personal life, not framed through the lens of families, are increasingly relevant. In an extensive corpus of work, Connidis (1989, 2010, 2012a, 2012b, 2015) refers to the concept of family ties as not (necessarily) linked to assumptions of households and units. In defining the families on whom we focus the lenses of past, present, and future, time is a crucial factor. Not only is the life course of families longer than it has ever been, but also it is lengthening exponentially. Phillipson has described the “increasing length of our days, and with them, the co-longevity of different generations” (2013, p. 112). This longevity is historically unprecedented among families. In Canada today, at age 65, women can expect to live 20 more years, and men can expect 16 more years. Thus, the

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change is striking: proportionally twice as many men are single at ages 35 to 44 than were single at that same age, only 10 years ago. Does this matter for families and for society, and if so, how? There are conflicting interpretations. In Norway, Hagestad (2003) found single men in later life to be relatively disengaged from society—more socially isolated, less likely than others to support educational programs for children, to contribute to charities, and to engage in other ways reflecting citizenship and civil society. If such trends of lifelong singlehood persist among men, Hagestad has argued, this could have an impact on families and societies as their populations age further; there would be many men disengaged from family life, not contributing economically or socially, and leaving such responsibilities to “other” men and women. Indeed, dramatic increases in the frequency of “going solo” (Klinenberg, 2012) suggest a new world order for some single people. In 1950, only 22 percent of American adults were single, compared with more than 50 percent today. People who live alone comprise 28 percent of all U.S. households. Similarly, in Canada, the 2016 Census revealed that for the first time since 1867, single-person households were the most common household type, accounting for 28.2 percent of all households (Statistics Canada, 2017). But, as noted above, such averages mask differences between older and younger people. How patterns of singlehood will evolve and perhaps do so differently by generation is important for the future, with a key issue being whether they represent choice or constraint (Timonen & Doyle, 2014). Shifting patterns may augur well for not only men and women who are lifelong singles, but also for those who become single after widowhood or divorce. Among the newly single, oft-expressed sentiments of feeling left out of relationships and of being a “fifth wheel” in a couple-companionate world may be significantly reduced in the future. For longterm singles and the newly unattached, systematic exclusion from the predominance of coupledom is less problematic. This historically unprecedented rise in singlehood is a trend to watch. For family sociologists, does this trend signal a waning commitment to family life? A change in the meanings attached to families? Does it challenge notions of civil society or even the contract between generations, as Hagestad has found? The circumstances of

There is greater co-longevity of generations today than in the past.

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IN THE MEDIA Under One Roof: Multigenerational Family Living Can Offer Added Comforts at Home With a baby on the way, Will Stroet and his wife, Kim realized their two-bedroom condo—which doubled as a work space—simply wasn’t going be sufficient. Fortunately, the couple received an offer that was too good pass up: an invitation from Stroet’s parents, Bill and Marion, to move in. Their daughter, Ella, is now 3 1/2. Four years since they laid down roots in a duplex in the Vancouver neighbourhood of Kitsilano, they’re all still there: grandparents, parents and child, together under one roof…. According to Statistics Canada, the 2011 census revealed there were 362,600 multigenerational households among more than 13 million private households across the country. Among them, the middle generation in 60.1 per cent of homes included a couple with children, while 36.5 per cent were lone parents. There was also an increase in the number of children sharing homes with their grandparents—including living arrangements where a parent may or may not be present. More than 269,000 kids aged 14 and under—or 4.8 per cent—lived with at least one grandparent in 2011, compared to 3.3 per cent in 2001…. Yet for some families, surging costs of housing, child care and the need to be in close proximity to aging or ailing relatives makes the option of sharing a space appealing. And beyond the inherent financial benefits, living in close

period we think of as old age (rather arbitrarily, from age 65 onward) can, for those who live to age 85, constitute one-quarter of their lives; and for those who to live to age 95, one-third of their lives! These are staggering proportions. In the future, much of one’s personal life—and one’s family life—will be spent in this long period that we now think of as middle-old age. Perhaps it will be defined differently in a world where, increasingly, “70 is the new 50.” Individual longevity and the co-longevity of generations together are new terrain for families to navigate. (See “Under One Roof ” in In the Media.) My own friends include a 77-year-old daughter caring for her 104-year-old mother; a gay couple in their 60s each supporting their mothers, aged 100 and 101; siblings aged 98, 100, and 104 years (siblings being the 238

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quarters with members of the extended family is viewed by those who’ve embraced the concept as a way to further strengthen familial ties. In the case of Stroet, their existing home was constructed with a ground-level suite so that his grandfather could move in. It also has an upstairs area—where Stroet lives now— built to be more suited to a family home. Stroet’s grandfather lived with Stroet’s parents for nearly a decade before he died at age 96. “Living with my parents as he aged and then passed away, it probably helped him live … five years longer than he would’ve had he lived on his own. And certainly, the quality of his life was much, much better being with family.” Stroet said that there is a “communal feel” to sharing a home with his parents. “It’s not the sort of feeling that we’re in two very separate living spaces. We have our own privacy and everything, but we definitely interact a lot, and certainly a lot more than we would if we were living somewhere else. “I think everyone benefits from that. I know my daughter really loves it, my parents really love it, and honestly, I really like it, too.” … Source: La Rose (2013). Quoted and excerpted from the November 11 Vancouver Sun article. The Canadian Press, Byline: Lauren La Rose.

longest bond of our familial ties) gathering for a family birthday; and a couple celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary, with three generations of progeny present. In negotiating the inevitable transitions and changes over the course of this lengthy co-longevity, families are innovating, “doing family” in new ways. Our lenses must be long and remain in focus in order to understand not just the course of life, but the course of life over time in old age. The circumstances of one’s life at age 65 are fundamentally different from life at age 90 or 95. It is increasingly meaningless to continue to define this (potentially) very lengthy phase or stage of life under the umbrella of “old age.” Future families, living 40 or 50 (or more) years together beyond the arbitrary retirement age of 65, will surely be more innovative in their nomenclature!

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For families, one implication of the preponderance of people entering old age with a partner is the diminishing prominence of adult children as carers. The growing care responsibilities of older adults themselves “have altered the caregiving landscape from the recent past, with its prior focus on adult children (daughters and daughters-in-law in particular) [who] were the predominant providers of care” (Timonen, 2009, p. 309). Spouses or partners now constitute a growing proportion of those assisting older family members, with unique challenges associated with their own advancing age (Timonen, 2009). Men, too, are now more engaged as carers over the life course. Expectations of and supports to younger fathers have changed in recent decades as they have assumed more nurturing roles and are more likely to benefit from paternity leaves and to be awarded child custody. Similarly, their fathers and even grandfathers now challenge the feminization of care roles symbolic of the past, as older men engage more in the care of their wives and parents with health challenges. A related change, reflecting preferences in later life for aging in place, or living in one’s own residence as one grows older, is the rapid increase in the rates of home care—that is, the provision of intimate personal care and related health and medical services to people living in their own homes. Increasingly, families are assisting older people to remain living at home, with ever more complex physical and cognitive challenges (Doyle & Timonen, 2008). Usually, the meagre hours of paid home-care assistance are supplemented by family members. My research on care workers in three Canadian provinces, and on elderly clients and family members in British Columbia (Martin-Matthews, 2007; Sims-Gould, Byrne, Tong, & Martin-Matthews, 2015; Sims-Gould & Martin-Matthews, 2006, 2007) attests to the crucial ways in which paid care workers and unpaid family members “share the care” of older frail family members (Sims-Gould & Martin-Matthews, 2010). Family members have important and idiosyncratic knowledge of their older relatives that workers coming briefly and episodically into a home can take many months to learn, if they ever do. As one family member said, “She likes mangoes; they give her bananas.” With smaller, more geographically dispersed families in the future, and longer lives for older people, the need for that personal knowledge and care will become more important but, as will be discussed later, it comes with costs that society may be ill prepared to address. NEL

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Contexts: Change and Continuity Both continuity and change in families are evident throughout this book. The societal and cultural contexts of family ties have been altered, beyond recognition in some cases. While international migration has long shaped family lives, globalization and telecommunications today mean historically unprecedented levels of ever more immediate interconnectedness among families across the globe. Their social and behavioural implications continue to unfold and shape our world. The lenses we use to study and understand families have also changed. Framing the language of family life in terms of caregiving is one type of lens. The word “caregiving” only recently entered the vocabulary of family life. Terms such as caregiver and care-receiver represent quite particular lenses through which we now routinely characterize the social dynamics of later life, particularly in families. As I have noted elsewhere (Martin-Matthews, 2000), when did we begin to talk about these kinds of long-term intergenerational family relationships as caregiving, and how does that word come to affect the ways in which family members think about intergenerational ties, and with what consequences? Did early texts about the family lives of older people fail to conceptualize ties as caregiving because this kind of care did not exist in families previously? Or were the behaviours that we today define as caregiving present then, but we saw them and defined them differently? Have the dynamics of families changed—and are they still changing? With so many women now in paid employment, has this fundamentally altered the nature of social ties within and across generations? Do families, in fact, do caregiving more so today than in the past? If so, is this because older family members are today more frequently sent “home” to family care, when they are sicker than they used to be when discharged from hospital? These changes have, indeed, occurred. Is the language and framing of the labour of family care as “caregiving” a result of these changes? Or does it reflect a medicalization of all aspects of care, a new language to describe care and caring within and between families? As we consider the families of the future, we must question what it means to apply terms such as caregiver and care-receiver (seen through the lens of caregiving)

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as central features of intergenerational family relationships, either within or between households. Some family members reject the caregiver label and refer to these activities as functions of normative family life, as part of a reciprocal exchange of aid and support over time and across generations. When do these functions and dynamics within families shift to being caregiving, and what are the implications? Thus, it is not just a matter of defining what families are, but also what they do.

