Jacques Lgar and Guillaume Marois

1
FCD
An International Research Programme - The
Generations and Gender Programme (GGP) - A good
tool to face 21st Century demographic challenges

• Jacques Légaré and Guillaume Marois

Département de démographie
Friday, November 18, 2005
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1-Introduction

• Demographic behaviour changes during the 20th
  Century

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Birth and mortality rates, Canada, 1921-2003
Source Statistics Canada
4
Proportion of people aged 65 years and over,
Canada, 1880-2050
Source United Nations, World Population
Prospects, 2002
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Abortion rates for 100 living births, Canada,
1970-2002
Source Statistics Canada
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Percentage of births out of marriage according to
births ranks, Québec, 1976-2001

Source Institut de la Statistique du Québec.
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Trend of people adhering to no religion in
Canada, 1901-2001
Source Statistics Canada
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2-
Generations and Gender

• Research into their behaviours and quality of life

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a) Goal (1)

• A UNECE-wide comparative study, initiated in
  2000, of the dynamics of two key familial
  relations
• Child-parent relations
• Partner-partner relations
• Focus on
• Coming into being
• Change in nature and content, and
• Coming to an end
• Of these relations of individuals women and men
  ranging in age from early to late adulthood

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a) Goal (2)

• Put differently, the interest is in
• Behaviour resulting in the start and end of the
  relations and
• Changes in the relations
• The relations will be studied in the context of
  the individuals
• Proximate environment Proximate of mezzo-level
  context (household, family support network)
• Remote environment remote of macro-level
  context (province, region, country)
• Key domains of the two contexts will be
• Intergenerational relationships
• Gender relationships

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a) Goal (3)

• A related objective will be monitoring of ongoing
  changes in
• Family-related demographic behaviour and
• Family developments, specifically those related
  to the two types of familial relations
• Using comparable descriptive statistics compiled
  as part of developing GGP data

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b) Framework (1)

• Relations
• Child-parent
• Biological
• Step
• Adoptive
• Foster
• Partner-partner
• Conjugal
• Consensual
•  Fuzzy ?

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b) Framework (2)

• Nature and content as defined by transfers
  between the dyad, involving transfers of
• Tangibles (e.g. money, assets, goods)
• Intangibles (e.g. time, counsel, affection)
• Context
• This part of the framework is deliberately
  broad, recognising that broad economic, social,
  political, cultural and technological forces
  influence the dynamics of child-parent and
  partner-partner relations, operating
• Directly on them and
• Indirectly through intergenerational and gender
  relationships

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b) Framework (3)

• The framework is inspired by Hobcraft-Kiernan
  paper  Become a Parent in Europe  and the view
  
• That GGP must be multidisciplinary in nature or
• That it should not take part in any
   disciplinary soccer game 
• Key groups of factors or covariates, influencing
  opportunities and constraints and influencing the
  two filial relations
• Finances
• Education
• Work
• Time

• Housing
• Ideas
• State support

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b) Framework (4)

• Intergenerational relationships
• Central to them are
• Mezzo-level transfers network transfers
  occurring within the household, family and
  support network
• Macro-level transfers public transfers
  occurring at the societal level among younger,
  middle and older  welfare generations 
• These transfers are viewed as modifying
  opportunities and constraints shaped by the
  groups of covariates and influencing child-parent
  and partner-relation.

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b) Framework (5)

• Gender relationships
• The distinction is made between
• Mezzo-level or private-domain gender
  relationships (referring to gender autonomy,
  power, roles ad inequalities)
• Macro-level or public-domain gender relationships
  (as reflected by these same gender issues at
  societal level).

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c) Data (1)

• Four sources of data
• Generations and gender survey (GGS) key source
  intended to provide information on child-parent
  and partner-partner relations and various
  mezzo-level data.
• Administrative records in some countries this
  source will provide a part of data that GGS would
  otherwise yield. In these countries, a
  reduced-version GGS will provide the rest of
  GGS-type information. Population registers will
  prove sample frame.

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c) Data (2)

• 2000-round population censuses in some
  countries this source will provide a sample
  frame. In many instances it may be a source of
  macro-level data complementing other
  aggregate-level information.
• Macro-level economic, social and institutional
  data this source will be a prime source for
  deriving remote-context or macro-level contextual
  variables.

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c) Data (3)

• Generations and Gender survey
• Design
• Multi-wave panel survey (minimum two waves)
• Ten thousands respondents (½ women, ½ men)
• Broad age range 18-79
• Allocation of data gathering between the first
  two waves

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c) Data (4)

• Content
• Child-parent relations
• Partner-partner relations
• Households, families, networks
• Education
• Work
• Earning and assets
• Housing
• Public and network transfers
• Migration
• Health
• Gender dimensions
• Values and attitudes

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c) Data (5)

• Why panel design
• Panel enables a study of the dynamics of
  child-parent and partner-partner relations as
  these unfold the focus is on the future rather
  than, as is the case with cross-sectional
  retrospective surveys, on the past this should
  make findings more appealing to policy makers.
• Panel enables the measurement of several key
  groups of time-varying covariates, such as
  earnings, transfers, values, and gender
  dimensions, which cannot be measured
  retrospectively. As a result, the potential of
  the panel is considerably greater than that of
  cross-sectional retrospective information.
• Panel makes it possible to analyse two-way
  dynamic interactions between dependent
  variables and a variety of time-varying
  explanatory variables the case in point are
  interactions between the onset of relations and
  values.

