SOCIOL 2QQ3 - Test #2

Divorce rates 

• Did have changes to divorce legislation in the past 

  • 1968 – made divorce accessible 

    • Difficult to access divorce in Canada before this time 

  • 1987 – divorce rates increased 

  • 2021 – legislative reform 

• Made getting a divorce easier just from a legal standpoint 

• Divorce rates are influenced by many factors including women's labour force participation (financial resources), declining stigma around divorce and relationship breakups, introduction of child support and spousal support significant 

• We have limitations in terms of the data that our country has collected on divorce  

  • We know there's been a decline in the divorce rate over the past few decades 

  • Stats Can stopped collecting data on divorce in 2008, didn't provide data until 2022 

    • Huge gaps in our knowledge on divorce in Canada 

• Have gaps in our data on divorce (represents one type of breakup) 

  • Limited in that they don't capture the number of married ppl separated (no longer together but haven't taken the steps to formally/legally divorce) 

  • Given this absence, researchers have tried to use other sources of data 

    • Ex. Tax data to try to understand divorce 

    • Have estimates that 4 in 10 marriages will end in divorce 

  • Don't know enough abt relationship breakups outside of divorce 

• Our understanding of relationship dissolution is limited to whatever data we have  

  • Don't know abt cohabiting relationships, LAT, polyamorous relationships that end 

• Bc a lot of relationships are cohabiting, we don't have a lot of info abt those ones 

• Based on 2016 data, 21% of relationships in Canda were co-habiting relationships  

  • Speaks to the big gap in data 

• As cohabitation has become more popular/prevalent, relying on divorce stats alone is problematic 

  • Increasingly that data underestimates relationship dissolution  

• Mariages represent a big proportion of relationships 

  • Divorce data is important and provides important info abt relationship dissolution in Canada (when they're available) 

Financial implications of divorce + relationship dissolution 

• Fam law structures the division of assets upon relationship dissolution 

  • Wealth that ppl own, can come in dif forms, I.e. real estate, other investment vehicles  

• Fam law in Canada treats married and cohabiting couples dif 

  • Married couples are entitled to an equal division of assets upon divorce 

  • A few provinces have tried to make changes to this 

    • BC has extended this to cover cohabiting couples

      • Made the change to protect ppl who cohabited and broke up 

    • ON – we treat married and cohabiting couples differently  

• Division of assets is in their homes for most Canadians 

  • Includes pensions, both employer sponsored plans but also the Canada pension plan income 

    • Reason that's significant for women – we pay into the Canadian pension plan with every paycheque 

    • Women tend to have more labour force interruptions bc of childcare, childbearing 

    • Upon retirement, women tend to have lower Canadian pension plan (CPP) benefits (money) bc they've taken time out of the labour market bc of having children 

    • Division of assets including CPP, has significant implications for women 

      • Can help to address this issue that a lot of women in retirement don't have financial resources  

• When we say that fam law structures financial obligations to kids (including step kids) and former partners this means that when a couple breaks up there are financial obligations to kids and step kids and former partners that are mandated/required by former law 

  • Can't opt out of it  

  • Fam law regulations child support and spousal support (alimony, US) 

• Child support under fam law is paid to support children when parents breakup regardless of whether parents were in a relationship or not  

• If an adult has assumed a parental role in the lives of step children they could be required to pay child support upon the relationship ending 

  • Regardless of parental relationship  

Child support 

• Rational/goal - meant to cover daily needs for shelter, food, associate costs like utilities, transportation, clothing 

  • Based on the income of each parents 

  • Look at the time that child spends with each parent 

  • When one parent earns significantly more than the other parent, they're required to pay child support to the other parent 

• Increasingly, we see parents spending equal parent time with each parent 

  • Common pattern is for children to spend more time with mothers 

  • Women carry a disproportionate responsibility for caregiving 

  • Often women's incomes in het relationships are lower than their former partner's income 

• SCENARIO: If children have more parenting time with their mother who earns less than their father, the father would be required to pay child support 

• SCENARIO: If mother is earning more than father but spending more time with child, father would still be required to pay child support 

  • Looking at the income of each parent, 

    • Generally, as income goes up, child support requirements go up 

    • As income differentials between parents widen, child support would increase 

    • As the number of children increases, child support increases 

• SCENARIO: Equal parenting time with both parents (het couple with man as higher income) 

  • Looking at income differentials, man in that case would be paying child support to mother 

  • Rationale – notion of the best interest of the child has always been there in fam law 

    • Children should experience a similar economic standard of living in both homes 

    • Not in the best interest of child to live in one home that's amazing and the other is like living in poverty  

    • Legal framework that's used basically  

• Child support can continue past the age of 18 (children in uni) 

  • Rationale – children of relationship dissolution should be able to experience some semblance of similar standard of living across both homes 

  • Reason for this – prior to intro of child support, many mothers and children lived in poverty bc they didn't receive any child support  

Section 7 expenses 

• Not for every day daily living  

• In addition to child support ppl might be required to pay additional expenses related to children 

• These are expenses that include cost of post-secondary education, cost of daycare/before and after care, cost of extracurricular activities, medical and dental care 

  • Rationale - Best interest of their child 

  • Before parent broke up, children still had access to extra-curricular activities 

  • Child shouldn’t be denied these things just cause parents broke up 

Spousal support 

• Money given to a formal partner (spouse or cohabiting partner) 

• Fam courts look at dif factors: 

  • If there is a discrepancy in income 

    • If one partner was financially dependent on their partner throughout the relationship for all kinds of reasons  

  • Look at the length of the relationship 

• Might be awarded or might not  

  • Might be awarded for a short period of time 

    • Generally the case for relationships of short duration (i.e. 5-3 yrs of duration) 

• For longer relationships, spousal support may be rewarded for life/past requirement 

  • Ex. Het couple married for days, woman may not have been in paid employment throughout the marriage 

    • In that case, very good chance that spousal support would be rewarded for life 

• Reflects Canadian Court's recognition of gender inequalities and the labour force stemming from women's domestic roles and caregiving responsibilities 

  • Also come abt bc of neoliberalism 

    • Retreat of the state bc that's weakened the social safety net 

  • Legal scholars have said that as the state has taken a step back from caring for ppl, there's more of an onset for ppl to take care of each other, and has been applied to fam law  

Self-represented litigants 

• Increasing number of Canadians are representing themselves in family court cases (not hiring a lawyer) 

• Called self-represented litigants (not exclusive to fam law) 

  • Becoming normative 

  • Major change from earlier periods 

• According to department of justice report, self-represented litigants come from all income and education levels  

  • Dif reasons why ppl want to self-represent but the big one is cost 

    • Big reason – cost of paying for a lawyer over a long period of time is prohibitive even for middle-income Canadians 

  • Found that some ppl don't think they'd qualify for legal aid, some ppl have difficulties finding a lawyer, some ppl don't trust lawyers, some have been dissatisfied with previous lawyer, ppl feel that they have the ability to self-represent  

    • Tied to the fact that documents related to Fam court proceedings are available online in ways that they weren't during parents gen 

    • Ppl can go online and search up how to fill out legal forms 

  • Experience of self-representation is often negative, anxiety provoking 

    • Many self-represented litigants face difficulties trying to go to court unrepresented 

• Some evidence to suggest that self-represented litigants take up more court time + less likely to settle their cases and reach agreement with their ex-partner 

  • Legal cost for partner who has a lawyer tend to be higher when dealing with a self-represented litigant 

Changes to divorce act in 2021 pt. 1 (language + fam violence) 

• Language that was used  

  • Felt that the language of custody and access were problematic 

  • Instead of terms custody and access, terms parenting time and decision making responsibility would be used in fam law moving forward  

• This change in language was to make breakups and divorce less confrontational 

  • Concern was that previous words could be harmful 

• New divorce act encourage parents to resolve their divorces outside of court through the use mediation or collaborative law 

  • Collaborative approach encourages mediation and problem solving so that disputes don't have to go to court 

• Big change with the fam law changes in 2021, broadened the def of fam violence  

  • Courts saying they're recognizing that there are many dif types of abuse that harm children and adults and these have to be considered in fam law conditions 

    • Recognizing that there are many types of abuse that harm children and adults and have to be considered in fam law decisions 

      • In the past the things they considered abuse were very narrow (physical and sexual abuse) 

      • Now there's a broadened understanding of fam violence  

        • Abusive behaviours like harassment, stalking, financial abuse, threats to harm a pet or threats to damage property  

      • Not acknowledged and recognized as harmful 

    • Broadening of their understanding and def of fam violence is important To keep children and adults safe 