Only in Canada? Do Canada’s present and future families differ from those in other parts of the world? Even if our research lenses are no different from those used elsewhere, structural features of our society will render unique the image that emerges from our inquiries. Canada’s national health insurance program is often defined as a hallmark of our national identity, a significant contextual backdrop against which families negotiate the healthcare system when they have babies, become ill, and assist older kin. Canada’s approach “… is of interest to others because it highlights what is possible, and what yet remains difficult, in a system that provides universal access to health care” (Clarfield, 2001, p. 21). Canada’s health and social services are federally funded, but delivered by provincial and territorial governments. Our unique geography (with urban concentrations and substantial rural and remote populations) and ethnocultural diversity are relevant here: fully 27 percent of the population aged 65 years and older was born outside Canada, compared with 17 percent of the population as a whole (Wister & McPherson, 2013). These factors have an impact on families, as socio-cultural beliefs and values about and practices of families in life course contexts (e.g., filial piety) intersect with public sector policies and private sector practices affecting families, employment, and the responsibilities of the state. Predictions that “… governments expect families to provide more care than ever to frail elderly who, increasingly, will remain in the community where … services and programs will increasingly be underfunded or absent …” (Rosenthal, 1997, p. 18) have proven all too true. There is an overall trend to shift responsibility for care in old age from governments to individuals and families. (See “Widowhood in Later Life” in Intersections.) Restructuring of Canada’s healthcare system without fundamental reform 240

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INTERSECTIONS WIDOWHOOD IN LATER LIFE Widowhood in later life is shaped by social roles, relations, and resources, and life circumstances, and it, in turn, shapes these things. Many older people experience the death of their spouse against a backdrop of changes such as chronic illness, disability, and reduced social and economic resources. In-depth interviews with 20 widows contacted through a Chinese community centre were conducted in Mandarin and Cantonese and then transcribed and interpreted through team-based qualitative analyses. These women ranged in age from 69 to 93 years and had been in Canada an average of 17 years, with more than half of them widowed following immigration. Mei Lin’s experience is highlighted here. In China, Mei Lin, a civil manager, and her husband, a chemical engineer, raised four children. They had limited means and at times experienced difficulties obtaining such basic necessities as firewood, rice, and salt. With their children raised and one daughter living in Canada, Mei Lin and her husband decided to emigrate, anticipating a more comfortable old age outside China. In 1995, at the age of 60, Mei Lin immigrated to Canada with her husband and their only son. Keen to learn, Mei Lin enrolled in English language classes. However, her husband became ill shortly after their arrival and died of a stroke within the year. Despite the presence of relatives, Mei Lin felt alone and overcome with sadness and grief. For a time, Mei Lin lived with her daughter but did not want to burden her children financially or emotionally. She contributed to household chores and kept to herself. Mei Lin now lives in seniors’ housing, with many Chinese older adults. The building manager organizes social activities and outings. Mei Lin attends weekly church services and related events. Her children call regularly, but are very busy with work. Most of her social interactions are with individuals who speak Mandarin. An inability to fully communicate in English limits her access to needed medical services and to activities, although she does use public transit. Her Canadian pension enables her to no longer worry about affording

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basic necessities. Mei Lin summarizes: “There is no big financial problem. Just the language problem. My current situation is very lonely. I live here alone.” The women interviewed had fairly extensive social and service supports focused primarily around family and the Chinese community. Although norms of filial piety traditionally dictate sons as primary supports, daughters predominated as providers of supports to these widows. Interpreted from a life course perspective, financial supports were deemed sufficient, despite overall limited financial means. Emotional support was more nuanced and complex for these widows. Loneliness and feelings of social isolation were prevalent. Nevertheless, themes of acceptance and satisfaction dominated our findings, as did reciprocity and exchange. The narrative accounts of these widows depict a complexity of experience rooted in their biographies as Chinese women and as immigrants, rather than primarily in widowhood. For these women, the circumstances of their immigration (for many of them, undertaken in later life) and of growing old in a foreign land are key factors contributing to the complicated and variable experiences of their lives—as Chinese women, as elderly women, and as widowed women, living out their old age, far from their birthplace, in the distant land of Canada. Source: Reprinted from Journal of Aging Studies, 27(4), Anne Martin-Matthews, Catherine E. Tong, Carolyn J. Rosenthal & Lynn McDonald, Ethno-cultural diversity in the experience of widowhood in later life: Chinese widows in Canada, 507–518, Copyright © 2013, with permission from Elsevier. Excerpted and paraphrased from the article.

(including the funding of home care) will, indeed, have implications for Canada’s families of the future.

Care: “Family Is as Family Does” At the heart of the dynamic of family life is the reality that families care. While I challenge the medicalized language of “caregiving” in describing this nurturing and supportive function within and across generations and households, a common feature of families, both in the past and today, is that they care for and care about one another (see also Part 6 of this resource). In this context, organizations such as Canada’s Vanier Institute of the Family have expressed NEL

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concern about a growing “care gap” in Canada. While this chapter focuses on care of older adults, children, too, are primary recipients of family care. There has been a significant increase in dual-earner households—from 36 percent of couples with children in 1976 to 69 percent in 2014; among three-quarters of these couples, both partners are employed full time. “While this has increased family income, it has also meant there are fewer family members available to help manage work and family responsibilities” (Battams, 2016, p. 2). Families today are diverse and complex, and face new and emerging issues, such as a spouse’s need to provide caregiving in support of a transgender partner’s medical transition or the need for a parent to appear in court regarding child custody and caregiving issues (Battams, 2016). Care relationships are also highly fluid and evolving, as the events necessitating care “can be short-term and episodic, such as if a family member experiences a temporary mobility restriction due to a broken leg. They can also be long-term and intensive, such as if a family member is living with a terminal illness in a palliative care centre” (Battams, 2016, p. 2). Other care needs are predictable, thereby (potentially) enabling greater control over time and resources; others are more complicated. Caring roles in families and personal communities must be integrated with work related obligations and commitments, and accommodated by employers (Battams, 2016). The study of families increasingly reflects the intersection of family lives with other circumstances and characteristics: gender, socio-economic status, geography, education, race, and so on. These are analyzed through the lens of intersectionality (see also Chapters 13 and 14). The intersection of family responsibilities and employment, and the question of how these domains relate to and mutually reinforce and support each another, is especially relevant. As Stecy-Hildebrand (2015, p. 1) asks: “Are they separate, competing and bounded? Or, alternatively, do they overlap, interweave, and exist more on a continuum of activities?” Early studies of the intersection of work and family roles focused primarily on a single family member (typically a woman) balancing or “juggling” these two life spheres. However, work-family researchers today examine the complex interplay of multiple roles and multiple players in the dynamics of lives at the intersection of work and home life.

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A recent trend is for flexible work arrangements or workplace-based accommodation for individuals and family members that are “less formal, less bureaucratic, less structured” (MacNaull & Spinks, 2016, p. 1). There is evidence that “flexible work hours and remote work has become more about informing colleagues about schedule changes (i.e., choosing to work from home on a particular day) as opposed to asking a manager for permission to work from home” (MacNaull & Spinks, 2016, p. 1). While this sounds (potentially) ideal for families negotiating both employment and family care responsibilities, it is also occurring in the context of volatile labour markets, increases in the casualization of the labour force, and more part-time and seasonal employment (see also Chapters 5 and 9). At the intersection of work and family, the future portends welcome flexibility in some spheres and challenging trends in others.

Toward a New Sociology of Family Concepts to Advance Understanding of Families The combined effects of globalization, technological innovation, and public policy, along with the spread of consumerism and increasing commodification of experience, all foretell a world wherein “constructs that were once taken as foundational for identity are called into question to such an extent they no longer serve as lodestars by which actors can chart their own course. What was once certain becomes contingent and issues of agency, subjectivity, and perception are thrown into flux” (Hendricks, 2010, p. 262). As Beck, Bonss, and Lau (2003) have argued, and as Hendricks elaborates, “In the face of globalization … meanings change … [and] … so too does the significance of individuals and the social construction of ageing” (2010, p. 262)—and, I suggest, of family lives over the life course. How do families address the issues implied in these challenging scenarios? Insights primarily from sociology and social psychology have advanced our understanding of how social support, social networks, social relationships, and personal ties facilitate and enable the activities of families over the life course. However, the understanding of what families “do” at 242

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the interactional and interpersonal levels (see Chapter 2) may also benefit from the utilization of concepts from other disciplines. One such concept is that of social capital, defined as a way of conceptualizing the intangible resources of community, shared values, and trust upon which we draw in daily life (Field, 2003). Two words capture the essence of social capital: relationships matter. People connect through networks where they share common values; members are considered a resource, constituting a form of capital. The concept of social capital holds some promise for a deeper understanding of family life and family ties over the life course. The field of family studies has certainly focused its lens on social networks and social support, although often these complex relationships and dynamics are reduced to a mere score. Fundamental elements of social capital, including norms of reciprocity and the “trust” at its core, hold considerable promise in advancing our understanding of social relationships in families over time. Marshall, Matthews, and Rosenthal (1993, p. 39) insightfully observed that “this protean nature of living in a family … is not [currently] captured in the research literature”—a reality that still holds true today. The concept of social capital may move us closer to addressing that challenge. The concept of ambivalence is also shaping the study of families (see also Chapter 13). Previously considered a primarily psychological construct focused on interpersonal feelings related to needing support but wanting independence, sociological ambivalence considers the ongoing negotiation of contradictions in family relationships and their connections to how social life is organized and structured. Connidis and McMullin (2002) developed the concept of ambivalence in response to the predominance of solidarity as a lens for studying family ties over generations, seeing ambivalence as a more multi-level construct capturing structurally created contradictions manifest in interaction. They illustrated its relevance to family members caring for older kin and to those balancing paid work and family responsibilities. Since that groundbreaking publication, “an impressive array” (Connidis, 2015, p. 77) of research attests to the utility of ambivalence as a conceptual tool in understanding the contradictions experienced by individuals, and in relationships, and embedded in social institutions and in macro-level arrangements and processes. Connidis (2015) notes the particular salience of ambivalence in understanding contradictory cultural

