In recent years, two significant trends have had a substantial impact on Canadian families. First, Canadian families have been dramatically altered by high rates of separation and divorce, declining fertility, greater popularity of alternative family arrangements such as cohabitation, and increasing involvement of women in paid labour. Second, changes occurring in the economy and the larger society have brought new pressures to bear on families. In Canada's Changing Families, editors Kevin McQuillan and Zenaida R. Ravenera explore how these developments have altered family life. Using data collected in recent surveys by Statistics Canada, contributors to this volume illustrate how transformed conditions in the labour market have forced families to alter their routines and the division of responsibilities within the household. At the same time, the government, striving to maintain or increase the competitive position of the economy, has moved to control spending, restrain taxes, and reduce deficits. The result has been new demands on the family to provide or supplement services that might otherwise be provided by the state. Canada's Changing Families is an eye-opening study and one of great contemporary relevance.

Overview: 007-086413-2 /Softcover / 448 pp/ Copyright 2001, (11,2000) / ($41.95)Revised to ensure up-to-date coverage of key issues in accordance with its high academic reputation while introducing a new, reader-friendly design, Families: Changing Trends in Canada has always been a widely adopted text for the first course in Sociology of the Family. Maureen Baker's aim as general editor has been to create a Canadian textbook in family studies for post-secondary students, which incorporates an interdisciplinary, historical, comparative and mainly structural perspective, but which is inclusive of various theoretical perspectives. The newly added pedagogical elements will engage students taking the course at universities and community colleges.The fourth edition of Families reflects the evolving nature of the family by paying increased attention to gay, lesbian and multicultural issues. It includes updated statistics and discussion of recent legal reforms, providing students with background on three censuses and other demographic surveys, new studies in social history, recent legal debate, and the growing focus on cultural variations in families. The fourth edition also offers new theoretical approaches that incorporate poststructuralist and feminist theory in order to help students understand how family, gender relations and personal life have been influenced by "post-industrial" or "post-modern" society. Most contributors are sociologists but several have formal qualifications or a research background in psychology, education, women's studies, history and social policy. The result is a text that shows that family life in Canada, as elsewhere, is in a constant state of change.

This fact sheet describes various types of family based on the 1995 General Social Survey cycle 10.

Note: To purchase the eText, please search for ISBN 10: ISBN 10: 0321968581 | ISBN 13: 9780321968586 Changing Families: Relationships in Context is the first family textbook in North America to integrate innovative research from sociology, demography, and psychology in a comprehensive manner. It includes both a wider range of theoretical perspectives and a larger spectrum of contexts and topics than most family textbooks. This third Canadian edition reflects more recent changes in the contexts within which Canadian families live, covering topics such as low fertility rates, immigrant and transnational families in Canada, aging populations around the globe, the major shifts of economic power in recent years, and more.