Changes to divorce act pt. 2 (best interest of child)

• Clarified and extended what's meant by the best interest of the child 

  • Important to guide the decision making of judges  

  • It's a consideration of all the items that can help support judicial decision making to make it more comprehensive 

    • Includes a consideration of children's needs and the need for children to have stability and that parents and other ppl in the lives of children cooperative and support children's relationship with both parents  

  • Comprehensive list of items thinking abt what's best for children to be raised in healthy environment 

    • Need to consider children's cultural upbringings, heritage, linguistic heritage, religious/spiritual upbringing  

  • In thinking abt what's best for children, the history of care for the child's taken into account so they can think abt continuing 

  • Views of children are taking into consideration  

• Big change that came abt with this update to fam law 

  • Thinking abt what happens when a parent needs to move 

    • Becoming more common where a parent needs to relocate and what to do in these instances (ex. Parent relocates to a dif province)  

  • Divorce act provides specific rules of procedure for when one parent would like to move and that move would impact the parenting time of the other parent 

    • Relocations are becoming more common bc of jobs, rising cost of housing, re-partnering 

    • These …rules help to clarify the rights and responsibilities of parents 

    • New rules are necessary to ensure children's right to see both parents are protected 

Broadened definition of family violence 

• Fam violence 

  • Means any conduct whether or not the conduct constitutes a criminal offense (only some behaviours are covered under the criminal code, in the past we could only consider things that would get you arrested (I.e. sexual and physical assault) by a fam member towards another fam member that's violent or threatening or that constitutes a pattern of coercive or controlling behaviour or that causes other fam member to fear for their safety or for that of another person, and for the case of a child, the direct or indirect exposure to such content 

    • In the past we could only consider things that could get you arrested 

    • Now we understand there are other things that could harm children that we need to be aware of  

  • Came abt bc of a greater understanding of dif forms of abuse and coercive control 

    • As our understanding of abuse has grown, this has informed this kind of advocacy for children 

  • Includes: 

    • Physical abuse  

      • Would also include forced confinement 

        • Means not allowing someone to exit a vehicle, exit a home 

        • But excluding the use of reasonable force to protect themselves or another person 

          • This doesn't include self-defense 

      • Physical abuse 

      • Sexual abuse  

      • Threats to kill or cause bodily harm to any person 

      • Harassment (including stalking)  

      • Failure to provide necessities of life,  

      • psychological abuse,  

      • financial abuse' 

      • Threats to kill or harm an animal or damage property 

        • + actual killing/harm of an animal or damage to property  

  • Important for protecting children and adults from harmful behaviours  

   

What's meant by the best interest of the child + how to protect it? 

• Important thing is that it's been very thorough in the kinds of things we need to consider in protecting children  

  • Kinds of factors judges need to take into consideration  

    • 1) Child's needs given the child's age and stage of development (such as child's need for stability) 

    • 2) Nature and strength of the child's relationship with each parent, siblings, grandparents, any other person who plays an important role in the child's life  

    • 3) Each parent's willingness to support the development and maintenance of the child's relationship with the other parent 

    • 4) History of the care of the child 

    • 5) Child's views and preferences 

    • 6) Giving due weight to the child's age and maturity 

    • 7) Child's cultural, linguistic, religious, and spiritual upbringings and heritage (including indigenous upbringing and heritage) 

    • 8) Any civil or criminal proceeding, order condition or measure that is relevant to the safety, security, and well-being of the child  

      • In the past if parents were engaged in a custody dispute and there was some kind of criminal litigation or criminal proceeding going on (Ex. Some parent was charged for assaulting other parent) that wouldn't be taken into consideration 

      • Now – saying let's take into consideration and criminal proceeding that's important in figuring out what's in the best interest of the child 

• Broad scope of these factors help to ensure the well-being of the child, and articulate many issues that been overlooked in the past 

  • Ex. The need to consider children's cultural and linguistic heritage and religious and spiritual background 

  • What's new is that the list includes a recognition of the importance of parents and others (ex. Grandparents) working cooperatively to ensure the well-being of children

Effects of divorce and relationship dissolution 

• The impact of relationship dissolution varies/depends on the circumstances 

  • For some its difficult, for others its less challenging 

    • Might be challenging for inds in longer relationships  

      • More complicating factors 

    • Older Canadians may have based their retirement planning on the assumption of remaining in the relationship  

      • Those who are retired or close don't have the luxury of time/paid employment to recover from financial losses 

  • Economic losses 

    • Tied to the amount of time ppl have spent together 

    • Dating relationships can sometimes involve financial losses, often they don't involve the same financial losses as inds cohabiting/married 

• Adverse impact of union dissolution  

  • Can be transient (temporary), or long term 

  • Can think abt how breakups happen 

    • Can be sudden, years in the making, presence of kids can make relationship dissolution complicated esp if there's disagreement of parenting time and decision making (I.e. disputes abt custody and access and financial support) 

    • Not all parents have lived together or been in a relationship before the birth of a child 

    • Many couples breakup up while children are young or during pregnancy, children may have no memory of living with both parents 

• Social scientists + sociologists have said we need to think abt relationship dissolution in terms of before the breakup, during the breakup, and after the breakup 

  • Examining actors at those 3 points in time  

    • Before a relationship breakup there can be many factors that cause the breakup and might be preceded by a short decision making period or a long one  

All breakups are v dif  

• Example: Older children may influence a parent's decision to breakup 

  • For instance when older children might be witnessing abuse, urging a parent to get a divorce/breakup 

• In cases involving fam violence, the arrest of an offender can result in removal from the home and that might precipitate union dissolution 

• During relationship breakup, we know that conflict or abuse might escalate 

  • Research on intimate feminicide, this is a dangerous time for women in terms of leaving the relationship and leaving abusive men 

• Sometimes while couples are in the process of breaking up, we may see one or more partners start pursing a new relationship or start dating 

• During a breakup inds might make decisions related to factors such as where they might live, how assets will be divided, how debts will be managed, how children will be cared for 

  • Inds may use lawyers, mediators, may use a combo of mediators and lawyers to manage a breakup  

• Couples may continue to live together as they sort out the implications of their breakup 

  • Can be required/mandated by law if they have children  

• In some circumstances, when inds can't afford to establish two separate households, they may consider to live together even though they are no longer together 

  • The lack of affordable housing in Canada is often the reason that couples continue to live together for a period of time or even for a long period of time bc they don't have the money to set up two independent households  

• Sociologists focus on the period after union dissolution  

  • Examining factors like physical health, mental health, re-partnering, and the financial implications of union dissolution  

  • Focus of much sociological research has been on the impact of parental relationship dissolution on kids 

  • Fair amount of lit looking at how men vs. Women fare in relationship dissolution  

Relationship dissolution - economic differences for men and women

• One of the major effects of relationship dissolution is economic for men and women but esp for women 

  • For women, income decreases 

  • Reunion dissolution would be a stressful life event according to sociologists who study mental health  

    • Can adversely impact physical and mental health 

• Economic distress 

  • Often accompanies a relationship breakup 

  • If the couple has been together for a while, they base their lifestyle on their two paychecks 

  • Why a lot of ppl experience economic distress 

    • Large contributor to psychological distress 

  • Financial insecurity 

    • Can impact so many dif aspects of daily life 

  • Children  

    • Impacts where a person can afford to live and as a result, that impacts where children can go to school  

    • If you can't afford to live in a neighborhood anymore, that necessitates a schooling change for a child 

      • If you have to do that multiple times, that's multiple school changes for children  

  • Economic distress is only one effect of union dissolution and its aftermath 

    • Other side is emotional stress of things like conflict, the loss of a partner, can be made worse by financial distress 

    • Can begin well before the end of a relationship and can reach its peak when the relationship ends 

  • In the time after a relationship, a lot of ppl experience higher than usual levels of distress in their lives 

    •  A lot of variation in how ppl cope following the end of a relationship and is often tied to financial resources and social support 

    • When a breakup is characterized by conflict, the conflict doesn't always end following relationship dissolution 

      • Particularly when parents have to coparent children 

  • The effects of relationship dissolution on adults both on economic and emotional effects can be surprisingly long lasting 

    • Some ppl never financially recover from the end of a relationships 

Gender differences in union dissolution 

• Some sociologists have looked at gender differences (het couples, what happens when they split) 

  • Economic lit has told us that a historical constant is gender disparities and earnings bc of where women are positioned in the labour market, there's vertical and horizontal segregation in the labour market 