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expectations due to migration and social change, families, and the welfare state. Of course, the psychological ambivalence created by needing support but wanting independence is also relevant to family ties, a point to which I will later return. The emergence of cultural gerontology, with its recognition of the unprecedented role of culture in constituting social identities and realities (Katz, 2009; Twigg & Martin, 2014), is another recent conceptual innovation shaping our understanding of families over time and into the future. Cultural gerontology connects micro and macro interpretive perspectives on aging and thus sits squarely within the interpretive perspective as described by Gazso and Kobayashi in Chapter 2, with its focus on meaning, subjectivity, and identity. Some scholars have situated the emergence of cultural gerontology within the effort to escape dominant paradigms that locate aging and old age in social welfare and public policy frameworks emphasizing frailty and burden. Cultural gerontology, however, focuses on presenting a fuller and richer account of old age, encompassing “unproblematic old age” (Twigg & Martin, 2014), acknowledging both “Third and Fourth Ages” within what is now considered a monolithic final stage of life, with evident implications for families and aging.

Methodologies: Ways of Knowing about Families Research on families (and family caregiving, in particular) has predominantly focused on the dyadic relationship between a primary caregiver (most often a wife or adult daughter) and a care recipient. Research approaches have improved somewhat in the decades since Pyke and Bengtson (1996) decried how research reinforces a homogeneous portrait of female-dominated caregiving motivated by attachment and filial obligation. Having similarly lamented how “[o]ur ability to witness family processes is dampened by our focus on individuals rather than family relationships” (Connidis, 2001, p. 249), Connidis has admirably strived to employ multiple lenses in her multi-generational family studies. In analyzing patterns of parental support, Connidis and Kemp (2008) interviewed an average of 10 family members across 3 generations. Kemp NEL

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(2007) also employs a multi-generational lens in her research on grandparent-grandchild ties. The lens we use in our research determines not only what we see, but also how we interpret situations. In her book, Sisters and Brothers/Daughters and Sons: Meeting the Needs of Old Parents, Sarah Matthews (2002) argues that most studies of later life families focus almost exclusively on family roles, not on family relationships or family responsibilities and connections. Her research explicitly imposes “a vocabulary of relationships,” asking men and women whether, when considering their parents, did they view themselves only as daughters or sons, or did they simultaneously think of themselves as sisters and brothers? Typologies developed in Matthews’ previous research only on sisters change when the perspectives of brothers are also included. This study is particularly effective in illustrating how the typical focus and methods of family research (such as relying on sisters to describe their brothers’ behaviour) reinforce men’s poor reputation in studies of the provision of help to older parents. Because of the methodologies used, brothers’ experiences are filtered through the lens of their sisters’ perspectives. It is crucial to understand that what we see when we study families is often determined by how we see, that is, the lenses we use. Methodological approaches associated with interpretive and constructivist perspectives also shape our understandings of families of today and tomorrow. For example, cultural gerontology recognizes the “rise of the Visual, which has to some degree replaced the dominance of the Word central to the earlier modernity” (Twigg & Martin, 2014, p. 356). With technological advances and the digital age, visual culture is omnipresent. Reflecting this, ways of knowing about families, aging, and life course now include auto-photography and other visual techniques, as well as representations of family life and dynamics in theatre, film, popular music, and social media. Social researchers will increasingly utilize such sources of information about families in the future. A related and potentially insightful methodology is netnography, the branch of ethnography that analyzes the behaviour of individuals on the Internet (Kozinets, 2015). For those interested in the continuity and innovation that will characterize families and their negotiations in the future, this methodology invites us to consider how ways of knowing about families are (re)framed, and what new insights are gained,

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in analyses of social media through websites, blogs, Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), and Instagram. The methodology of studying social media through netnography is gaining visibility (Martin-Matthews, 2016) and provides access to unfiltered voices on topics that individuals (not researchers) emphasize as important. But there are limitations: social media materials can be short term and problem focused, with sometimes archetypal or deliberately exaggerated “types,” especially in relation to aging. Another methodological issue is more of a requisite point of focus than a methodological approach per se. Understanding families and family dynamics when a member is in deep old age will be increasingly important in the future. Meika Loe’s (2011) three-year ethnographic study of 30 peoples, 85 to 102 years old, is a welcome counterpoint to narratives of decrement and decline among family members in later life. The continuity that is achieved by very old people, with the support of their families and friends, requires “real effort and stubborn resilience” (2011, p. 23), as very old people strive for independent living. Loe’s work emphasizes how individuals embrace a wide range of personal and familial resources to achieve selfcare, well-being, and comfort in lives characterized by meaning and connection. However, the “ethos of restraint” (Loe, 2011, p. 45) characteristic of today’s very old people is very different from that of the (apparently) more demanding boomer generation. This, too, will have an impact on families in the future.

Policy and Practice: Contexts for Understanding Families Today and Tomorrow The executive director of the Vanier Institute of the Family has explored modern families in Canada through a human rights lens, with a focus on evolving family realities and the policies, practices, and procedures that currently support Canada’s families. As Spinks noted: “Most family supports are based on a fairly traditional model of a mother, father and children or a couple with children. Increasingly, we’re seeing extended families and other diverse family forms emerging within that context” (Vanier Institute, 2016, para 3). She also noted the increased need for workplaces and communities to support families in transition, including new immigrants, families with 244

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very young children or older people, and families with members in the military or in prison. As stated earlier in this chapter, social and economic diversity across class, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, geographic location, religion, and age shape the experiences of families and the provision of care throughout the life course. But so, too, do what Timonen calls “superstructures” such as social and public policies (which include maternity and parental leave benefits, child tax credits, income transfers to carers, compassionate care leaves, and direct provision of care) (Timonen, 2009). Societies vary in how they respond to the changing character of families and the care needs of their citizens. Some societies expect individuals and families to absorb the bulk of economic and non-economic costs of care. This illustrates Mills’ concept of a private issue, with individuals and families primarily covering costs of care, through informal caregiving and transfers of income to purchase care services. Other societies, such as Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands, take a different approach, introducing extensive policies to meet the care needs of older adults, so that people of different age groups more evenly bear the costs of societal aging (Timonen, 2009). Phillipson (2013) describes a “crisis of legitimacy” in societal support of families and of older people, the loosening of institutional supports underpinning the life course, and the general de-standardization of the life course. While he acknowledges the shift in postmodern society from production to consumption, he emphasizes new risks and insecurities with the individualization of retirement and an enlarging of the range of risks facing older people and their families, with a “more fluid and unstable landscape around the end of life course,” its increasingly improvisational nature, more discontinuity in key areas of life, individualization, and the fragmentation of social institutions, marginalization of social models of care, and the individualization of the transition between systems of care (Phillipson, 2013, p. 81). These factors emphasize the transfer of risks from bureaucracies to individuals (and their families) and the transformation of public policies to emphasize individualization. Many specific policy developments (potentially) facilitate and challenge future families. These include disability politics having an impact on care in later life, the projected epidemic of dementia in later life, the decline of marriage, changing patterns of geographical

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proximity, and older adults’ preferences for independence over family help. In an insightful book, Disability Politics and Care, Kelly (2016) examines the apparent success of direct funding of care for and by individuals with disabilities. Some Canadian provinces are now piloting the provision of direct funding of home care for older people, although evidence from Europe is mixed in terms of the success of providing funds for older people to purchase their own home-care services, rather than providing the actual services. Public policy changes such as this will significantly affect how families provide care in the future. Among the myths associated with apocalyptic demography, or the catastrophic tsunami of an aging population, the anticipated global epidemic of dementia predominates. There is compelling evidence that with the aging of the population, an increase in the numbers of people with dementia will present challenges for individuals, families, and society. Substantial and internationally coordinated efforts are now being directed toward the prevention and delay of dementia. Families will be significantly affected by the policy initiatives that Canada elects to pursue concerning population aging and dementia. Some advocates decry the alarmist rhetoric that surrounds this disease and note the nuanced and more balanced accounts of meaning found within families where there is dementia (Borrie, 2015). Medical anthropologist Lock (2013) provides a compelling analysis of the current focus on early detection of presymptomatic biological changes in healthy individuals: “In seeking to take control of the unknown, new ambiguities, anxieties and uncertainties inevitably come to the fore …, [and] equally pervade the worlds of researchers and the everyday lives of affected people” (p. 9)—and their families. Dementia and other health decrements will challenge many Canadian families in the future. But Phillipson, among others, suggests adaptability as a response, where dementia engages family members as “co-investigators in the task of living with cognitive change” (2013, p. 81). Neo-liberal policy changes will, however, put increasing pressure on families to “serve as safety nets” (Connidis, 2015, p. 13). In addition to policy, though, there is practice—the cumulative effect of a myriad of individual decisions over the life course. A prime example is innovation in the formation of couples outside marriage: a decline NEL

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in marriage among younger generations but also increasing societal acceptance of nonmarital unions. In his novel A Spot of Bother, Haddon (2006, p. 302) makes this interesting observation, just prior to the wedding of two characters: “Then Ray said something wise … We’re just the little people on top of the cake. Weddings are about families. You and me, we’ve got the rest of our lives together.” The reality for Canadian families today, of course, is that weddings—and the family gatherings associated with them—do not occur as frequently as they once did. I have interviewed older parents whose adult children were happily partnered, but who, in the face of geographical distance and the absence of a ceremonial event, had never met the partner’s family. Does this matter? Does it make any difference to the supports, networks, and social capital of adult children, their “plus ones,” and older relatives? Families have proven to be strikingly adaptive and inventive. While the longer-term impact of divorce on children is debated, some children benefit from a plethora of grandparents when divorced parents remarry or recouple. Concerns about same-sex couples as parents have proven unfounded. Practices of family formation and dynamics continue to evolve. How relevant are practices of family members living close to one another, or in geographical proximity? Support between and across family ties seems to require some degree of geographical proximity (Hillcoat-Nallétamby & Dharmalingam, 2003). How are families of today and tomorrow affected by changes in patterns of communication and connection? Skype, Facebook, FaceTime, Snapchat, and other forms of new social media enhance the flow of information and facilitate immediate contact despite distance. But do they enhance feelings of trust? Of knowing one another? How will they withstand distance and time? What we do know is that families can be extraordinarily innovative in the face of economic realities that disrupt anticipated patterns of family life and care of parents. A vivid illustration of this was my airplane encounter with an older woman, the mother of 18 children. Her home was in a rural East Coast community decimated by job loss and out-migration. With none of her adult children now residing near her in the same province, she spent her winters alternating residence among her children (one month here, another there) and then spent summers “at home,” where children also visited her. Family ties endured despite economic imperatives.