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d) Research aims (1)

• Need for new knowledge
• What are some of the major questions that we
  need answers to
• How peoples value systems are changing and how
  these shifts impact on behaviour influencing the
  onset of, change in and end of child parent and
  partner-partner relations?
• What role do economic trends and changes in
  state support play?
• How are intergenerational transfers at the
  mezzo-level changing, partly in relation to
  macro-level transfers and how do these shifts
  influence the filial relations of interest?
• How are gender relationships, including autonomy
  of women changing and what are implications of
  those changes?
• What role do uncertainties and disruptions
  accompanying transition in central and eastern
  Europe play?

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d) Research aims (2)

• Need for new knowledge
• Why GGP holds a promise to provide answers to
  these questions?
• There is a new emphasis on values, attitudes and
  intentions.
• Economic conditions and stat support are given a
  prominent role.
• There is a new stress on gender and
  intergenerational relationships.
• There is a broader view of the family by
  including people of widely different years of age.

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d) Research aims (3)

• Need for new knowledge
• Why GGP holds a promise to provide answers to
  these questions? (cont)
• Macro-level contextual data and variables will
  enable us to see the individual and the family in
  a broader societal setting.
• Inclusion of Central and East European countries
  will provide us with a new angle on the influence
  of political and institutional development and
  their impact on behaviour and relations of
  interest.

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Source

• Miroslav Macura, PAU, UNECE
• Andres Vikat et al., Generations and Gender
  Survey (GGS) Towards a Better Understanding of
  Relationships and Processes in the Life Course,
  Geneva, UNECE/PAU/GGP, 2005

For more information on the project

• http//www.unece.org/ead/pau/ggp

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3-Where does Canada (and Québec) stand in
relation to GGP
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a) Context

• Up to now, no official commitment from Canadian
  authorities participate to the GGS
• No support from the Canadian Academia either
• Both have their own agenda and think that the
  Canadian data gathering system can provide
  answers expected from the GGP
• Meanwhile, many countries have already been in
  the field for Wave 1 (Bulgaria, France, Germany,
  Russia, etc.)

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b) Mapping the GGS with Canadian Surveys

• Linkage of the GGS questions to questions found
  in existing cross-sectional and panel Canadian
  surveys since 1990
• Questions put in three different categories
• - Available
• - Partly available
• - Not available

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Distribution of the GGS questions according to
their availability in Canadian Surveys
A. General overview
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Distribution of the GGS questions according to
their availability in Canadian Surveys
B. Detailed Results according to the sub-sections
of the GGS questionnaire
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c) Results

• At best, 38 of the GGS questions are available
  in Canadian Surveys
• Most of them are crude socio-demographic
  characteristics (age, sex, educational level, )
• These results are identical to those obtained for
  countries that have the same attitude vis-à-vis
  GGS (i.e. use existing current surveys) - Italy
  (33)
• - Japan (36)
• Furthermore, comparable items come from different
  surveys (around 10) taken for different years and
  with different methodologies
• Finally, all innovative comparative panel
  analyses forthcoming from GGS, and well
  identified in slides on Research Aims in this
  presentation, will be impossible for countries
  taking such a position
• Even trying to do cross-sectional comparative
  analyses would be insufficient

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4- Concluding remarks
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• What is missing in existing Canadian Sources are
  data on the partner-partner and parent-children
  behaviour
• We pledge the Canadian academic community of
  demographers and its professional associations
  (FCD, CPS, ADQ) to lobby departments involved in
  policy decisions to join the GGP and support a
  Canadian GGS.
• - even if some of their leaders are already
• committed to existing (or forthcoming)
  panel surveys
• - and even if statistical departments have
  their own agenda for data gathering
• Recent public stands by former SSHRC president
  and Policy Research Initiative (PRI) Horizons
  periodical seem to be in the good direction

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Now, longitudinal surveys  allow us to compare
what ageing means in Greece and Italy, given
different policies, the climate, the family
structure 

• Marc Renaud
• Former SSHRC President
• In an interview with Paul Wells, Mcleans, July
  1st 2005, p.21

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(No Transcript)
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• What is missing in existing Canadian Sources are
  data on the partner-partner and parent-children
  behaviour
• We pledge the Canadian academic community of
  demographers and its professional associations
  (FCD, CPS, ADQ) to lobby departments involved in
  policy decisions to join the GGP and support a
  Canadian GGS.
• - even if some of their leaders are already
• committed to existing (or forthcoming)
  panel surveys
• - and even if statistical departments have
  their own agenda for data gathering
• Recent public stands by former SSHRC president
  and Policy Research Initiative (PRI) Horizons
  periodical seem to be in the good direction
• Should they not be only a mirage