Canadian Families Today: New Perspectives

373 Pages·2018·14.825 MB·English

by  Patrizia Albanese

OXFORD Fourth Edition
Cana©feo Famofes wdlif
New Perspectives
,——
Edited by
Patrizia Albanese
Fourth Edition
Canadian Families Today
New Perspectives
Edited by
Patrizia Albanese
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Canadian families today : new perspectives / edited by Patrizia Albanese
—Fourth edition.
Third edition edited by David Cheal and Patnzia Albanese
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-19-902576-3 (softcover)
1. Families—Canada—Textbooks. 2. Family policy—Canada—Textbooks.
3. Families—Economic aspects—Canada—lextbooks. 4. Textbooks. 1. Albanese,
Patrizia, editor
HQ560.C3586 2018 306.850971 C2017-905536-4
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Contents
Contributors V
Preface ix
I © Conceptualizing Families, Past and Present 1
1 introduction to Diversity in Canada's Families: Variation in Forms, Definitions,
and Theories 2
Patrizia Albanese
2 Canada's Families: Historical and Contemporary Variations 25
Cynthia Comacchio
3 Same-sex Marriage in Canada 51
Doreen M. Fumia
ll • The Life Course 71
4 intimacy, Commitment, and Family Formation 73
Melanie Heath
5 Parenting Young Children: Decisions and Realities 95
Amber Gazso
6 Separation and Divorce: Fragmentation and Renewal of Families 115
Craig McKie
7 Families in Middle and Later Life: Patterns and Dynamics of Living Longer,
Aging Together 139
Karen M. Kobayashi and Anne Martin-Matthews
III o Family Issues 161
8 Marriage and Death Rituals 163
Deborah K. van den Hoonaard
9 Paid and unpaid Work: Connecting Households, Workplaces, State Polices,
and Communities 183
Andrea Doucet
10 Family Poverty in Canada: Correlates, coping Strategies, and
Consequences 201
Don Kerr and Joseph H. Michalski
11 The Settlement of Refugee Families in Canada: Pre-migration and
Post-migration Trajectories and Location in Canadian Society 225
Amal Madibbo and James S. Frideres
Iv Contents
12 indigenous Families 245
Vanessa Watts
13 Lack of Support: Canadian Families and Disability 267
Michelle Owen
IV • Problems, Policies, and Predictions 291
14 violence in Families 293
Catherine Holtmann
15 investing in Families and Children: Family Policies in Canada 313
Catherine Krull and Mushira Mohsin Khan
16 The Past of the Future and the Future of the Family 341
Margrit Eichler
References 363
index 411
Contributors
Patrizia Albanese is Professor of Sociology, Chair of the Ryerson University Research
Ethics Board, Chair of the Local Organizing Committee for the 2018 International
Sociological Association World Congress of Sociology in Toronto, and a past president
o( the Canadian Sociological Association. She is a book series co-editor with Lome
Tepperman (Oxford University Press); co-editor of Sociology: A Canadian Perspective
(Oxford, 2016); and co-author of Making Sense: A Student's Guide to Research and
Writing—Social Sciences (Oxford, 2017), Growing Up in Armyville (with D. Harrison;
Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016), and Caring for Children: Social Movements and
Public Policy in Canada (with R. Langford and S. Prentice, UBC Press, 2017). She is the
author of Child Poverty in Canada (Oxford. 2010), Children in Canada Today (Oxford,
2016), and Mothers of the Nation (UoFf Press, 2006). She has been working on a number
of research projects that share a focus on understanding family policies in Canada.
Cynthia Coinacchio, Professor, Department of History, Wilfrid Laurier University,
has a PhD in Canadian history from the University of Guelph. Her research focuses
on Canadian social and cultural history, especially the history of childhood, youth, and
family. She has published three books on those subjects, most recently The Dominion
of Youth: Adolescence and the Making of Modern Canada. 1920—1950 (Wilfrid Laurier
University Press, 2006), which received the Canadian History of Education Association’s
Founders Award for best English-language monograph. She is currently collaborating
with Neil Sutherland on Ring Around the Maple: A Sociocultural History of Children and
Childhood in Canada, 19th and 20th Centuries, for WLU Press.
Andrea Doucet is the Canada Research Chair in Gender, Work, and Care and
Professor of Sociology and Women’s 8c Gender Studies at Brock University. She has
published widely on themes of gender and care work, fatherhood, masculinities, parental
leave policies, embodiment, reflexivity, and feminist approaches to methodologies and
epistemologies. Her book Do Men Mother? (UofT Press, 2006) was awarded the John
Porter Tradition of Excellence Book Award from the Canadian Sociology Association.
She is also co-author of Gender Relations: Intersectionality and Beyond (with J. Siltanen,
Oxford, 2008). She is currently completing two long-standing book projects—one
on breadwinning mothers and caregiving fathers and a second book on reflexive and
relational knowing (with N. Mauthner).