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© Rocketclips, Inc./Shutterstock Despite geographic distance, new communication technologies such as Skype enable generations to stay connected.

Within these evolving policy and practice contexts, older members of families are resources in many ways. As the first wave of baby boomers turn 65 (starting in 2011), more studies of grandparenthood are emerging. The contributions of older generations in sustaining families ravaged by substance abuse and addiction, divorce, illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, and economic deprivation are well documented. Grandchildren

may be the beneficiaries of those ties, especially with dual-earner parents in the middle generation. Age gaps in families limit the number of generations, but may have advantages. In Sweden, postponement of family formation means more families consisting of two healthy and independent generations able to support one dependent generation—either frail very old people or dependent young children (Lundholm & Malmberg, 2009). Families need not, and often may not, be the resource of choice for older adults, however. Research by Connidis (1987) and Lundholm and Malmberg (2009) and statements such as “I’m independent” and “It’s better to get outside help” illustrate older adults’ frequent preferences for assistance from the public sector rather than family. Despite assumptions of family support as sacrosanct for older people, many older adults seek independence from families as the first resort in addressing need. As baby boomers age and (re)define family life in old age, “family first” is unlikely to reflect their values and preferences.

CHAPTER SUMMARY This chapter has highlighted the changing social contexts that shape—and will continue to affect—families in Canada. These include the rise of singlehood, the changing nature of work, gender roles, and increasing longevity. Definitions of family ties are framed beyond the traditional heteronormative family, to include friends, fictive kin, and significant others in our personal communities. Family dynamics, and the negotiation of care, will be shaped by the unprecedented co-longevity of generations. Concepts such as social capital and ambivalence, and cultural gerontology’s emphasis on interpretive perspectives, will enhance our understanding of families. New methodologies will reflect the role of social media in people’s lives. Policy initiatives portend a world wherein families once again provide, or are, a safety net, as public issues, in whole or in part, increasingly become private troubles. Families will, as they have long done, “live in an elaborate system of interactions where they create ties of varying complexity and strength” (Milardo, 1988, p. 14). But it is problematic when the activities associated with these ties—especially those involving older adults—are automatically labelled as “caregiving.” Diversity will characterize Canada’s future families, although many issues that will shape the experiences and dynamics of these remain unknown. What we do know is that the families of tomorrow will live in a world dominated by older people, at unprecedented levels. Population aging is an unprecedented societal achievement, a benefit providing opportunities for connection across different age and social groups. Too often, it is deemed to be a burden. What will this new world of unprecedented co-longevity within generations of families be like? Europe and Japan, regions demographically much older than Canada, provide little insight, for their societies are far less ethnoculturally diverse in comparison. Families of the future will negotiate and shape this new terrain. 246

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. How are families in Canada today different from how they will look in the future? 2. What are the consequences of population aging for family relationships? 3. What are other key changes (in society or in individual behaviours) that will shape family relationships and ties in the future?

APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. In what ways do gender, age, and ethnocultural diversity affect family roles and relationships over the life course? 2. Why does the language of caregiving now dominate discussions of family assistance provided within and between generations? With what consequences? 3. How will new technologies via the Internet and social media affect family interactions in the future? 4. How will the co-longevity of generations affect parent–child relations, sibling ties, and other aspects of family life in the future?

FURTHER RESOURCES “Building a 7-Generation World,” a TED Talk by Susan Bosak. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v5OYJg7zuEhQw. In this 2014 talk, Bosak takes a look at the big picture of how communities thrive. She inspires viewers to think about how they interact with family, neighbours, and their environment and how to leave a legacy for generations. Commitment and Change: Constants of Family Ties over Time, a 2015 policy brief by Ingrid A. Connidis for the Syracuse University Aging Studies Institute. http://info.maxwell.syr. edu/asi/CONNIDIS/index.html#. Connidis examines three interrelated issues that are constants of family ties: that change has been a constant reality of family life throughout history; that such changes do not signal declining family commitment to its members, but instead, reflect the remarkable resilience of family ties; and that inequality takes a toll on family life and among different groups of ties. Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory. www.aliveinside.us/#land. This 2014 film about people with dementia and living alone in nursing homes is very uplifting. A man with a simple idea discovers that songs embedded deep in memory can ease pain and awaken fading minds. Joy and life are resuscitated, and our cultural fears over aging are confronted. The film also shows the impact on family members.

KEY TERMS aging in place: being able to live safely and independently in one’s own home or community for as long as one wishes, with necessary levels of health and social supports, and services (p. 239) apocalyptic demography: a prevailing belief that aging populations, with their multitude of health problems, place exceptional demands on societal resources, leading to social and economic catastrophe, bankrupting society (p. 245) caregiving: assistance provided to an individual who requires help in completing his or her activities of daily living; a caregiver (or carer) may be either unpaid or paid (p. 239) NEL

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co-longevity of generations: refers to the increasing period of the life course when members of different generations coexist; for example, with many adult children having at least one living parent when they turn 50 or even 60 years of age (p. 238) cultural gerontology: takes as its focus a wide range of culturally determined perceptions, attitudes, and effects of human aging, particularly as studied by the arts, humanities, and social sciences (p. 243) ethnography: the recording and analysis of a culture or society, usually based on participant-observation, as recorded in a written account of the people of the place being studied (p. 243) geographical proximity: being near or close by (p. 245)

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home care: the providing of health and social services to individuals in their own homes, often combining the services of paid health personnel and the care of family and friends (p. 239) netnography: branch of ethnography that analyzes the behaviour of individuals on the Internet; typically, this approach has been used by online marketing research, but its application is expanding in social sciences (p. 243) population aging: a characteristic of societies where the median age rises due to such factors as increasing life

expectancy, declining birth rates, and low immigration; societies are typically considered “old” when 14 percent or more of the population is aged 65 years and older (p. 245) workplace-based accommodation: a set of procedures to accommodate the needs of workers in relation to their jobs; sometimes they are negotiated between worker and manager but in other cases, these procedures are enshrined in human rights provisions in the workplace (p. 242)

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Hillcoat-Nallétamby, S., & Dharmalingam, A. (2006). Maintaining solidarity across generations in New Zealand: Support from mid-life child to ageing parent. New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, 1(2), 185–202. Katz, S. (2009). Cultural aging: Life course, lifestyle and senior worlds. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Kelly, C. (2016). Disability politics and care. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. Kemp, C. (2007). Grandparent–grandchild ties: Reflections on continuity and change across three generations. Journal of Family Issues, 28(7), 855–881. Klinenberg, E. (2012). Going solo: The extraordinary rise and surprising appeal of living alone. New York, NY: Penguin Books. Kozinets, R. V. (2015). Netnography: Redefined (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. La Rose, L. (2013, November 11). Under one roof: Multigenerational family living can offer added comforts at home. Vancouver Sun. Retrieved from http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Under1 roof1Multigenerational1family1living1offer1added1comforts1home/9121366/story.html Lock, M. (2013). The Alzheimer conundrum: Entanglements of dementia and aging. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Loe, M. (2011). Aging our way: Lessons for living from 85 and beyond. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Lundholm, E., & Malmberg, G. (2009). Between elderly parents and grandchildren—Geographic proximity and trends in four-generation families. Journal of Population Ageing, 2(3), 121–137. MacNaull, S., & Spinks, N. (2016). Flex at work benchmarking initiative. Ottawa, ON: Vanier Institute of the Family. Retrieved from http://vanierinstitute.ca/ flex-work-benchmarking-initiative Marshall, V. W., Matthews, S. H., & Rosenthal, C. J. (1993). Elusiveness of family life: A challenge for the sociology of aging. Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 13(1), 39–72. Martin Matthews, A. (1991). Widowhood in later life. Toronto, ON: Butterworths/Harcourt Brace. Martin Matthews, A. (2000). Intergenerational caregiving: How apocalyptic and dominant demographies frame the questions and shape the answers. In E. M. Gee & G. M. Gutman (Eds.), The overselling of population aging: Apocalyptic demography, intergenerational challenges and social policy (pp. 64–79). Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Martin Matthews, A. (2007). Situating “home” at the nexus of the public and private spheres: Aging, gender and home support work in Canada. Current Sociology, 55(2), 229–249. Martin Matthews, A. (2016, July). Ways of knowing about aging, old age and widowhood in later life: Insights from social media. Paper presented at the Third World Forum of Sociology, International Sociological Association, Vienna, Austria. Martin Matthews, A., Tong, C., Rosenthal, C. J., & McDonald, L. (2013). Ethno-cultural diversity in the experience of widowhood in later life: Chinese widows in Canada. Journal of Aging Studies, 27(4), 507–518. Matthews, S. H. (2002). Sisters and brothers/daughters and sons: Meeting the needs of old parents. Nashville, IN: Unlimited Publishing LLC. Milardo, R. M. (1988). Families and social networks: New perspectives on family. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pahl, R., & Spencer, L. (2004). Personal communities: Not simply families of “fate” or “choice.” Current Sociology, 52(2), 199–221. Phillipson, C. (2013). Ageing. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Pyke, K. D., & Bengtson, V. L. (1996). Caring more or less: Individualistic and collectivist systems of family eldercare. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58(2), 379–392. Roseneil, S., & Budgeon, S. (2004). Cultures of intimacy and care beyond the family: Personal life and social change in the early twenty-first century. Current Sociology, 52(2), 135–159. NEL