• Body of research on gender differences 

  • Longitudinal research done in other countries shows is that among het couples who've experienced a relationship breakup, it seems to suggest that men's emotional well-being is more adversely impacted over the short term but men's well-being improved over time 

  • Over the long term the economic consequences of economic dissolution for women is far more severe in terms of elevating women's risk of poverty and becoming a lone parent 

    • Seems to suggest that the adverse consequences of divorce and relationship dissolution for men are temporary, whereas the adverse economic consequences for women are more long term 

  • Don't have this kind of research here, but we know that Canadian women experience grater financial insecurity following relationship dissolution 

    • Lone parent households headed by women are at higher risk of poverty and financial insecurity 

    • Lone mothers face many challenges related to the financial insecurity they experience including lack of childcare options, workplace flexibility, lack of affordable housing,  

      • These can lead to chronic stress and a lack of social and economic support  

    • These financial insecurities may worsen as women age and retire 

    • Some evidence that women who divorce after the age of 50 and remain unattached (reason is bc partnership reduces your risk of living in poverty) are more likely to live in poverty as compared to their male counterparts 

Benefits of relationship dissolution  

• Relationship dissolution can create new households where conflict is minimized or eliminated all together  

• Argued that women you go through the divorce process you have ppl in their professional capacities playing a role in the life of the families 

  • Can be the Prescence of divorce lawyers, mediators, professionals (generally social workers), child custody assessors, fam court judges, are entering into the pic and can provide a level of accountability and oversight in problematic situations where children are being impacted by conflict, abuse, other problematic issues 

  • Had been argued as a positive thing for children 

• Parents can be more attentive to the needs of their children and may parent more effectively outside of a relationship content, particularly if that relationship was characterized by a lot of problems or abuse 

  • Esp when parents have support from others, 

• Suggested that parents less involved childcare may be pulled into parenting more and may develop a stronger parent child bond 

  • Particularly true for men less involved in childcare prior to experiencing relationship dissolution  

• After a relationship breakup, some parents find themselves unprepared in the challenges they face and for the lack of supports available to fams 

• Even in the best of circumstances there might be barriers in terms of parents ability to spend time and maintain closeness to children  

  • Technologies like smartphones, iPads provide parents with greater opportunities to connect with children when they're apart 

  • Stats Can  

    • Found that parents are using these technologies to connect with children when their child is with the other parent 

  • Social media and new tech can support ppl who experience absences from parents 

Custody + parenting time 

• Before 2021, parenting time was referred to as custody 

• Stats Can data from 2017 found that 34% of Canadians have sole custody of their children and 63% do not have sole custody  

  • Among the 63%, 53% share custody with the other parent and 10% don't have custody at all 

• Mothers more likely to have sole custody than fathers 

• More than half of parents who don’t' have sole custody of child see them at least once a were while they're with the other parent  

  • 21% visit less than once per week, and 25% never visit 

• More than half of parents who don't have sole custody of their child, live less than 10km from the home of the other parent 

  • Not all parents are spending time with the child and it's not always explained by geography 

• Evidence to find that parental level of satisfaction of time spent with children increases as frequency of contact increases 

• Big issue – employment schedules of parents  

  • The amount of time parents can spend with children is determined by work schedules and parents with more flexible work hours are in a better position to care for children  

  • We know that a lot of these decision abt childcare and paid employment ar made when ppl have children and precede a relationship breakup 

    • Many women make decisions abt paid work when they have children to facilitate childcare even before relationship ends 

    • Bc of these early decisions, it's been argued that these decisions advantage women post breakup as they tend to have employment that's better suited to childcare demands bc that was the plan for when they were in the relationship  

    • Research that's been done on the transition to parenthood finds that finds that its these economic factors that determine how couples make decisions abt who'll be home with the child 

    • Women more likely to work part time or fewer hours than male partners and this facilitates childcare 

    • Even though child care arrangements may be decided by mediators, lawyers, or judges, often it's the realities of paid work that determine parenting time 

Variation in income 

• Impact of relationship dissolution can be life-long, healing, and recovery processes can take time 

• Many factors shape how ppl cope following union dissolution including ppl's access to support whether its informal support, formal support, ppl's own coping skills, their financial resources, the number of children you have (+ their ages), quality of the relationship before the breakup, the circumstances surrounding the breakup 

• Becoming a lone parent makes relationship dissolution challenging for most parents, particularly so when there's economic insecurity  

• Many ppl fare much better following a breakup 

• Important point 

  • Change over time and what's considered normative/society's ideas around the application of stigma 

  • Union dissolution has become normative in 2025 as compared to parent's gen which impacted the choices they could make 

    • Helps ppl to feel less or no stigma at all 

Effects on children (relationship dissolution)

• Has become normative for children to live with parents no longer together or parents in dif relationship  

• Canadian health survey on children and youth showed that that 1 in 5 kids in Canda had experienced a parental divorce/separation 

  • That number isn't inclusive of all types of breakups so it's kind of limited  

• What's becoming normative is family reconfiguration and is experienced by many Canadian children 

  • Bc it's more normative, many children have friends who have also experienced fam reconfiguration 

  • Not all parents have lived together or been in a relationship before or after the brith of a child 

    • Many couple breakup while child is very young or during pregnancy and children doesn’t have any memory of living with both parents 

• Big predictor of children's well-being is the level of conflict they’re exposed to by their parents 

  • A lot of variation in how parents breaking up impacts children  

  • Research shows children do best when parents are doing well emotionally, physically, and financially 

  • For lone parents, their ability to parent effectively is an important predictor for how children cope following parental relationship dissolution  

    • Children exposed to parental conflict have worse outcomes esp in terms of physical health and well-being 

    • True for children whose parents are still together (it's being exposed to parental conflict) 

• Children need to be in an environment where they're not exposed to parental conflict, AND they need certainty that their daily routines are maintained  

  • Children are resilient and the circumstances of parental breakup are important 

    • Children exposed to fam violence or parental conflict before a breakup fare better following parental relationship dissolution 

    • Children exposed to prolonged parental conflict are adversely impacted in many ways 

      • Not only physical health, mental health, but also academic progress, academic success, risk taking behaviour/juvenile delinquency 

      • Look at risk taking behaviour 

        • True regardless of fam structure/parental relationship dissolution  

  • Children from high conflict, divorced families are more adversely impacted than children from low conflict divorced fams 

  • Research that shows that children are negatively impacted when their parentsare engaged in prolonged fam court litigation and conflict over things like parenting time  

Economic insecurity 

• It's almost impossible to disentangle factors that accompany parental relationship dissolution from the effects of the dissolution itself 

  • For instance, most children experience greater economic insecurity  

    • This often necessitates or results in residential moves, which then the cascading effect is school moves 

• When cohabiting or married couples break up, ppl often experience downward social mobility and this reduction in standard of living is more likely to be experienced by women 

  • Women's lower incomes result in this common scenario: 

    • Each person needs to buy their own home, but you have to be able to qualify for mortgage  

    • Women's lower incomes result in a situation where they can't qualify for mortgage on their own (increasingly true for men bc of the high cost of housing in Canda) 

    • As a consequence, many women rely on rental housing 

    • Economic consequence - not able to build equity overtime through home ownership 

  • Women's responsibility for caregiving impacts their ability to earn a higher income  

  • Home ownership – more common among partnered than unattached Canadians bc you have two paychecks to be able to afford a home 

• Data on women vs. Men, relationship or not, home owner or not 

  • Data that unattached women without children are slightly more likely to own a home than their male counterparts 

    • Suggests that the economic cost of motherhood reduce Canadian women's opportunities for home ownership 

  • Home ownership – ppl able to build equity overtime which creates wealth for homeowners 

    • For a lot of ppl that's their retirement plan 

  • Many women can't afford to stay in the same home following a breakup 

    • Residential moves are followed by school moves  

    • From the child's perspective, the loss of support from familiar ppl at a school can be detrimental to children and youth  

  • Women who are lone parents are less likely to own a home than are men who are lone parents 

  • Many women can't qualify for a mortgage following a breakup which means that they might have to rent, or as a parent to cosign on a mortgage 

    • This decline in financial security is a reality for many children and evidenced by the fact that female headed lone parent households are more likely to live in poverty 

    • Lone mothers may not be able to provide for the financial needs of children and youth 

      • Ex. Saving for post-secondary education 

Fam transitions – how does parental relationship dissolution impact children? 

• Researches know very little on how children are impacted by fam transitions and fam reconfiguration 

  • A lot of fam reconfiguration if their partner re-partners multiple times 

  • When parents re-partner, children are exposed to more ppl, may have more adults for support 

    • However, subsequent breakups – children may lose these new adults 

  • Children are impacted by these transitions, how did the relationships between their parents and new partners unfold? 