Margrit Eichler is Professor Emerita of the University of Toronto/Ontario Institute
for Studies in Education. She has published widely in the areas of family policy, biases
in research that derive from social hierarchies (e.g. sexism, racism, ableism), women’s
studies, and sustainability and social justice. She is a member of the Royal Society of
Canada and the European Academy of Sciences.
James S. Frideres is Professor Emeritus at the University of Calgary. He was the director
of the International Indigenous Studies program and held the Chair of Ethnic Studies.
His recent publications include International Perspectives: Integration and Inclusion with
vl Contributors
]. Biles (McGill Queens) (which is on the Hill Times List of lop 100 books for 2012) and
the ninth edition of Aboriginal People in Canada with R. Gadacz (Pearson, 2012).
Doreen M. Fumia is Associate Professor of Sociology and the Jack Layton Chair al Ryerson
University. Her work examines lesbians and aging, identities, anti-poverty activism, and
neighbourhood belonging in Toronto. She has published in the areas of lesbian motherhood,
non-traditional families, informal learning, and same-sex marriage debates.
Amber Gazso is Associate Professor of Sociology at York University. She completed her
PhD in Sociology at the University of Alberta in 2006. Her current research interests
include citizenship, family and gender relations, poverty, research methods, and social
policy and the welfare state. Her recent journal publications focus on low-income mothers
on social assistance. She is currently working on two major research projects funded by
SSHRC. In one project she is exploring how diverse families make ends meet by piecing
together networks of social support that include both government programs (e.g., social
assistance) and community supports, and informal relations within families and with
friends and neighbours. Another comparative project explores the relationship between
health and income inequality among Canadians and Americans in mid-life.
Melanie Heath is Assistant Professor of Sociology at McMaster University. She is the
author of One Marriage Under God: The Campaign to Promote Marriage in America (NYU
Press, 2012). She has published articles in Gender & Society and Qualitatwe Sociology.
Her current project on “Harm or Right? Polygamy's Contested Terrain Within and Across
Borders” is funded by a five-year SSHRC Insight Grant.
Catherine Holtmann is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of New
Brunswick and Director of the Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence
Research. Her research focuses on gender and religion, domestic violence, immigrant
women, and social action. She is the lead investigator for the SSHRC-funded AfterGrad
NB project team, which explores barriers to post-secondary education for high school
graduates.
Don Kerr is Professor of Sociology at King’s University College at Western University.
His areas of interest are population studies and Canadian demography. His research
has focused on social demography, population estimates and projections, environmental
demography, the Indigenous population, and family demography.
Mushira Mohsin Khan is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and a
Student Affiliate with the Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health at the University of
Victoria. Her research focuses on transnational ties and intergenerational relationships
within mid- to later-life diasporic South Asian families, ethnicity and immigration,
aging, and health and social care. Her work has been published in a collection on health
care equity for ethnic minority older adults (SFU, 2015), the Population Change and
Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series (2015), and in Current
Sociology (2016), and the International Journal of Migration, Health, and Social Care
Contributors vil
(forthcoming). She is the recipient of the SSI-1RC-Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canadian
Doctoral Scholarship (2015-18).
Karen M. Kobayashi is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and the
Centre on Aging at the University of Victoria. Fler research interests include the economic
and health dimensions of ethnic inequality in Canada, intergenerational relationships and
social support in mid-to-later life families, and the socio-cultural dimensions of dementia
and personhood. I ler current research programs focus on the relationship between social
isolation and health care utilization among older adults, access to health and social care
among older visible minority immigrants, living-apart-together (LAI’) relationships in
adulthood, and an evaluation of quality of care in residential long-term care facilities.
Recent work has been published in the Journal of Aging Studies, Ethnicity and Health,
Canadian Review of Sociology, and the Journal of Aging and Health.
Catherine Krull is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Professor in the
Department of Sociology at the University of Victoria. Prior to her arrival at UVic, she
was a professor at Queen’s University. She has served as editor of Cuban Studies as well as
editor-in-chief of the Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Book
publications include Cuba in Global Context: International Relations, Internationalism
and Transnationalism (2014); Rereading Women and the Cuban Revolution (with
J. Stubbs, 2011); A Measure of a Revolution: Cuba, 1959—2009 (with S. Castro, 2010)
and New World Coming: The 1960s and the Shaping of Global Consciousness (with
Dubinsky et al., 2009). She has held research fellowships at the Institute for Advanced
Studies (University of London), the Institute of Latin American Studies (University of
Florida), the Institute of Latin American Studies (David Rockefeller Center, Harvard
University), the Department of Sociology (Boston University), and the Centre for
International Studies (London School of Economics). Currently, she is working on
two monographs, one on the Cuban Diaspora in Canada and Europe (with J. Stubbs,
University of London), and Entangled US/Cuban Terrains: Memories of Guantanamo
(with A. McKercher, McMaster University).
Amal Madibbo is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Calgary. Her
research focuses on immigration, ethnic relations, globalization, and international
development. She has special interest in race and anti-racism, Black francophone
immigration to Canada, and race and ethnicity in sub-Saharan Africa.
Anne Martin-Matthews is Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia.