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Rosenthal, C. J. (1997). The changing contexts of family care in Canada. Ageing International, 24(1), 13–31. Rosenthal, C. J., Martin-Matthews, A., & Keefe, J. (2007). Families as care-providers versus caremanagers? Gendered types of care in a sample of employed Canadians. Ageing & Society, 27(5), 755–778. Sims-Gould, J., Byrne, K., Tong, C, & Martin-Matthews, A. (2015). Home support workers’ perceptions of family members of their older clients: A qualitative study. BMC Geriatrics, 12, 165. doi: 10.1186/s12877-015-0163-4 Sims-Gould, J., & Martin-Matthews, A. (2006). Caregivers, helpers, and family: Family caregiving research in a Canadian context. In I. Paoletti (Ed.), Family caregiving for older disabled people: Relational and institutional issues (pp. 85–102). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers. Sims-Gould, J., & Martin-Matthews, A. (2007). Family caregiving or caregiving alone: Who helps the helper? Canadian Journal on Aging, 26, S27–S45. doi: https://doi.org/10.3138/cja.26. suppl_1.027 Sims-Gould, J., & Martin-Matthews, A. (2010). “We share the care”: Family caregivers’ experiences of their older relative receiving home support services. Health & Social Care in the Community, 18(4), 415–423. Statistics Canada. (2011). Table 15: Marital status of the population, 15 years of age or older, by sex, Census years 1911–1951. The Canada Year Book 1951 (p. 147). Retrieved from http:// www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/tbt-tt/Lp-eng.cfm?LANG5E&APATH53&DETAIL50&DIM50&FL5M&FREE50&GC50&GID50&GK50&GRP 51&PID50&PRID510&PTYPE5101955&S50&SHOWALL50&SUB50&Temporal52011&THEME589&VID50&VNAMEE5&VNAMEF5Or Statistics Canada. (2015). Portrait of families and living arrangements in Canada: Families, households and marital Status, 2011 Census of Canada (Catalogue No. 98-312-X-2011001). Ottawa, ON: Author. Statistics Canada. (2017). Families, households, and marital status: Key results from the 2016 Census. The Daily. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/170802 /dq170802a-eng.htm Stecy-Hildebrand, N. (2015). Understanding the sociology of work and family: An examination of separate spheres and alternative frameworks. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Sociology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Timonen, V. (2009). Toward an integrative theory of care: Formal and informal intersections. In J. A. Mancini & K. A. Roberto (Eds.), Pathways of human development: Explorations of change (pp. 307–326). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Timonen, V., Doyle, M., & O’Dwyer, C. (2012). Expanded, but not regulated: Ambiguity in homecare policy in Ireland. Health and Social Care in the Community, 20(3), 310–318. Timonen, V., & Doyle, M. (2014). Life-long singlehood: Intersections of the past and the present. Ageing & Society, 34(10), 1749–1770. Twigg, J., & Martin, W. (2014). The challenge of cultural gerontology. The Gerontologist, 55(3), 353–359. Vanier Institute of the Family. (2016). Vanier Institute Nora Spinks to deliver 2016 Harshman lecture. Retrieved from http://vanierinstitute.ca/ vanier-institute-ceo-deliver-2016-harshman-lecture/?print5print Wister, A., & McPherson, B. (2013). Aging as a social process (6th ed.). Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press.

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INDEX A

abnormal vs. normal, 217 Aboriginal feminist perspective, 100–112. See also Indigenous people accessory dwelling units (ADUs), 56 acculturation, 116 acimowin, 105 Acoose, Janice, 102–103 adoption, 40, 103 adulthood, marriage and parenting as transition to, 32 age and aging apocalyptic demography, 245 care by older adults and, 201 caregiving and support for, 199–215 consequences of caregiving and, 208–209 co-residence in, 203–205 cultural gerontology on, 243 dating and, 35 demographics of, 199–200 elder abuse and, 148, 150 formal care in, 205 future of family and, 235, 237–239 gendered caregiving and, 202–203 household insecurity and, 71–72 in immigrant families, 119 intimate partner violence and, 150 living alone and, 52–53 living apart together and, 54–55 multigenerational living and, 55–57 poverty rate and, 81–82 research on, 244 social reproduction and, 200–201 widowhood and, 236, 240–241 young carers and, 207–208 agency individualization and, 10 structure and, 9 aging in place, 239 Ali, Mehrunnisa, 117 Alook, Angele, 99–112 Alyman, Raphael, 48 ambivalence, 57, 203–204, 242–243 Anderson, Kim, 101 androcentrism, 17 anthropology, on family, 15–16, 18 anticipatory socialization, 186 apocalyptic demography, 245 Arrange Me a Marriage (TV show), 36 assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), 39–40 astronaut families, 119–120, 185 asylum seekers, 123 athletes, 171 NEL

attitudinal barriers, 220–221 Audet, Alain, 48 Audet, Alyman, 48 aunties, 107–108 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 149 authoritarian style, 189 authoritative style, 189 availability, parental, 189

B

Badinter, Elisabeth, 71 Bagot Commission, 164 Bales, Robert, 16, 86 Bandura, Albert, 184–185 Banerjee, R., 85 Barnett-Kemper, Robbie, 51–52 Battams, N., 241 Bauman, Zygmunt, 50 Baumrind, Diana, 189 beanpole family structure, 55–56, 201 Beck, Ulrich, 8–9, 20 Becker, G. S., 133–134, 141 Beck-Gernsheim, E., 8–9, 20 behaviourist theory, 184 Berman, Rachel, 183–198 Bezanson, Kate, 65–79 Bhandal, Jasminder, 115 Bhandal, Surjit, 115 biculturalism, 121 bi-directional perspective, 185 blended families, 40, 49 Census data on, 54 living arrangements, 53 blogs, by lesbian mothers, 19 Boomerang Generation, 50 boomerang kids, 5, 7, 189, 190 breadwinner model, 133, 134, 137 Brenner, J., 20 Brown, John, 167 Bsmar, Ghader, 113 Budgeon, S., 21 bullying, cyber, 190, 191 Burgess, Ernest, 16

C

Calliste, A., 185–186 Canada Child Benefit, 84 Canada Health Act, 207 Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), 118 Canadian Multiculturalism Act, 116 Canadian Pacific Railway, 168 Canadian Payroll Association, 65 251

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Canadian Women’s Foundation, 151 care gap, 241 caregiving for children, 183–198 consequences of, 208–209 formal, 205 framing family life as, 239–240 future of the family and, 238 by and for grandparents, 206–207 long-term ethno-specific, 206 by older adults, 202 for older adults, 199–215 shift of to families/individuals, 240–241 transnational, 205–206 care-penalty, 134–135 Caribbean domestic workers, 169–170 caring, 241–242 Carsten, J., 7 Cartier, Jacques, 115 censorware, 191 Census data on blended families, 54 on children living with grandparents, 118 on immigrants and immigration, 114 on living alone, 52–53 on living arrangements, 49 on lone-parent families, 51–52 on marriage, 37 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 149 Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, 202 charities, 85–86 chattel slavery, 166–168 Chiang, N. L., 120 Chicago School, 16 child abuse, 150 childcare, 183–198. See also unpaid work division of labour in, 135–136, 136–140 gender roles in, 33 grandparents in, 118 in Indigenous families, 106–107 siblings in, 185 socialization and, 184–187 social policies on, 73–75 childfree families, 39 children adopting, 40 centrality of in Indigenous families, 106–107 chronic poverty and, 81–82 deciding whether or not to have, 39–40 family practice in caring for, 18–20 gender nonconforming, 191–193 Indigenous, colonialism and, 100–104 living with grandparents, 118 poverty rate among, 68, 80 practices in raising, 7 252

INDEX

reproductive technologies and, 5 socialization of, 184–187 child welfare system foster care and, 66, 107, 109, 207 Indigenous people and, 102, 103 Chinese Exclusion Act, 168–170 Chinese Head Tax, 115, 116 choice, neo-liberalism and, 72 chronic poverty, 81 Chua, Amy, 188 Churchill, A., 190 Civil Marriage Act, 49 cohabitation, 236 living alone together compared with, 55 living arrangements and, 49–51 marriage and, 4 rates of, 37 Cole, Desmond, 186 collectivistic cultures, 121 co-longevity of generations, 237–238 colonialism, 100–104, 164–166 Caribbean domestic workers and, 169–170 definition of, 100 as disease, 165 immigration and, 115 power and rights and, 130 commodification, 242 common-law unions, 4, 6 communication, 245 community family violence and, 157, 158 Indigenous, 106–107 personal, 237 poverty management and, 85–86, 90 response to family violence, 148 community deficit/responsibility theory, 83 complex step-families, 53 conception, 39 conflict perspective, 15 confluent love, 9 Connidis, I. A., 19, 242, 243 constructivist perspectives, 243 consumerism, 242 coordinated community response, 148 Corsaro, W. A., 184 couplehood committed, practices of, 38–39 living patterns in, 36–38 routes toward, 33–39 courting, 33–34 Crichlow, Wesley, 163–179 crisis of legitimacy, 244 critical approaches to household insecurity, 67 on intimacy and family formation, 33 critical political economy, 67 critical race theory (CRT), 171–173 NEL