    • Relationship progression – might be that their parents have gradually transitioned to a new relationship 

    • Some ppl, they don't transition gradually, they transition quite suddenly 

    • But we don’t know how this impacts kids bc we don't have the data 

    • Presence of step-siblings can complicate things 

• Blended fams tend to have more financial challenges which can impact children 

  • Might be the fact that the number of children have to go through and the nature of those transitions that might be what's more important than parental relationship dissolution  

    • But we don't know cause we don’t collect data on this 

• Earlier research on the impact of divorce on kids/parent relationship dissolution suggested there were many adverse effects 

  • More recent research suggests that the picture is more complex than previously thought 

  • Researchers today would challenge the idea that parental relationship dissolution is uniformly for all kids problematic 

    • Would suggest that children are resilient, have coping strategies, and we need to better understand the specific factors that lead to negative outcomes for kids  

    • Given that we know that parental relationship dissolution is now normative, (in the past there was a tendency to pathologize it) and there's been a shift 

    • Parental relationship dissolution can sometimes lead to beneficial changes for kids 

• Many sociologists advocate for a shift in the discourse away from blanket statement that say that parental relationship dissolution creates all kinds of harms for kids towards understanding the advantages and disadvantages of relationship dissolution for children and adults 

  • Earlier research highlighted that it's all negative for kids, and doesn't matter what the measure is (if the dependent variable is academic outcomes, level of education obtained, behavioural issues, etc) 

• Children are more likely to live with their mothers following parental relationship dissolution 

  • Many women might need to work more hours in paid employment to be able to survive financial 

  • Economic reality might lead to declines in parental supervision which can be a cascading effect and result in greater academic problems, behavioural issues, etc 

Effects of divorce on children in the past

• Research has shown that the effects on children and parents depends on what''s happening in the fam before the breakup and the quality of fam relationships during and after the breakup 

• If there's abuse, violence, hostile environment, divorce and relationship breakup might provide relief 

• Effects on kids depends on the society's values 

  • If the community believes parents breaking up is always bad, the impact on kids will be worse 

• Some writer have suggested that the negative long term effects of parental relationship dissolution on children may have become so exaggerated that it's become a self-fulfilling prophesy 

• More recent research shows that a mother's level of education and income are important factors in terms of dependent variables like children's academic success 

Health and well-being 

• Some evidence to suggest that parental breakups can increase the risk of depression for adolescents in 2 ways 

  • 1) the parents splitting up may be as source of other kinds of problems like poverty and stressors that cause the depression 

  • 2) can change the young person's reactions to these stresses 

    • Sometimes increasing depression 

• Makes it difficult for researchers to sort out the independent effects of parents splitting 

• Separation and divorce can improve fam functioning esp if custody rules are agreed upon, if there's civility 

• Parents with joint custody 

  • Mothers with joint custody report lower levels of parenting stress and better co-parenting relations than sole custody mothers 

    • However, joint custody is known to be more likely and workable for couples who get along to begin with 

  • Joint custody or shared parenting time is becoming more common  

  • Research that's looked at whether joint custody is better for kids  

    • Produced mixed findings and we need more research on this question 

      • Meta-analyses (research looks at all the studies done on this question) Steinbach 

        • Conclusion – evidence that joint custody can have positive effects on kids but more research is needed bc of selection effects  

        • Bc parents who have joint custody don't reflect the entire population of couples who go through a breakup 

        • Tended to be more highly educated parents of higher SES and had lower levels of conflict  

        • Bc of selection effects, Steinbach concluded that we don't have a clear conclusion abt whether joint custody is better for kids 

        • The risks and benefits of joint custody are unclear and more research is needed 

Positive effects of parental relationship dissolution on kids 

• More research being done on the positive effects of relationship dissolution on kids 

  • Research on kids who have gone through parental divorce find that some children develop important skills such as coping skills, ability to manage conflict, ability to manage difficult situations, some children become more independent, some children develop greater emotional resilience, divorce can lead to an expansion of social networks and support for kids 

    • Might gain additional ppl in their lives like step-parents, step-grandparents, additional aunts/uncles  

• Some evidence to suggest that parental divorce can result in stronger parent child relationships  

• Lack of research on the positive impacts of parental relationship dissolution on kids and reflects earlier biases regarding relationship dissolution  

• Parental relationship dissolution is correlated with other factors like greater financial insecurity 

  • Very important for researchers to avoid making sweeping generalizations abt kids who have experienced parental relationship dissolution  

  • Some children are adversely impacted and others fare better when their parents split up 

    • Based on so many factors like financial resources, level of conflict, and we can't disentangle parental relationship dissolution from so many other factors like exposure to conflict, financial insecurity, transitions, and living arrangements 

    • Future research needs to clearly identify what are the factors to help support children and adults going through relationship breakups  

Defining unpaid labour, etc 

• Paid and unpaid labour 

  • The work that you do for pay and everything you do at home to care for yourself, the ppl, animals, etc that you care abt 

    • Bc those things intersect you need paid employment to take care of all of those  

• Sociologists, economists, etc used to use the term domestic labour  

  • Refers to all of the work in maintaining where you live, caring for the ppl you care abt  

• Today we hear more the language of unpaid work 

  • Any unpaid work to take care for the ppl you care abt to maintain your home 

  • Can include housework, all forms of caregiving (childcare, eldercare), can be done in a dif household (ppl doing eldercare in a nursing home, aging parents home, hospital, etc)  

• All of us will experience this to some extent whether we're the care provider or care receiver 

  • Caregiving an eb the care of children, someone you care abt that's ill, a lot of ppl cared for ppl during covid (pll with long covid), caring for ppl who have an injury, the elderly, or a loved one dying, loved one with a disability, someone with a terminal illness 

• Care work that ppl do is a long laundry list 

  • Helping an elderly parent with banking, attending medical appointments, language barriers – being interpreter, a lot of us need someone in an appointment a medical professional bc we need help in understanding what the specialist might be saying  

  • Sometimes for a lot of us the caregiving that we do, we're faced with a medical diagnosis we have to learn abt and do research 

    • Not just physically providing care but also doing all that research 

    • For a lot of ppl that research can be like a deep dive 

Unpaid labour 

• A lot of Canadians dace difficulty in trying to manage paid and unpaid labour when they're care providers 

• Unpaid labour is gendered 

  • Women continue to perform a disproportionate amount of unpaid labour despite their participation in paid work 

• Paid labour and unpaid labour mutually reinforce each other 

  • Bc it's gendered, women's responsibility for their loved ones affects and structures their decisions abt pad employment 

  • There are also ideas out there in the labour market that employers have abt women's responsibilities for caregiving which impact hiring decisions and impact decisions around promotion 

    • Generally abt women and caregiving responsibilities that can factor in hiring decisions and deicison abt advancement and promotions 

• If we track women's labour force participation there's been an increase for decades + steady increase in dual earner families 

• Our population is aging and 

• Census from 2011 to 2016, can saw the largest increase in the number of seniors since the beginning of the country 

  • We now have more seniors than children  

  • Caregiving will intensify, at the same time that government funded care 

    • Big element of care is home care 

    • Done in the patients home 

    • We know that it's so inadequate (the kind of care ppl need if they're terminal, etc) 

    • The historical trend we learned abt smaller families (one kid fams) means that there's fewer adult children to share in elder care bc ppl don't have siblings 

      • It'll all fall on their shoulders 

• Prediction 

  • Will spend more years of our life caring for parents than children  

What does domestic labour entail? 