Her current research focuses on two areas of inquiry in the sociology of aging. The first
examines the provision of health and social care to elderly people, examined from the
perspectives of agency providers, home care workers, elderly clients, and family carers.
Her second area is on widowhood in later life. She is working on CI HR-funded research
on home care in Canada.
Craig McKie is a retired professor of Sociology. He taught at the University of Western
Ontario for several years, spent more than a decade working for Statistics Canada in
vlll Contributors
Ottawa. latterly as editor-in-chief of Canadian Social Trends, and most recently, from
1990 until retirement, he taught in the Department of Sociology al Carleton University.
Joseph H. Michalski is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology.
Kings University College at Western University. His current theoretical work and research
focus is on the geometry ot social space in relation to behaviours as diverse as intimate
partner violence, welfare, and knowledge production.
Michelle Owen is Associate Professor of Sociology and the Disability Studies Advisory
Committee Chair at the University of Winnipeg. She is the director of the Global College
Institute for Health and Human Potential and was given the 2011 Marsha Hanen Award
for Excellence in Creating Community Awareness. She is working on two disability-
related research projects: on how Canadian academics with multiple sclerosis negotiate
the workplace, and the experience of intimate partner violence in the lives of women
with disabilities.
Deborah K. van den Hoonaard is Professor ol Gerontology and Canada Research
Chair in Qualitative Research and Analysis at St Thomas University in Fredericton. New
Brunswick. She is the author of Qualitative Research in Action: A Canadian Primer (OL I’.
2015), B) Himself: The Older Man's Experience of Widowhood (U IP, 2010), The Widowed
Self The Older Woman’s Journey Through Widowhood (WLU Press, 2001), and co-author
(with W.C. van den Hoonaard) of Essentials of Thinking Ethically in Qualitative Research
(Left Coast Press, 2013).
Vanessa Watts is Academic Director, Indigenous Studies at McMaster University. She
is Mohawk and Anishinaabe and is of the Bear Clan. She is currently in the process of
completing her PhD in Sociology at Queen’s University. Her undergraduate degree is
from Trent University in Native Studies and her Master’s Degree was in the Indigenous
Governance Program at the University of Victoria.
Preface
The fourth edition of Canadian Families Today is an introduction to the sociology of
family life that draws on a wide range of materials. In 16 chapters, 20 experts in the field
cover a wide range of topics that introduce you to families in a Canadian context. Several
important updates for this edition reflect the real-word changes experienced by Canadian
families, and the way that focuses of study within the sociology of family life have adapted
and shifted in turn. Chapters throughout the text have been updated wherever possible
with the latest Statistics Canada data—the results of the 2016 Census. Several new au­
thors have been added, including Vanessa Watts, who authors an entirely new chapter on
Indigenous families, reviewing the topic in a broad way through the lens of assimilationist
stale objectives towards the absorption of Indigenous families in Canada.
1'he book is organized into four parts, reflecting its main themes. Part 1 contains the
introductory chapter by Patrizia Albanese, which discusses the diversity of family forms
existing in Canada today, reviews dilferent definitions of the family, and considers how
the changing definition of this concept has had policy implications for access to programs
and privileges or status within society. In Chapter 2, Cynthia Comacchio reviews the
major changes and continuities in the history of Canadian families over the past two cen­
turies. In Chapter 3, Doreen Fumia discusses same-sex marriage in Canada and changes
in marriage law in the form of Bill C-38—the Civil Marriages Act. She explores how
concepts of ‘‘normal" and “abnormal" sexuality continue to demarcate relationships and
thus persist in relegating many Canadians to a position as “other.”
Part 2 provides information about various stages and events in the life course. In
Chapter 4, Melanie Heath focuses on how people form relationships. Heath discusses
technological innovations that have been affecting dating and sexual relationships in
recent years. Amber Gazso, in Chapter 5, focuses on becoming and being a parent of
young children. She outlines some of the activities of parenting, with emphasis on how
everyday practices of parenting are textured by ideological discourses in our society.
In Chapter 6, Craig McKie focuses on how families fragment through separation
or divorce, but often reformulate within the context of a new union. McKie discusses
post-separation hardships, but also concludes that these must be weighed against the real
risks of physical and emotional trauma in relationships that are full of conflict, risks that
are greatly diminished by separation.
Middle age and “old age,” two other stages of the life course, are considered in Chap­
ter 7. Karen Kobayashi and Anne Martin-Matthews focus on the transitions that mark
middle age (e.g., the “empty nest,” caregiving) that are triggered by life events in families
including adult children leaving home or care for aging parents. Chapter 7 also highlights
the central role that families play in the lives of older adults.
Part 3 of Canadian Families Today focuses on some of the many challenges, deci­
sions, and strategies that families face in light of the shifting social, economic, and polit­
ical contexts. In Chapter 8 Deborah K. van den Hoonaard focuses special attention on the
rituals associated with marriage and death. She considers how rituals have evolved over
time, and notes that individuals now exercise greater scope in their choices about how
to conduct rituals. In Chapter 9, Andrea Doucet describes patterns of paid and unpaid