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cryopreservation of eggs, 41 cultural capital, 35 immigrants and, 120 cultural discontinuity, 121 cultural gerontology, 243 cultural transmission, grandparents in, 56, 118 culture definition of, 187 Indigenous, maintenance of, 108–111 parenting, 187 of poverty, 83 poverty management and, 91 culture shock, 117 cultures of relatedness, 18 Curtis, P., 21 custodial parenting culture, 187 cyber bullying, 190, 191 cyber socialization, 189–190 cycle of poverty, 83

D

dating. See also living apart together (LAT) apps for, 31, 32 challenges in, 31 changes in, 4 definition of, 33–34 matchmakers and, 34, 35 routes toward couplehood and, 33–36 safety and authenticity in, 35–36 Davidson, Deborah, 216–231 Dawson, Myrna, 149 decolonization, 163–164 decolonizing methodology, 105 DEEN (Disability Empowerment Equality Network), 122 dehistoricized people, 165 DeKeseredy, Walter, 152 Delgado, R., 174 Delpit, L., 173–174 demandingness, 189 dementia, 245 demographics of aging, 199–200 apocalyptic, 245 of living alone together, 54 of low income, 81–82 Desmond, Viola Davis, 167–168 deterministic model of socialization, 184–185 dharma, 119 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), 192 Diène, Doudou, 164 direct reinforcement, 184–185 disabilities, 216–231 dating challenges for, 36 definition of, 218, 219 NEL

funding of care and, 245 immigrants, 122 impairment vs., 218, 221–222 income and, 220 intersectional and systems approach to, 227–228 language on, 219 life course perspective on, 225–227 medical model of, 222–225 rate of in Canada, 217 as social construction, 217–218 social model of, 218–225 Disability Politics and Care (Kelly), 245 Disabled Peoples’ International (DPI), 220 diversity, 4–5, 6 disability and, 221 household insecurity and, 66–67 intersectionality theory on, 9–10 meaning of family and, 6–7 in Toronto, 80 on Trudeau’s cabinet, 123 division of labour, 132–133 divorce, 8, 9 blended families and, 53, 54 doing family, 19–20 domestic violence. See intimate partner violence (IPV) domestic worker program, 169–170 dominant discourses, 188 double burden, 135 double consciousness, 170 double standard, sexual, 36 Douglass, Frederick, 167 Down syndrome, 223–225 dual-earner families, 132–133 dual earner–female career model, 70 Du Bois, W. E. B., 17, 164, 170 Duff, Zoe, 21

E

ecological framework, on family violence, 153 economic conditions, 65–66. See also socioeconomic status Edmonton, 105 EggBanxx, 41 Eichler, M., 7 elder abuse, 148, 150 emotional abuse, 149 employment. See also unpaid work dual earner families, 70 female participation in, 132–133 flexibility in, 242 gendered division of labour and, 132–133 household insecurity and, 67–73 intersection of with family, 241–242 motherhood and, 70–72 neo-liberalism and, 72–73 INDEX

253

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employment. (continued) poverty management and, 91 precarious, 67, 68–70 salary gap in, 135 state patriarchy and, 131–132 time spent on, 70 unpaid work and, 131–146 Employment Insurance, 74–75 empowerment, storytelling and, 174 endogamy, 38 Engels, Friedrich, 15 epistemology, 23 Epstein-Fine, Sadie, 51 equality, 221 equity, 221 Esteinou, Rosario, 149 ethnic-racial socialization, 185 ethnic socialization, 185 ethnocentrism, 17 ethnocultural diversity, 5, 17. See also race and ethnicity ethnography, 243–244 ethos of restraint, 244 Eurocentrism, 17 Exclusion Act, 168 expectations, 68 Express Entry Visa, 116 expressive support, 87–90

F

Fairclough, Ellen, 116 familialism, 201 family Canadian vs. other countries’, 240–241 centrality of in Indigenous families, 107–109 change and continuity in, 239–242 changes and continuity in, 5–10 definitions of, 16, 67, 236 diversity of, 236 future and past of, 236–239 historical vs. modern, 4–5 immigrant, 115 Indigenous, colonial breakdown of, 100–104 Indigenous models of, 109–110 lenses, patterns, and future of, 235–250 meanings assigned to, 6–7 new sociology of, 242–246 in poverty management, 86 as practice, 7 as process, 7–8 reasons to study, 3–4 slavery and, 166 Standard North American, 86 theory and research on, 14–28 Family Allowances, 83 254

INDEX

The Family amongst the Australian Aborigines (Malinowski), 15 family economy, 18 family formation, 29, 31–47 decision making about children and, 39–40 Indigenous, 106 parenting practices options and, 40–41 routes toward couplehood and, 33–39 theories on, 32–33 Family Reunification Program, 116–118 family shift sleeping, 172 family size, 5 Family, Socialization and Interaction Process (Parsons and Bales), 16 Family Super Visa, 117, 123, 205 Family Tax Cut, 74–75 family violence, 129, 147–162 frequency and severity of, 149–151 intergenerational transmission of, 153–156 raising awareness of, 156–157 what to do about, 157–158 Fanon, F., 165, 170 Farrell, B., 10 femicide, 148 feminist perspectives, 17–20 Aboriginal, 100–112 on household production, 134–136 on intimate partner violence, 154 on poverty, 91 feminist political economy, 20 boomerang kids and, 190 on poverty, 81, 91 feminization of poverty, 81, 82 fertility, preservation of, 41 fertility rates, 39 aging population and, 200 Indigenous people, 100 multigenerational living and, 55–56 fictive kin, 18, 67 managing poverty and, 91 in poverty management, 87 filial piety, 88 filial responsibility, 119, 204 financial abuse, 150 financial insecurity, 65–66 employment/incomes and, 67–73 managing, 80–96 social policies and, 73–75 theories and context of, 66–67 financial support, 7 Finch, J., 19 first-generation immigrants, 114, 121 Fisher-Townsend, B., 155 Folbre, N., 132, 134, 136 food banks, 86 forced marriages, 121 formal care, 205 NEL

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foster care, 66 Indigenous children in, 107, 109, 207 Fox, B., 188 Freud, Sigmund, 184 Friedman, Milton, 72 frontstage behaviour, 36 functionalist model of socialization, 184

G

G8 (Group of 8), 114 Gazso, Amber, 3–28, 80–96, 85 gender differences in caregiving, 202–203, 239 in dating, 35 in employment, 84, 85 household insecurity and, 66–67 in income, 85 income inequality, 80 labour market participation, 70–72 in lone-parent families, 40–41, 52 in poverty, 81–82 gender dysphoria, 192 gender equality, 33 gender identity disorder, 192 gender literacy, 192 gender roles in blended families, 53 child care and, 136 de-normalization of, 8 division of labour and, 132–133 of early immigrants, 115 Indigenous, colonial breakdown of, 100–101 in intimacy and family formation, 33 poverty and racism and, 17 poverty management and, 91 power and, 129 structural functionalism on, 16 unpaid work and, 129, 131–146 gender socialization, 186 gender symmetry, 151–152 General Social Survey, 22, 132 generational inequality, 71–72 generational interdependence, 57 Generation Squeeze, 71–72 geographical proximity, 245 Giddens, Anthony, 9 globalization, 239, 242 immigration and, 114 labour markets and, 84–85 Goffman, Erving, 221 Gordon, A., 51–52 Görzig, A., 191 Gough, Kathleen, 17 government policies on caregiving, 208–209 future of families and, 240–241, 244–246 NEL

gender inequality in labour and, 136 household insecurity and, 73–75 on immigration, 114, 168–169 on Indigenous people, 164–166 on intimate partner violence, 154 poverty management and, 83–84, 85–86 social, 73–75, 83–84, 85–86 state patriarchy and, 131–132 Gradual Enfranchisement Act, 104 grandparents caregiving by and for, 206–207 in immigrant families, 115, 118 immigration of, 117, 123 in Indigenous childcare, 106–107 multigenerational living and, 55–57 research on, 246 granny flats, 56 Great Depression, 83 Grindr, 31 gross domestic product (GDP), 132

H

Haddon, M., 245 Hall, Stuart, 174 handicaps, 219 happiness, marriage and, 37 Harper, Stephen, 84, 102 Hawksworth, Jayson, 21 Hayek, Friedrich, 72 Hays, Sharon, 187–188 healthcare systems, 240–241, 245 helicopter parenting, 183, 188–189 heteronormativity, 4–5, 37 in early family theories, 17 gender socialization and, 186 meaning of family and, 7 Higgins, Zak, 52 Holtmann, Catherine, 150 home care, 239, 245 HomeFront Calgary, 157 homogamy, 38 honour, family, 121 hooking up, 36 household insecurity, 65–66 employment/incomes and, 67–73 generational inequality and, 71–72 managing, 75–76 social policies and, 73–75 theories and context of, 66–67 household labour, 10 women’s portion of, 7 household production, 133–134 households, definition of, 67 household strategy, 137 housework. See unpaid work human capital, 133 INDEX

255

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human capital theory, 83 human rights, 165, 244 disabilities and, 223 Hunger Count, 86 Hunter, Andrea, 19