• Not only caring for the ppl we love, maintaining our home to facilitate the care fo the ppl that we love  

• If domestic labour can't be done by a famit could be bc of disability, time spent in work 

  • For some Canadians, it becomes necessary to hire someone to do this labour (any facit of caring for someone or caring for a home)  

• This domestic labour includes finding someone and organizing someone to do this 

  • Can be a lot of labour to find the right person  

• Sociologists more commonly refer to domestic labour as unpaid labour  

  • Bc under industrial capitalism that labour is unpaid unless you hire someone/outsource that labour to ppl like 

    • Ex. medical care – nurse, personal support worker, home maintenance – house cleaner, outside work – someone to cut grass, care of children, babysitter, nanny) 

  • Historically unpaid labour is outsourced generally to women who come from more marginalized backgrounds 

    • Newcomers, migrant labour, women of colour, poor women  

    • Often bc the wages are structured in relation to the wages of Candian women's 

      • Would be less than what a woman might earn  

• Caregiving extends beyond children and includes adults 

• A lot of Canadians provide care to more than one person at a time 

  • Ex. Your own aging parents, spouses aging parents 

• Caregiving has financial costs 

  • Ex. Hospital parking 

Impact caregiving has on the caregiver 

• Impacts their physical health, sometimes caregiver dies first bc of the stress of caregiving 

• Their physical and mental health especially if care work is time intensive 

• We're seeing caregiver burnout and it will intensify it 

  • The ppl who see it are emergency room physicians 

• Positives of being a care provider 

  • Can be emotionally rewarding to be a care provider 

    • Not all aspects of caregiving or other types of domestic labour are rewarding  

    • Can be emotionally taxing, unpleasant, monotonous, and repetitive 

      • Can impact the mental health of inds who do it  

• Caregiving is most time consuming when children are young  

  • Some ppl have suggested that it declines as children gets older, but not sure if accurate 

  • Women spend more hours on childcare than men 

    • Even among dual earner couples where both parents work full time (het couple) 

    • Stats can data that show that women still spend twice as many hours on childcare per week than men do 

  • Often we see women do a lot of multitasking 

    • Ex. Taking kids grocery shopping 

• With aging population, time spent on elder care has increased and women spend more time on eldercare than men  

• Canadians who are care-provides face challenges like being a caregiver and working full time 

  • May or may not have flexibility in their employment 

  • Most ppl don't though 

• Canadians care for fam members themselves, even middle class Canadians 

  • The cost of paying a professional is prohibitive 

  • For ageing parents, cost of paying for personal support worker is prohibitive even for middle class Canadians 

  • Why they're doing it themselves bc they can't afford someone to do it 

  • Long waiting list for spots in care facilities and palliative care  

• Older Canadians – asked who they'd prefer to care for them 

  • Survey data find that many elderly Canadians say they'd prefer a professional to do it bc they don't wanna be a burden or impose on their fam 

  • Unless you're affluent, private care is unaffordable for most 

• Elder care as older care recipients often experience declining physical mobility 

  • Physical demands of elder care increases for them 

Data shows that caregiving impacts women's employment 

• Data on women reducing their hours of paid work in order to do elder care 

  • Has consequences for retirement 

• Many women quit or think abt quitting their jobs cause it's too difficult to manage caregiving and working full time 

• Sandwich gen 

  • Inds who are caring for kids and aging parents at the same time 

  • With longer life acceptancy, more Canadians are living into their 80s and 90s 

• More Canadians are working past the age of 65 

  • Often bc they can't afford to retire at this age 

  • If they're living into 80s and 90s, their parents are still alive, you're less available to provide care for elderly parents bc you can't afford to retire 

• Large number of ppl in their 90s that live in their own household  

  • 57% of seniors in their 90s live in households rather than nursing homes 

  • 29% live alone  

    • Will require help from whoever 

Unpaid labour is multifaceted (pt. 1)  

• Has mental components like having to do research abt a medical diagnosis 

  • Has physical, emotional, spiritual aspects 

• Not always noticeable, can become challenging for social scientists to measure  

  • Ex. Pet care takes time, energy, money, not visible form of unpaid labour  

    • Can include predictable things 

• Can sometimes be unpredictable 

  • Biggest reasons why unpaid labour and caregiving is stressful 

  • Whereas work and school are predictable structures 

  • Not knowing when someone you love may become ill or in need of an appointment or emotional support makes it incompatible with the structured nature of the labour force 

  • Physical things like illnesses, injuries, medical treatment, recovery – unpredictable processes that can be stressful if recovery isn't going to plan or things that are unanticipated are  

    • Incongruent with the reality of most workplaces 

  • Most Canadian parents work full time but employees aren't able to miss work to care for fam members 

    • No employment policies in place for this 

    • Bc of that most Canadians who need to stay home to take care of ex. a sick child, they use their own vacation days, sick days, take unpaid time off work 

      • some ppl have sympathetic employers or are secure in their position 

        • In a better position to be honest/transparent to their employer, but most Canadians aren't in that position 

        • Esp the growing number of workers who are precariously employed 

Unpaid labour is multifaceted (pt. 2)  

• Two parent home vs. Single home 

  • Two parent home 

    • Even if both parents are precariously employed they can negotiate which parent will stay home to take care of sick kid so job security isn't compromised 

  • Single parent home 

    • They don't have this kind of advantage and may compromise employment to care for a sick loved one 

• Self-employed/small business 

  • Most small business owners don't have any employees 

  • Ppl on temp work, seasonally employed, on contract 

    • Growing number of ppl in those situations may jeopardize their employment if they miss work 

  • Non salaried workers with low hourly wages may find it difficult to pay monthly bill even if they miss a single day's worth of wages 

• Often see a lot of parents go to work when they're sick cause they've used up their sick days 

• Parents stressed abt losing their jobs (taken too many sick days) resort to not disclosing symptoms to a daycare or school or giving the kid Tylenol to reduce the fever and dropping them off know that it’ll be good for a few hours  

  • They know they're only work for a few hours before having to pick up the kid/getting the call  

• Even though we're working towards universal childcare, a lot of parents are still paying for before and after care and might be stretched financially if child can't attend and can't miss work they have to find someone to care for kid but they don't have a lot of money to do that 

• True of parents who have two or more preschool aged children, spend most of their incomes on child care and before and after child care  

• Inverse relationship between caregiving and health 

Caregiving and health 

• As caregiving intensity increases, mental and physical health declines  

• Unpaid labour effects women's emotional and physical well-being 

  • Ex. Het couple 

• Among het couples, well-being is lowest, and depression is highest amongst wives whose husbands do little housework 

• Studies that look at marital status and gender 

  • Marriage benefits men's health  

    • Married men report better health than non-married men  

    • Same not true for women 

  • Single women report better health than married women  

  • Among het couples, marriage offers a protective health benefit for men 

  • The burden of housework childcare has a detrimental impact on het married women's health 

    • Housework, childcare, reduces the time that anyone (esp women) can spend on self-care, leisure, sleep, exercise, medical appointments 

• Eldercare is emotionally challenging as caregivers cope with defining physical and mental abilities and stress of responding to medical emergencies  

• Research on organization of fam financials see that women who oversee fam budgets experience stress and worry as a result of their responsibility for financial management 

  • Even tasks we might think are optional or enjoyable might cause worry if deadlines aren't met  

    • Ex. Missed deadline for pizza day (for kids)  

    • Not getting pizza when everyone else does, etc 

  • Failure to perform unpaid labour has consequences for ppl and sometimes thee consequences are minor or quite serious 

  • Failure to notice a medical condition, address medical needs of a fam member before medical problem becomes even more severe or life threatening 

  • Caregivers can experience a lot of stress in trying to determine the seriousness of medical problems 

    • Esp in the era of not being able to access physician care 

      • Evaluating whether a medical issue is improving or getting worse 

      • Having the responsibility following up (take loved one to ER, doctor, etc)  

• Medical conditions, recoveries, etc are unpredictable and creates a lot of stress for inds and accessing healthcare 

Division of labour in the home 

• Sociologists + economists talk abt productive labour (under this category is paid and unpaid work) 

  • Suggest that if we measure the total number of hours men and women do of productive labour 

    • Men tend to do more hours of paid labour and women do more hours of unpaid labour  

• Children increase the time spent on unpaid labour 

• There's a fair amount of evidence that women perform a disproportionate amount of unpaid labour (in het relationships) even if they're working the same number of hours as their full time husbands 

• Gender inequalities in terms of how much time they're putting towards caregiving are great at midlife as women are caring for both children and aging parents 

• Factors associated with unpaid labour and division of unpaid labour  

  • Division of unpaid labour varies depending on the presence of children, ages, employment status of spouses 

  • educational attainment and age are important 

  • Among het couples in those relationships where the man is in paid employment (women in male breadwinner fams who are unemployed) do much unpaid labour than women who are in dual earner fams 

  • Women in dual earner fams who work part time hours do more unpaid labour than women in dual earner fams who work full time hours 

  • Men in dual earner relationships do more unpaid labour than men in male breadwinner relationships where the woman is not in paid employment 

Division of labour in the home (time)

• When we track gender inequalities overtime, those inequalities seem to be narrowing over time 

  • Overtime the number of hours men and women are spending on unpaid labour is narrowing over time 

  • Why? 

