Youjin Choi is a research analyst in the Social Analysis and Modelling Division at Statistics Canada. She gained her PhD in Economics in 2019 and her MA in Economics in 2012 from Western University (a.k.a. the University of Western Ontario). Her research interests include labour and demographic economics, family economics, and social and public policy. Her recent research was into parental leave take-ups and labour market participation of new parents; the early learning and child care workforce; and the economic integration of international students in Canada. Most of her research is based on quantitative analysis using administrative data and survey data.
Working groups: Family Work
Kim de Laat
Kim de Laat is a sociologist and Assistant Professor of Organization and Human Behaviour at the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, University of Waterloo. Her research explores the temporal and spatial dimensions of work—in terms of how much one works, and where work is accomplished—and how these relate to racial and gender inequalities. Kim has two ongoing research projects. The first examines how parents working in creative careers navigate the demands of child care alongside their creative practice. Second, she is exploring how flexible work arrangements, such as hybrid and remote work, influence the allocation of work—both paid work at the office, and unpaid housework and child care in the home.
Andrea Doucet
Andrea Doucet is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Gender, Work, and Care, Professor in Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies at Brock University, and Adjunct Professor at Carleton University and the University of Victoria (Canada). She has published widely on care/work policies, parental leave policies, fathering and care, and gender divisions and relations of paid and unpaid work. She is the author of two editions of the award-winning book Do Men Mother? (University of Toronto Press, 2006, 2018), co-author of two editions of Gender Relations: Intersectionality and Social Change (Oxford, 2008, 2017), and co-editor of Thinking Ecologically, Thinking Responsibly: The Legacies of Lorraine Code (SUNY, 2021). She is currently writing about social-ecological care and connections between parental leaves, care leaves, and Universal Basic Services. Her recent research collaborations include projects with Canadian community organizations on young Black motherhood (with Sadie Goddard-Durant); feminist, ecological, and Indigenous approaches to care ethics and care work (with Eva Jewell and Vanessa Watts); and social inclusion/exclusion in parental leave policies (with Sophie Mathieu and Lindsey McKay). She is the Project Director and Principal Investigator of the Canadian SSHRC Partnership program, Reimagining Care/Work Policies, and Co-Coordinator of the International Network of Leave Policies and Research.
Donna S. Lero
Donna S. Lero is University Professor Emerita and the inaugural Jarislowsky Chair in Families and Work at the University of Guelph, where she co-founded the Centre for Families, Work and Well-Being. Donna does research in Social Policy, Work and Family, and Caregiving. Her current projects focus on maternal employment and child care arrangements, parental leave policy, and disability and employment, as well as the Inclusive Early Childhood Service System (IECSS) project and the SSHRC project Reimagining Care/Work Policies.
Liv Mendelsohn
Liv Mendelsohn, MA, MEd, is the Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence, where she leads innovation, research, policy, and program initiatives to support Canada’s caregivers and care providers. A visionary leader with more than 15 years of experience in the non-profit sector, Liv has a been a lifelong caregiver and has lived experience of disability. Her experiences as a member of the “sandwich generation” fuel her passion to build a caregiver movement in Canada to change the way that caregiving is seen, valued, and supported.
Over the course of her career, Liv has founded and helmed several organizations in the disability and caregiving space, including the Wagner Green Centre for Accessibility and Inclusion and the ReelAbilities Toronto Film Festival. Liv serves as the chair of the City of Toronto Accessibility Advisory Committee. She has received the City of Toronto Equity Award, and has been recognized by University College, University of Toronto, Empowered Kids Ontario, and the Jewish Community Centres of North America for her leadership. Liv is a senior fellow at Massey College and a graduate of the Mandel Institute for Non-Profit Leadership and the Civic Action Leadership Foundation DiverseCity Fellows program.
About the Organization: The Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence supports and empowers caregivers and care providers, advances the knowledge and capacity of the caregiving field, and advocates for effective and visionary social policy, with a disability-informed approach. Our expertise and insight, drawn from the lived experiences of caregivers and care providers, help us campaign for better systems and lasting change. We are more than just a funder; we work closely with our partners and grantees towards shared goals.
Barbara Neis
Barbara Neis (PhD, C.M., F.R.S.C.) is John Lewis Paton Distinguished University Professor and Honorary Research Professor, retired from Memorial University’s Department of Sociology. Barbara received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Toronto in 1988. Her research focuses broadly on interactions between work, environment, health, families, and communities in marine and coastal contexts. She is the former co-founder and co-director of Memorial University’s SafetyNet Centre for Occupational Health and Safety and former President of the Canadian Association for Work and Health. Since the 1990s, she has carried out, supervised, and supported extensive collaborative research with industry in the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries including in the areas of fishermen’s knowledge, science, and management; occupational health and safety; rebuilding collapsed fisheries; and gender and fisheries. Between 2012 and 2023, she directed the SSHRC-funded On the Move Partnership (www.onthemovepartnership.ca), a large, multidisciplinary research program exploring the dynamics of extended/complex employment-related geographical mobility in the Canadian context, including its impact on workers and their families, employers, and communities.
Deborah Norris
Holding graduate degrees in Family Science, Deborah Norris is a professor in the Department of Family Studies and Gerontology at Mount Saint Vincent University. An abiding interest in the interdependence between work and family life led to Deborah’s early involvement in developing family life education programs at the Military Family Resource Centre (MFRC) located at the Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Halifax. Insights gained through conversation with program participants were the sparks that ignited a long-standing commitment to learning more about the lives of military-connected family members—her research focus over the course of her career to date. Informed by ecological theory and critical theory, Deborah’s research program is applied, collaborative, and interdisciplinary. She has facilitated studies focusing on resilience(y) in military and veteran families; work-life balance in military families; the bi-directional relationship between operational stress injuries and the mental health and wellbeing of veteran families; family psychoeducation programs for military and veteran families; and the military to civilian transition. She has collaborated with fellow academic researchers, Department of National Defense (DND) scientists, Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) personnel, and others. Recently, her research program has expanded to include an emphasis on the impacts of operational stress on the families of public safety personnel.
Susan Prentice
Susan Prentice holds the Duff Roblin Professor of Government at the University of Manitoba, where she is a professor of Sociology. She specializes in family policy broadly, and child care policy specifically. She has written widely on family and child care policy, and a list of her recent publications can be found at her UM page. At the undergraduate and graduate level, she teaches family policy courses. Susan works closely with provincial and national child care advocacy groups, and is a member of the Steering Committee of the Childcare Coalition of Manitoba.
Yue Qian
Yue Qian (pronounced Yew-ay Chian) is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She received her PhD in Sociology from Ohio State University. Her research examines gender, family and work, and inequality in global contexts, with a particular focus on North America and East Asia.
Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay
Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay is professor of labour economics/sociology and human resources management at TÉLUQ University (Université du Québec). She was appointed Canada Research Chair on the socio-economic challenges of the Knowledge Economy in 2002 and director of a CURA (Community-University Research Alliance) on the management of social times and work-life balance in 2009 (www.teluq.ca/aruc-gats). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Centre of Excellence of the Université du Québec, in recognition of the quality of her research and publications. She works on work-life issues, work organization (telework, coworking), and working time arrangements. Diane-Gabrielle has published many books, including a Labour Economics textbook, a Sociology of Work textbook, three books on working time and work-life issues and she has published in various international journals.