I

identity cultural gerontology and, 243 disabilities and, 227 of immigrants, 116, 117, 121 Indigenous, 104–109 intersectional approach to, 121–123 LGBTQ, 192–193 storytelling and, 172–174 identity, Indigenous, 100, 104 immigrants and immigration, 97, 113–128 caregiving and, 204–205 categories of, 116–118 Census data on, 114 community and, 85–86, 90 co-residence among, 203–204 definition of family of, 115 demographics on, 240 disabilities and, 227–228 domestic violence among, 151 domestic worker program and, 169–170 factors in immigration of, 114 family reunification, 116–118 formal care and, 205 future of, 123 household insecurity and, 68 institutionalized racism toward, 168–170 intersectionality theory on, 121–123 intimate partner violence among, 149, 150, 151 intimate partner violence and, 153–154 labour market and, 85 living arrangements among, 118–121 multigenerational living among, 56 parent–child dynamics within, 121 patterns of across ethnic groups, 115–118 poverty management among, 82, 91 power and rights of, 130 racialization of, 168–170 support networks and, 88–90 Immigration Act, 169 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, 116 impairments, 218, 221–222 income. See also poverty; socioeconomic status changes in, 67–68 disability and, 220 by family type, 69 gendered salary gap and, 135 inequality in, 68, 80 intergenerational transfers of, 86 256

INDEX

managing low, 80–96 precarious work and, 68–70 social policies and, 73–74 transfer programs, 73–75 incomplete revolution, 33 Indian Act, 100, 103–104, 165 Indianness, gendering of, 103–104 Indigenous people, 97, 99–112 aunties in, 107–108 caregiving older adults and, 207 children removed from, 7, 164–165 colonialism and racism toward, 164–166 dating challenges facing, 31 diversity among, 99–100 early immigrants and, 115 fictive kin among, 18 gendered discrimination against, 103–104 household insecurity and, 68 identity among, 100, 104–109 intimate partner violence among, 149, 150 intimate partner violence and, 153–154 lone-parent families, 52 migration patterns of, 100 models of family among, 109–110 multigenerational living among, 56 population growth among, 100 power and rights of, 130 residential schools for, 100, 101–104 resistance and resilience of, 109–110 Trudeau and, 123 under colonialism, 100–104 individual deficit/responsibility theory, 83 individual female biography, 32 individualism familialism and, 201 intimate partner violence and, 154 neo-liberalism and, 72–73, 91 individualistic worldview, 121 individualization, 8–10, 20, 237 infertility, 39 informal care, 200 instrumental support, 87–90 intact families, 52 intensive mothering, 71–72, 187–188 intensive parenting, 187–188 intergenerational ambivalence, 19 intergenerational exchange, 56 intergenerational solidarity, 118 intergenerational stake hypothesis, 56–57 intergenerational transfers, 86 intergenerational transmission of violence, 153, 156 Internet dating, 31, 32, 34 netnography via, 243–244 interpretive perspectives, 243 interpretivism, 23 NEL

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intersectionality theory, 9–10 on disability, 227–228 on family, 241–242 on intimate partner violence, 157 interviews, 23 intimacy family formation and seeking, 31 individualization and, 9 networks and flows of, 21 intimate partnerships historical vs. modern, 4 violence in, 147–162 intimate partner violence (IPV), 147–162 among immigrants, 151 dynamics of, 151–153 frequency and severity of, 149–151 intergenerational transmission of, 153–156 men who batter and, 154–156 raising awareness of, 156–157 statistics on, 149 warning signs of, 152 what to do about, 157–158 in vitro fertilization, 39 Issei, 116

J

James, A., 21 Jimenez, M., 113 Johnson, Frederick, 167 Johnson, Holly, 149

K

karma, 119 Karr, Alphonse, 8 Kelly, C., 245 Kemp, C., 243 Khalifa, Sami, 117 Khan, Mushira Mohsin, 48–62, 113–128 Khanlou, Nazilla, 216–231 Khedr, Rabia, 122 kin relations, 16 fictive, 18, 67, 87, 91 Knudson, Sarah, 31–47 Kobayashi, Karen, 3–28, 48–62 Komagata Maru, 116 Kruger, Kevin, 172

L

labour force demographics and, 5 women in the, 5 Labour Force Survey, 133 labour market, 84–85 Lareau, A., 187 NEL

Lash, S., 9 Laslett, B., 20 Lee, J., 185 Lego’s wheelie boy, 222 leisure, 137–140 Leung, H., 118–119 Lewis, Oscar, 83 LGBTQI2SA people, 4–5 children of, adjustment of, 51–52 dating barriers for, 35 division of unpaid labor and, 140 families of choice among, 18 family violence among, 148 Indigenous, 31 intimacy seeking among, 31 intimate partner violence among, 150 living arrangements and, 51 lone-parent families among, 40, 41 marriage among, 37 mothering and hetero norms, 19 options for having children among, 39–40 parenting by, 191–193 life course perspective, 22, 201 on disabilities, 225–227 on intimacy and family formation, 33 life expectancy, 5, 199–200, 237–238 liquid love, 50 Live-in Caregiver program, 169–170, 206 living alone, 37–38, 52–53, 236–237 Census data on, 52 living apart together (LAT), 37–38, 49 among immigrants, 120 living arrangements in, 53–55 living arrangements, 29, 48–62 boomerang kids and, 5, 7, 189, 190 Census data on, 49 coupled, 36–38 of immigrants, 118–121 innovations in, 53–57 living alone, 37–38, 52–53 multigenerational, 48 of older adults, 202 Livingstone, S., 191 Loe, Meika, 244 Loew’s Montreal Theatres Ltd v Reynolds, 167 lone-parent families, 40–41 Census data on, 51–52 household insecurity in, 68–70 living arrangements of, 51–52 work/family balance in, 70 Lorde, A., 166 love conditionality in, 9 historical vs. modern thought about, 4 liquid, 50 romantic, centrality of, 32 low income cut-off (LICO), 81 INDEX

257

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M

Ma, Ringo, 172 Ma, Thomas, 113, 114 Macdonald, John A., 168 Macdougall, B., 18 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 15–16 Mandell, Nancy, 199–215 marginal utility, 133 marriage age at, 4, 37 Census data on, 37 changes in patterns of, 32, 236 demographics of, 34 forced, 121 historical vs. modern thought about, 4 living arrangements and, 49–51 New Home Economics on, 133–134 rates of, 6 Marshall, K., 133 Martin, Daniela, 225–226 Martin-Matthews, Anne, 235–250 Marx, Karl, 15 matchmaking services, 34, 35, 36 materialist perspective, 15 maternity leave, 73–74 Matthews, Sarah, 243 McConnell, Pam, 84 McDaniel, S. A., 19 McDonald, L., 118–119 McMullin, J. A., 242 Mead, George Herbert, 16 Meagher, Sean, 122 meaning assigned to family, 6–7 meaning-constitutive traditions, 32, 37 medical model of disability, 222–225 Meeting Mothers’ Needs: Mothers and the Racialization of Poverty in Toronto (Gazso, Waldron, & Noce), 85 mental disorders, 222 Men Who Batter (Nason-Clark & FisherTownsend), 155 migration, Indigenous, 100 Mill, John Stuart, 72 The Millionaire Matchmaker (TV show), 36 Mills, C. Wright, 156 Minimum Necessary Income (MNI), 118 mixed methods research, 24 modelling, 185 modernization, 20 reflexive, 8–9 mommy wars, 70–71 monogamy, 38 monolithic bias, 7 Morad, Hamzeh, 113 morality, neo-liberalism and, 73 Morgan, David, 18–19 Morgan, Lewis Henry, 15 258

INDEX

mothering, intensive, 71–72 Mulcair, Thomas, 66 multiculturalism, 116 multigenerational households, 48, 49, 55–57, 237–239 caring for aging adults and, 200, 203–204, 246 definition of, 56, 66–67 financial insecurity and, 66–67 immigrant, 118–119 multiple jeopardy, 123 Muraco, A., 18 Murdock, George, 16, 17, 86

N

Nason-Clark, Nancy, 147–162 National Household Survey, 80 nationalism, institutionalized racism and, 170 Nbarak, Sammy, 117 negative preferences, 55 neglectful or uninvolved style, 189 Negotiating Caribbean Identities (Hall), 174 Nejat, Goldie, 202 neo-liberalism, 33, 72–73 caring for older adults and, 201 managing poverty and, 91 welfare state and, 83–84 netnography, 243–244 “new” fathers, 188–189 New Home Economics, 133–134, 135–136 niwakohmanak (“all my relations”), 105 Noce, M. L., 85 non-cooperative bargaining, 135–136 non-monogamy, 38 non-unitary models, 134 normal vs. abnormal, 217 nuclear family, 4 Engels on, 15 fictive kin vs., 18 functionalism on, 16 multigenerational living vs., 55–56 Standard North American Family as, 86 as universal, 17

O

Ocobock, A., 10 old talk, 173 online dating, 4 Ontario Works, 87 ontology, 23 open relationships, 38 opportunity costs, 134 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 68 The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (Engels), 15 NEL

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Ornstein, M., 137 oya koh koh, 119