    • Part of it is that men are doing more 

    • Part of it is bc women are reducing the time they spend on household labour bc they're doing things like modifying their approach, lower standards for cleanliness, relying on convenience items like prepared or takeout foods 

    • Social class relevant 

      • Middle class women are in a greater position to outsource housework like paying other women for things like house care and childcare 

      • High income fams where wives earn more than husbands are more likely to outsource than high income fams led by male breadwinners 

  • Outsourcing doesn't always translate to greater equality in the time men and women spend in unpaid labour  

  • Younger couples are more likely to have greater sharing of household labour  

  • Optimistic thing for us  

  • More highly educated women tend to spend less time on household labour than women with less education  

    • Cost of having to do household labour are higher for more highly educated women and that serves as a deterrent 

    • Women who are more highly educated have greater economic resources to resist doing household labour 

Perceptions of fairness 

• When you ask Canadians abt their division of labour they say it's fair 

  • Among LGBTQ+ relationships, here's more sharing but among het couples, women are doing more but when you ask them if things are fiar they say yes 

  • Why? 

    • Might be that women have attempted and failed to get male couples to do more and they've resigned themselves to this unequal division of paid labour 

    • Some have suggested its bc motherhood changes women's identity and that some women may view childcare as an extension of their identities as mothers and so inequality in childcare is more acceptable to them 

    • Arlie Hochschild has talked abt the economy of gratitude  

      • Women feeling grateful that their husbands did anything at all 

    • Feeling lucky that their husband did anything  

      • Knew other couples where husband did less than your own 

    • Women may be reluctant to accept the truth/acknowledge the inequality 

      • May not want oot accept that their male partners aren't invested enough or care enough abt the relationship to do more if they've expressed that they want them to do more  

  • Women might feel economically coerced to stay in a relationship or decide to stay bc of responsibilities to children 

    • Have a lot of beliefs that a two parent fam is better than a single parent fam 

    • This realization that being a single parent, one income fam will lead to a lower standard of living for your child, so they accept that reality 

Gender disparities in earnings and caregiving 

• Despite progress women have made in post-secondary education and labour market, what's been a historical constant is on average we see gender disparities in earnings 

  • Men earn more than women on average 

  • Women have always earned less than men even when employed in a similar job/field  

  • some economists have looked at marital status (how much ppl make, gender, marital status) 

    • Gender disparities in earnings (men earning more than women) are narrower when you compare single women to single men, but they widen when you compare married women's income to married men's income 

      • Difference reflects the fact that marriage leads women to do more caregiving and housework  

      • Women with kids earn less than women without kids, gap widens more for single mothers 

      • Gap between mothers and childless women (sometimes called the child penalty) has been described as the motherhood earnings gap 

  • Research done where couple has had the baby, decision of who stays home is often based on money 

    • Lower earning spouse stays at home, tends to be women  

    • Many Canadian women earn incomes lower than partners and more likely to stay home with babies  

Needs of kids  

• Motherhood, women's responsibilities for caregiving and domestic labour may leads some women to scale back their careers 

• Women with young children or children with disabilities make decisions abt their careers 

  • Like not accepting a position if they know part of the job requires a lot of travel or overnight absences from home, long commutes 

  • Not open to these kinds of jobs 

• Home daycares/daycares don't offer childcare during evenings or weekends  

  • Working parents and working mothers, single mothers may not be able to accept work in the evening hours unless they have some other form of childcare or help 

• Parents made decision abt childcare and being absent from their kids not only based on money but the ind aspects of their kids and their needs 

  • Some kids are resilient and better able to withstand disruptions in their daily routines (having parents who travel for work) but not all kids are resilient and need more consistency like seeing parents in the morning or at bedtime 

• The needs of kids informs the decision making of parents 

Gender based inequalities 

• Informed by sociologists, economists 

• Looking at issues like budgeting, labour involved in budgeting, bank accounts (joint, separate)  

  • Research done on the social meanings of money, how do we understand money, our relationship to money 

  • Inequalities in access to money for personal spending 

• We see gender based inequalities in these studies of fam finances 

  • Overall this scholarship suggests that women tend to have responsibility for budgeting but less decision making power over important financial decisions and less access to money for personal spending and a greater likelihood of experiencing economic inequality and financial deprivation  

    • Talking abt things like tracking expenses, food bills, using coupons (budgeting)  

• Money management practices (joint account, separate accounts, etc) vary depending on the type of fam and relationship 

  • Length of the relationship important factor (new relationship vs. Logn relationship)  

  • Relationship status shape how couples organize banking, spending, saving 

• Relationships of longer duration, its more common to see couples using joint accounts and pooling their income  

  • More common for couples who have been together longer and married couples rather than cohabiting couples  

• Separate bank accounts  

  • Ppl's perceptions or ideas abt where the relationship is headed, these shape how ppl feel abt the money they earn 

    • Whether it's to be shared, jointly owned, separately own 

  • More common among new relationships, cohabiting/common law relationships, relationships where one of the ppl or both have previously gone through a divorce  

• If couple shave separate bank accounts how do they use their accounts? 

  • Varies by gender 

    • Women more likely to use their separate bank account for collective expeditors (fam vacation)  

      • Tend to be more fam focused in their spending  

    • Mena are more likely to use separate bank accounts for personal expeditors  

Joint bank accounts 

• The opening of a bank account or a shift in their mindset towards viewing each ind paycheck as collective/joint money can accompany the transition to living together or getting married  

• Many women experience economic inequality in intimate relationships  

  • Can include things like  

    • Having less money for personal spending 

    • Financial deprivation 

    • Lack of access to access to male partner's income 

    • Lack of decision making power 

• One approach that has become more popular overtime is called partial pooling 

  • Each person in the relationship have separate bank accounts, get a joint accounts, and contribute equally to shared household expenses  

  • The fact that women earn less than men on average, concern raised is that partial pooling reinforces women's economic inequality bc women's contributions are not proportional to income 

    • If one person is making $200,000 a year and one person is making $30,000 and you're equally contributing to rent, the person who makes $200,000 a year will have more left over for personal spending 

• Research on women's experiences of financial deprivation in marriage 

  • Research which indicates that in order to save money on food, some women will serve their male partners more food and better quality food than they feed themselves and their family  

Doing Gender – West & Zimmerman 

• If we think abt what kind of bank account to have might vary depending on the relative income of each partner 

  • Women in paid employment may have greater involvement in finances, greater access to male partner's wages, but in het couples where women outearn their husbands, there's a lot of research which suggest women do not use their higher earnings to claim greater power in their marriage 

    • Say this is bc of gender norms - the fact that women earn more, they're not gonna use that to exert greater power or control 

• W & Z explanation 

  • Women trying to achieve a more conventional marriage by deferring to their husbands over any financial issues (let him make the decision), they don’t use their economic power to claim any greater power in the relationship (ex. Greater decision making)  

• W & Z's idea of doing gender is helpful when thinking abt why women who outearn their husbands/are the primary breadwinner in het often undertake more unpaid labour bc they're doing gender  

  • If you violate gender norms by being the breadwinner, if it's important to you to enact femininity, you're gonna find another means to do that 

• Some ppl suggest that pooling money into a joint account is done bc the woman outearns the man and is trying to obscure that fact 

  • Been cited as a means for women to minimize their own power and to tyr to protect a man's self-respect (for some men its challenging for them to not be the breadwinner) 

• Another strategy that some women do to avoid having too much power is they completely give up/relinquish control over fam finances to their husband 

  • Won't know what's coming in or coming out 

• Rosanna Hertz 

  • Describes some women as being squeamish abt money and not wanting to understand finances even when husbands wanted them to be more actively involved  

Predatory marriage/sexually transmitted debt 

• Predatory marriage  

  • Language or term used where person pursues marriage only for financial gain, often a younger person marrying an older person with the objective of assuming control over that person's financial affairs and gaining access to all of their assets  

  • Looks like a person preying on the advanced age of another person for financial gain  

  • The offending spouse attempt to isolate new spouse including adult children so that their financial transactions remain hidden 

    • Seeing more media stories abt this 

    • Has legal consequences 

      • Courts grappling with question of whether an older person has the mental capacity to enter into a new marriage and forgo control over their financial affairs to a new spouse 

  • Not limited to older Canadians and not a recent thing 

• Sexually transmitted debt 

  • Often seen in relation to romantic relationships  

  • Described as being in a relationship to someone and asking them to co-sign onto something/any way to access credit 

  • Often financial transparency is absent 

  • Concern has been around women co-signing on things and not understanding they're now legally liable for it 

    • Men can be victims too  

  • Can occur in any fam relationship where a fam member is asking another person they have a long history with to co-sign on smt and that person is not responsible for that debt 

    • Ex. A parent might feel obligated to co-sign a business loan or mortgage out of worry abt the welfare of their child or their grandchildren 