P

Pacini-Ketchabaw, V., 185 paid care, 205 parachute kids, 120 paradigms, 23 parental leave policies, 73–74 parenting culture, 187 parenting practices, 40–41 in blended families, 53 criticism of, 191, 192 pioneers in, 191–193 sexual orientation and quality of, 51 technology and, 189–191 21st century, 187–189 parenting styles, 189 parenting turn, 191 parents and parenthood. See also unpaid work employment and, 68–72 helicopter, 183 leisure time and, 137–139 as transition to adulthood, 32 Paro, 202 Parsons, Talcott, 16, 86, 184 paternity leave, 239 patriarchy, 15 definition of, 101 family violence and, 148 Indigenous people and, 101 state, 131–132 permissive style, 189 personal communities, 21–22 PFLAG, 193 The Philadelphia Negro (Du Bois), 17 Phillipson, C., 244, 245 physical abuse, 149 physical barriers to mobility, 218 pioneers, parenting, 191–193 plastic sexuality, 9, 39 playing along, 192 points-based assessment (PBA), 116 polarization hypothesis, 134 political economy perspective on poverty, 91 polyamorous arrangements, 39 polyamorous triads, 21 polyfidelitous arrangements, 39 polygamous relationships, 38–39 polygamy, 21, 38–39 population aging, 245 Portillo-Malpass, Karin, 151 positivist paradigm, 22, 23 post-familial families, 9 Poulton, D., 174 NEL

poverty among immigrants, 122 blaming the poor for, 75 chronic, 82 community and, 85–86, 90 culture of, 83 demographics of, 81–82 disabilities and, 220 feminist political economy perspective on, 91 feminization of, 81, 82 institutional context of, 82–86 labour market and, 84–85 managing, 80, 86–91 in mother-headed families, 5 racialization of, 82, 85 rate of, 81 rate of among children, 68 theories on, 83 welfare state and, 83–84 the working poor, 75 power, 122 family violence and, 148 intersectional approach on, 122–123 intimate partner violence and, 151–153, 154–156 paid/unpaid work and, 131–146 power imbalances, 7 practises, family, 7, 18–20 precarious work, 68–70 private sphere, 131 privilege, intersectional approach on, 122–123 process, family as, 7–8, 18–20 production vs. reproduction, 136 proletarianization, 85, 91 property, family and, 15 public sphere, 131 pull factors, 114 pure relationships, 9, 32 push factors, 114

Q

qualitative interpretive approaches, 33 qualitative research methods, 23–24 quantitative research methods, 22–23, 24 queer people, 193. See also LGBTQI2SA people queer theory on families of choice, 18 on intimacy and family formation, 33 Quong Wing v The King, 168–169

R

race and ethnicity, 163–179 formal care and, 205 household insecurity and, 68–70 of immigrants, 114 income inequality and, 80 INDEX

259

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race and ethnicity (continued) intimate partner violence and, 153–154 long-term caregiving and, 206 poverty management and, 82, 91 power and rights and, 130 slavery and, 166–168 socialization and, 185–186 sport/slavery analogy on, 171 support networks and, 88–90 racialization, 163–164 definition of, 169 of immigrant families, 168–170 of poverty, 82, 85 sports and, 171 racial socialization, 185 racism, 7, 164–170 definition of, 166 gender roles and, 17 institutionalized, 168–170 slavery and, 166–168 storytelling in challenging, 170–174 Rahilly, E. P., 191–192 Rahman, Aneela, 36 Randstad Canada, 135 rape culture, 148 rate of poverty, 81 rational choice theory, 83 reality TV, dating in, 36 reflexive modernization, 8–10, 20 reflexive project of the self, 8, 20 refugees, 123 regulative traditions, 32 relational approach to socialization, 185 relationships, vocabulary of, 243 religion disability and, 217–218 intimate partner abuse and, 153 Religion and Violence e-Learning (RAVE), 149 replacement costs, 134 replacement rate, 39 reproductive models of socialization, 184 research methods, 22–24, 243–244 reserves, 100 residential schools, 100, 101–104, 164–165 residualist welfare states, 74 responsiveness, 189 retirement immigrants and, 118 saving for, 71 social policy and, 73 rights, 122 risk society, 8, 235–236 robo-care, 202 role ambiguity, 53 Roseneil, S., 21 Rumsfeld, Donald, 235 rural life, intimacy seeking and, 31 260

INDEX

S

same-sex couples, 4–5, 6 samples, 22, 23 sandwiched caregivers, 203 sansei, 119 satellite kids, 120 Satzewich, V., 167 Sauve, Shelley, 75 Scott, Duncan Campbell, 102 second-generation immigrants, 114, 117, 121 segregation, 167–168 self-employment, 68 serial monogamy, 38 settler colonialism, 164 Sevcik, Irene, 150 sexism, 170 sexting, 191 sexual abuse, 150 The Sexual Demon of Colonial Power (Thomas), 170 sexual double standard, 36 sexuality. See also LGBTQI2SA people double standard around, 36 plastic, 9, 39 shame, family, 121 shared experiences, 88 Shariff, S., 190 sibling abuse, 148, 150 siblings as carers, 185 simple step-families, 53 Sims, Dan, 131 Sims, Dorothy, 131 single people, 236–237 in Indigenous families, 107–108 single-person households, 37, 38 Sisters and Brothers/Daughters and Sons: Meeting the Needs of Old Parents (Matthews), 243 Sixties Scoop, 103 Skinner, B. F., 184 skip-generation families, 40, 207 slavery, 17, 164, 166–168 contemporary black life and, 169 immigration to Canada and, 115 sport and, 171 sleeping, family shift, 172 Slota, Nina, 225–226 Small, M. L., 24 Smart, Carol, 21 Smith, Dorothy, 17, 86 social capital, 35, 242 social class, socialization and, 186–187. See also socioeconomic status social conflict approaches, 33 social construction, 217–218 social constructs, 6 social democratic welfare, 138 social desirability effect, 132 NEL

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social-economic status (SES), 184 social engagement, of single men, 237 social exclusion, 220 socialization, 184–187 cyber, 189–190 definition of, 184 deterministic model of, 184–185 gender, 186 race/ethnicity and, 185–186 relational approach to, 185 social class and, 186–187 social learning theory, 184–185 social policies future of families and, 244–246 gender inequality in labour and, 136 household insecurity and, 73–75 poverty management and, 83–84, 85–86 social reproduction, 20, 75–76 care of older adults and, 200–201 social safety net, 83 Social Structure (Murdock), 16 socioeconomic status (SES), 186 dating and, 31, 32 family formation and, 32–33 financial insecurity and, 65–66 household insecurity and, 65–79, 80–96 lone-parent families and, 40–41, 52 marriage and, 37 matchmaking services and, 35 socialization and, 186–187 sociological imagination, 3 sociology of families, 242–246 specialization and adaptation in, 1 Special Education, 226 Spinks, Nora, 54, 244 spiritual abuse, 150 sport/slavery analogy, 171 A Spot of Bother (Haddon), 245 Stalker, G. J., 137 Stalker, Glenn J., 131–146 Stamatopoulos, Vivian, 199–215 Standard North American Family, 86 state patriarchy, 131–132 Statistics Canada, 22 St. Denis, V., 103 step-families, 53, 54 stigma, 221 storytelling, 105, 130 challenging racism through, 170–174 stranger danger, 191 Stroet, Kim, 48, 238 Stroet, Will, 48, 238 structural functionalism, 15–16, 17, 184 on intimacy and family formation, 33 structural/social exclusion theory, 83 structure, agency and, 9 NEL

stylized measures, 132 superstructures, 244 support networks, 87–90 surrogacy, 39–40 surveillance software, 191 survey methods, 22 Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, 85 symbolic interactionism, 16 Syrian refugees, 123 systemic barriers, 218–219 systems approach, 227–228

T

Tadmor, N., 18 technology, 242 in caregiving older adults, 202 future of families and, 239 intensive mothering and, 188 Tepperman, L., 19 theoretical frameworks, 15–22 on family, 14–28 on family formation, 32–33 on financial insecurity, 66–67 on socialization, 184–185 theory of intergenerational solidarity, 57 thin dating markets, 34 third-generation immigrants, 114, 119 Thomas, G., 170 “Tiger Mothers,” 188 time-stress, 139 Timonen, V., 244 TO Prosperity: Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy, 84 Toronto child poverty in, 80 war on poverty, 84 transfers, income, 73–75 intergenerational, 86 transition houses, 154, 157 transitions, 8 transnational caregiving, 205–206 transnationalism, 119–120 trans people, 193. See also LGBTQI2SA people Treaty 8, 105 Trudeau, Justin, 84, 102 immigration and, 123 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 7, 101–102, 165 Tubman, Harriet, 167 Tuhiwai Smith, Linda, 105 Tull, Faith, 135

U

The Undateables (TV show), 36 Underground Railroad, 167 INDEX

261

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Unemployment Insurance, 83 unitary model, 134 United Nations, 219 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 102 Universal Child Benefit, 84 unmet home-care needs, 205 unpaid work, 129, 131–146 caregiving, 207–208 in caring for older adults, 202–203 data on, 132 division of, 136–140 double burden in, 135 feminist perspectives on, 134–136 in same-sex couples, 140 theoretical frameworks on, 133–136 urban life, Indigenous people and, 107 Ursel, J., 136

V

VandeVusse, A., 10 Vanier Institute of the Family, 54, 56, 241, 244 verstehn, 23 Violence against Women in Canada: Research and Policy Perspectives (Johnson & Dawson), 149 Violence against Women: Myths, Facts, Controversies (DeKeseredy), 152

W

Wabasca, 105 Waldron, Ingrid, 80–96 Watson, John, 184

262

INDEX

Weeds, Danny, 21 welfare states, 83–84 leisure time and, 137–138 managing poverty and, 80 private troubles vs. public issues in, 235–236 residualist, 74 “Western Colonization as Disease: Native Adoption & Cultural Genocide” (Crichlow), 165 widowhood, 236, 240–241 Woldemichael, Solomon, 117 women choices for in family formation, 32 climbing the corporate ladder, 135 egg freezing by, 41 and gendering of Indianness, 103–104 household insecurity and, 68, 75–76 income inequality and, 80 Indigenous roles of, 101 labour force participation by, 5 poverty among, 81–82 unpaid work done by, 7, 10 violence against, normalization of, 148 women’s movement, 132 workplace-based accommodation, 242 World Health Organization (WHO), 219

X

Xiao, Jing, 151

Y

Yew, Acharya-Tom, 135 young carers, 207–208

NEL

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