      • Ppl can use emotional coercion to get the person to co-sign 

Lessons learned from the pandemic 

• Issue that got the most press during the pandemic was the situation experienced by seniors who are residents at long term cate facilities 

• Impacted the mental health of many Canadians, and their physical health  

• Job losses – created a lot of economic insecurity for many ppl and fams 

• Placed a lot of stress on caregivers  

• Has had long lasting health consequences (mental health esp of youth), long covid, long lasting economic consequences (businesses that went out of business) 

• Healthcare system 

  • Profoundly impacted by the pandemic 

  • Wasn't designed for an aging population 

    • Often see chronic illnesses, multiple illness, kind of illnesses where ppl needed care from dif specialists  

      • These kinds of medical diagnoses more prevalent in an aging population is inconsistent with how our health care system was designed decades ago 

    • Hospitals were designed to deal with acute illnesses (I.e. pneumonia, appendicitis) 

    • A lot of care ppl need in their lives (esp aging population) may not hospital or institutional care 

      • But the majority of the care ppl need is either care they can provide for themselves, or homecare 

  • Home care for inds who qualify for it 

    • Government doesn’t provide enough funding for home care despite the fact that it's cheaper to do that than hospitalization or institutional care 

    • We have insufficient funding for home care 

Long term care facilities 

• Most likely to be hospitalized or die from covid 

• Number of deaths during the pandemic highlighted so many of the pressing problems in long term care 

• We have long term care facilities for profit (owned by companies) 

• Issues raised – need for more funding, better regulation and oversight so that residents have some basic standard of care, need for greater staffing 

  • Surfaced during the pandemic 

• Residents were more likely to become infected by covid, require hospitalization, or to die of the virus 

• Very reliant on loved ones for visits, helps maintain physical and emotional health and a decline in cognitive health  

  • During pandemic, these facilities prevented loved ones and fam members from accessing their loved ones from entering the buildings 

  • Consequence – unable to monitor the well-being of their loved ones 

• Staff shortages and other problems lead to the death of many residents 

  • Not just for covid, lots of reports of residents in long term care facilities and nursing homes who died of dehydration and malnutrition bc of staff shortages 

  • Some evidence that inds who were in for profit long term care facilities, were more likely to get infected and die of covid 

  • Lead to the call/advocacy around the need to overhaul the long-term care system and some have even called for the elimination of for profit long term care facilities  

  • These problems existed before the pandemic but the pandemic brought greater attention to these issues 

    • Fam members instrumental in providing informal care 

    • Many residents experienced cognitive decline  

• Pandemic exposed the chronic underfunding and nursing shortages in these facilities 

  • Bc of underfunding, etc, residents don't receive adequate daily care 

  • Employees working in these facilities 

    • Have to look at employment conditions like low pay, stressful working conditions, issue with violence in long term care facilities or patients being aggressive bc of cognitive decline 

  • We see a high degree of employee burnout and high turnover 

  • Advocacy groups have called for better compensation of these workers 

  • For profit centers (businesses that have shareholders) 

    • Were receiving government fundings and making enough money that they were paying dividends to their shareholders and residents were dying to malnutrition and dehydration 

  • Advocacy groups are demanding that residents be guaranteed a standard of care  

• Need more comprehensive social policy to better protect seniors and ppl who do elder care 

Working parents/work life balance/impact of school closures

• Working parents/childcare (mothers) 

  • With lockdowns, daycares and school closures impacted fams 

  • Highlighted the challenges faced by working fams esp mothers 

    • Many mothers left the labour market (she-session)  

      • Mostly women with very young children 

• Work life balance and social policy 

  • More and more ppl are working remotely  

  • Rise of remote work underscores the importance that we need better policies in place to support work life balance 

    • Why? Need to protect the well-being of workers 

  • Beginning to see some policies around work life balance but some of the legislation put into place is problematic 

    • No enforcement, up to the discretion of the employee/employers 

    • A lot of work that needs to be done in terms of policy to protect our well-being 

• Impact of school closures 

  • Learned the importance of in-person schooling of children and for youth  

  • Children and youth don't have the same advantages as their parents/adults do in terms of established social networks 

  • Don't know the long term consequences on learning, mental health, physical health 

    • There's a lot of concern that those school closures adversely impacted them mental health of children and youth 

    • Need more work done on understanding that and on technology (with regards to children)  

  • Vision 

    • Lead to a lot of myopia on children (one example of long term consequences of remote learning on children) 

Fam violence/families separated

• Family violence/child abuse 

  • One of the problems in terms of data is that with school closures, there was not a reduction in child abuse bc chidlren were not going to school and school is a primary spot where adults can notice/report abuse  

    • There was a decline in reporting of child abuse (not a decline of actual child abuse)  

      • We have evidence from emergency room physicians of children being brough into ER bc they have experienced abuse (ex. Head trauma)  

  • Evidence that a lot of incidents of fam violence increased during the pandemic 

    • Victims couldn't flee 

  • Incidents of fam violence include 

    • Child abuse, intimate partner violence, feminicide, increased during the pandemic esp during stay at home orders 

    • Some have referred to this as a shadow pandemic  

  • Fam violence is widespread and impacts fams of every SES  

  • Need more support to keep victims safe particularly children and women 

• Families separated by travel restrictions 

  • Revealed the large number of fams separated geographically  

  • Need for policy makers to take into consideration the impact of travel restrictions on fam and children in particular  

The challenges of an aging population 

• Health care 

  • For long waiting lists for long term care facilities, which presents issues for ppl 

  • We have circumstances where two spouses aren't placed in the same nursing home/long-term care facility 

  • Don't have enough palliative care and hospice care 

  • Not designed to deal with complex illnesses more typical of aging pop 

  • Huge problem is we don't have enough care for inds experiencing cognitive decline (Alzheimer's + dementia) 

    • This is a huge problem bc the incidents of cognitive decline is increasing 

    • The needs of those patients is dif form the needs of inds who don't have cognitive decline  

    • The provision of care if inadequate 

• Home care 

  • Care provided in the home 

  • Not just for seniors, can be if you're recovering from surgery, disability, illness, etc 

  • Most of the care we need form a person in our lives will be home care 

  • Dif specialties that may come into the home (I.e. physical therapists, personal support workers, etc) 

  • More cost effective than hospitalization 

    • Limited due to government cut backs as a result of neoliberal economic policy  

      • Neoliberalism has shifted the burden of care away from the government to families 

• Caregiver burnout 

  • Don't have much support for caregivers in our society 

  • We know that caregivers' work impacts their physical and mental health 

  • Need more support to minimize impact of caregiver burnout 

  • Health professionals have warned abt the dangers of caregiver burnout including depression and suicide  

  • Sometimes left in emergency rooms bc caregiver can't care for them anymore 

Elder abuse/economic security/financial abuse/death and dying

• Elder abuse 

  • Vastly under-reported  

  • Need to have better monitoring of elder abuse to ensure they're not being victimized 

  • Seniors are at risk of all forms of abuse and violence 

  • Most of the physical victimization is actually senior women being abused by their husbands, adult children, and others 

  • Getting more info/awareness/education abt the financial abuse of elders (ex. Predatory marriage and sexually transmitted debt) 

• Economic security of seniors 

  • Growing concern 

  • Senior pop is rather polarized (Some are affluent some (senior women) are living in low incomes in poverty  

  • Of concern – skip gen fams 

• Financial abuse 

  • We know that seniors are at risk of financial abuse from fam members, others 

  • At risk of predictor marriage, romance scams or fraud, financial exploitation not only by love ones but also by strangers and organized groups  

  • Some financial institutions are problematic in terms of how they interact with seniors 

    • Financial scams involving small businesses trying to financial exploit seniors 

• Death and dying 

  • Shortage of palliative care/hospice care in Canada 

    • Having hospice care is not the same thing as dying in hospital 

      • Better pain management, more skilled approach to death and dying for patients and fams 

    • Really needed  

The housing crisis 

• Cost of home ownership has risen dramatically, beyond the reach of most Canadians 

• Rental housing has become unaffordable 

• Increasing number of ppl in need of housing 

  • Inds living in shelters on the streets, in tent encampments in major cities around the world and affluent communities outside of Toronto  

• Tens of thousands of ppl waiting on waiting lists for subsidized housing 

• Lack of accessible housing 

  • Includes accessible rental accommodations for inds with disabilities 

• Lack of affordable housing impacts fams in various ways 

  • One way – deters relationship formation bc young ppl can't afford to rent or own and live together 

    • Causes young ppl to forgo/delay partnership or having a fam 

• Ppl in the best position to afford their home are ppl who are lucky enough to have their parents write them a check 

  • Large numbers of Canadians are getting large financial gifts from fams 

  • Seeing a growing number of homeowners receiving very significant financial gifts from parents who are themselves homeowners 

  • Policy makers are concerned this will intensify and exacerbated social inequality  

• A lot of concern that young adults who come from financially disadvantaged fams will be shut out of home ownership 

  • Applies to ppl who have a uni education, good job, and earn quite a bit of money  

  • Not just for ppl who are earning low wages  

• Argument is being made that housing today represents an intergenerational injustice 

  • Older Canadians got lucky buying their homes 20 yrs ago or older before the prices have skyrocketed 

  • Younger Canadians don't benefit from this 

How are we responding to housing crisis? 

• A lot of ppl have moved to less expensive areas such as rural areas 

  • But with covid these house prices have increased 

• Even moving out of province in search of more affordable housing 

• Some ppl have left the country, particularly in retirement  

  • in search of lower housing cost and other living expenses 

• A lot of interest in ppl trying to develop creative solutions to the housing crisis 

  • Tiny house movement  

    • A lot of retired ppl, single parents, etc building tiny homes 

  • Interest in off grade home, garden home, back end homes, etc 

  • Co-ownership  

    • Co-habiting married couples with children trying to get onto housing market and opting for co-ownership  

    • Growing number of Canadians who are getting into the housing market by purchasing a property with at least another person  

  • Reality is a lot of ppl are going back to living with their parents 

Technological change 

• Technology's influence on dating and intimate relationships 

  • Changed the nature of how we're interacting with each other, pursuing romantic, sexual relationships 

  • Social media platforms, dating apps, smartphones, all kinds of techs like AI (AI companions) have profoundly changed our lives, how we're interacting with teach other, raised a lot of questions and concerns abt protecting us from tech esp children and youth 

  • Social media/dating apps, etc provide opportunities less available in the past for things like varied or unconventional sexual relationships and encounters 

    • Ex. Couples can find others interested in threesomes/polyamory 

• Norms and expectations 

  • New techs have shifted and changes/challenged norms and expectations around relationships, how ppl meet, date/form relationships/sexual relationships 

    • Ex. Sexual communication – sexting has become more common for very young teens and children 

    • Questions and concerns 

      • Smartphones have made the exchange of sexually explicit pics and vids more common  

      • Harms and not understanding the implications of it  

  • Argued that dating apps have made it more common for ppl to pursue non monogamous relationship  

Social media/romance games/AI/privacy

• Social media and intimate relationships (sexting, ghosting) 

  • Affect how ppl in relationship communicate 

• Virtual imaginary relationships (romance games) 

  • Can facilitate virtual relationships 

    • Ex. Romance apps/games 

• The impact of romance games on real-life relationships 

  • Popularity of romance games raises questions abt what they might look like in the future 

  • Concerns abt if ppl will become increasingly reliant on these techs to meet their romantic and emotional needs and opt for those instead of real life relationship  

• AI 

  • Advances we're seeing in AI have implications for relationships 

  • Technological advances like AI are increasingly being used in the manufacturing of products like sex toys, robots, etc 

    • Don’t have a lot of research on understanding the consequences of it 

    • Need more research to better understand consumers' use of these products and the possible harms associated with it  

      • Obvi companies don't have a vested interest in producing research on harms 

    • Also need to understand the ways that these products impact inds in their real life relationships  

  • These technologies have shifted norms and expectations around out intimate and sexual relationships  

• Protection of privacy ongoing concern for ppl who use technologies 

  • Very little protection 

  • A lot of discussion around social media and smartphones being implicated in the harms of relationship 

    • Ex. Infidelity, romance scams, frauds 

•  

The negative impact of technology 

• New tech raising a lot of concerns around our privacy and data 

  • Ex. Sex toys/robots 

    • Wifi connectivity raises a lot of concerns abt whether consumers' confidential info will be kept confidential 

• Relationship dissolution 

  • Social media and dating apps have changed how ppl are able to meet and break up  

  • Discussion around social media making relationships not only more public but breakups becoming more public and ppl having to navigate new terrain earlier gens haven't had to navigate 

• Social media and smartphones have been blamed for what is perceived to be an increase in various types of infidelity (sexual and emotional) 

  • These new tech and social media platforms raise debates abt what constitutes bad behaviour in a relationship or cheating 

    • Inds have to negotiate this  

• Childbearing and new reproductive technologies 

  • New techs/advances in science and medicine have transformed childbearing  

  • New reproductive tech and intersections with the internet providing the opportunity for ppl to find whether it is donor egg or sperm, embryos, surrogates, co-parent 

  • Rise in transnational surrogacy 

    • Facilitated through the internet that ppl can find a surrogate in another country and that raises a lot of legal issues, ethical concerns  

  • Advances in science and medicine raised a lot of ethical concerns between scientists and governments and efficacy groups 

    • For that reason this is why we have cross-national differences in regulations bc not all countries have the same regulations 

    • Some discussion abt profound advances in new reproductive tech in China and that science has gone far ahead of any kind of governance around the science  

The impact of technology on daily life 

• Big area is wearable tech 

  • Can also be tech in your home that helps to monitor your health and well-being 

• Remote work and life balance 

  • Tech facilitates remote work but there's a lot of challenges around work fam balance/work life balance 

  • Connection and disconnection  

    • Right to disconnect from work, etc for our own health and well-being 

• Risk to children and young ppl  

  • Ex. Cyberbullying, keeping children safe from online predators and other online risks 

  • Risks around privacy and confidentiality  

• Catfishing and sextortion 

  • Targeting teens specifically teenage boys 

• Cyber-exploitation 

  • Social media and new techs facilitate crimes and social problems that implicate inds and fams like cyber-exploitation 

    • Ex. Referred to as revenge porn  

      • Technology facilitate violence 

      • Any form of tech is used to victimize an ind 

• Romance scams 

  • Romance fraud has become the number one type of fraud in terms of the amount of money 

  • Likely continue as offenders become better at what they're doing and working collectively  

  • Hopefully with greater awareness and education, we can make some movement to protecting inds esp seniors 

    • Need more police resources and law enforcement to address the problem 

    • Ppl argue that tech companies have a role to play in addressing how their tech is being used to commit crimes 

Future research and social policy (pt. 1)

• Need more research on the impact of tech like social media platforms 

  • Impact of social media and new tech on our health (issues like privacy, safety, security) requires a lot more research, need more social policy, and esp the impact on children  

• Collection of data 

  • Huge gaps in our data collection around fams, intimate relationships, and children 

  • Need more data on keep aspects of intimate relationships and fams 

• Have a lack of data on relationship breakups, divorce, all forms of relationship dissolution  

  • Problematic bc you can't begin to understand to understand fam life and relationships if you don't know basics like the numbers of breakups 

• We haven't counted divorce in the 21^st C 

  • Didn't count divorces between 2008 and 2022 

  • Very recently we don't have data on divorce or other forms of relationship dissolution in this country 

• Research and policies to support our aging population  

  • Pressing need for research and policies to support our aging population 

  • Research on elder abuse 

    • We know that it's vastly underreported 

    • Need more info abt the financial exploitation of seniors 

  • Need political leadership on the issue of meeting the needs on the growing number of inds experiencing cognitive decline (dementia, Alzheimer's)  

Future research and social policy (pt. 2)

• Diverse fams 

  • Policy always evolves to meet the needs of divorce fams 

  • Policies like specific gov benefits 

    • Ex. parental leave benefits 

  • Other government benefits and policies like the Canadian pension plan, old age security, taxation policy, fam law  

    • All of these dif pieces are likely going to continue to be reformed and changed to address diverse fams like polyamorous fams, platonic parenting, platonic life partners, LAT couples, skip gen fams 

  • Seen very little movement in taxation policies 

• Addressing economic insecurity 

  • Rates of poverty and low income households are higher among certain types of households 

    • I.e. lone parent households specifically those headed by women 

  • Rates of poverty being higher in skip gen fams 

    • Bc they're mostly headed by grandmothers who are retired and on fixed income 

  • Other fams like indigenous fams, and fams with either a child with a disability or a parent 

    • Need more policies in support to address the realities of fams living in poverty 

    • Canada child benefit has reduced child poverty in this country 

      • Hopeful and tells us policy can make the difference in the lives of children  

      • Cause rates of child poverty have declined specifically bc of the introduction of this benefit 

  • Research is needed bc it helps inform policy decisions