Research projects

2016-2021

• Role: Principal Investigator for Quebec
• Principal investigator for France: 
  • Loïc Trabut, Institut national d’études démographiques (INED)
• Co-investigators: 
  • Anne-Marie Séguin, Centre Urbanisation-Culture-Société, Institut national de la recherche scientifique
  • Yves Carrière, Département de démographie, Université de Montréal
  • Marianne Kempeneers, Département de sociologie, Université de Montréal
  • Isabelle Van Pevenage, Département de sociologie, Université de Montréal et CREGÉS
  • Maude Benoit, Département de science politique, Université du Québec à Montréal
  • Joëlle Gaymu, Institut national d’études démographiques
  • Eva Lelièvre, Institut national d’études démographiques
  • Rémi Gallou, Caisse nationale d’assurance vieillesse
  • Catherine Bonvalet, Institut national d’études démographiques

Granting agencies: Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et Culture (FRQSC), and Agence nationale de recherche (ANR), France, $ 567,000

Partout en Europe et au Canada, la population âgée va fortement augmenter dans l’avenir. Cette population est hétérogène sur les plans social (inégalités socio-économiques), familial (réseaux différenciés d’aidants potentiels) et culturel (effet des dynamiques migratoires). Cette hétérogénéité se traduit par des disparités territoriales importantes au sein de chaque ensemble national. Dès lors, les services dans leurs diverses dimensions et les formes que prend le soutien des proches sont forcément modulés par ces contextes locaux. En conséquence, l’adaptation de ces services à une population locale soulève des enjeux importants d’équité horizontale puisque les politiques nationales visent habituellement à offrir des services similaires sur l’ensemble du territoire.

Le projet de recherche Personnes âgées et solidarités locales (PASOLO) est un projet France-Québec, dirigé au Québec par Patrik Marier, et en France par Loïc Trabut. Ce projet regroupe une équipe multidisciplinaire de 11 chercheurs, dont 6 provenant de 4 universités québécoises (Université Concordia, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Université de Montréal et Université du Québec à Montréal) et 5 provenant de 2 institutions françaises (Institut national d’études démographiques et Caisse nationale d’assurance vieillesse).

Il a pour objectif d’étudier et de comparer la façon dont les politiques françaises et québécoises à l’égard des personnes âgées, et plus spécifiquement les services sociaux et médico-sociaux, tiennent compte des spécificités locales. Il s’agit donc pour nous de reconstruire l’évolution démographique, sociale et migratoire d’un certain nombre de territoires, ainsi que la transformation des politiques qui accompagnent ces changements, au plan local et national, en particulier au cours de la période 1995-2015. Ainsi, nous avons sélectionné des territoires québécois différenciés, comparables à autant de territoires en France. Il s’agira en quelque sorte de reconstituer une « biographie » multidimensionnelle des territoires.

2017-2019

• Role: Co-director, with Meghan Joy, Department of Political Science, Concordia University
• Postdoctoral Fellow: Dr. Kyuho Lee

Granting agency: Concordia Office of the Vice-President, Research & Graduate Studies, $ 76,000

This is a two-year Concordia Horizon postdoctoral fellowship with a research team studying the institutional and political factors facilitating (or hindering) the development of innovative social policies that improve the autonomy of older individuals in twenty post-industrial countries. This project also involves field work in five countries (Canada, USA, Sweden, France and Japan/Korea). The postdoctoral fellow complements the expertise of other team members and contributes primarily to developing the South Korean component of this research project. In addition, the fellow participates in other phases of this research project including: a) the creation of an innovative social gerontological policy index; b) the comparative analysis across countries.

2014-2018

• Role: Co-Investigator and responsible for the public policy axis
• Principal Investigator : Anne-Marie Séguin, INRS
• Co-applicants: Philippe Apparicio, Caroline Bouchard, Shari Brotman, Bernadette Dallaire, Patrick Durivage , Maryse Leclair, Patrik Marier, Paula Negron-Poblete, Manon Parisien, Tamara Sussman, Isabelle Van Pevenage, Isabelle Wallach

Granting agency : FQRSC Soutien aux Équipes de recherche $480 454

This is the research partnership grant for the research team VIES (Aging, Social Exclusions and Solidarities).

Since 2012, the team has been headed by Dr. Anne-Marie Séguin, full professor at the Urbanisation Culture Société Research Centre of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS). It is made up of a number of university researchers, an institutional researcher and representatives of collaborating partners (CSSS Cavendish-CAU, Montreal Steering Committee on Seniors, Réseau FADOQ). The VIES team is one of the largest groups of Quebec researchers in social gerontology.

The team offers a range of research projects and scientific activities revolving around three key concepts: social inclusion, recognition and redistribution. Anchored in the field of critical social gerontology, VIES members are interested in the social issues of aging.

The team firmly believes in the importance of regarding seniors as actors of their own aging process, shedding light on their words and gestures, their capabilities, their contributions and also their needs and difficulties. This perspective avoids the trap of seeing seniors simply as research subjects or as being dependant and in need of policies and services. This perspective has at its heart to implement research projects that have as their objective, to identify the means to promote social inclusion, and by consequence improve the quality of life of older persons (for example, taking into account the spoken word of older persons in the elaboration of projects or in validating results, in the creation of ground projects and social participation, etc…) 

2017-2021

• Role: Co-Investigator, Member of Governing Board, Area Leader for the “Politics, Policy and Economics of Aging” Research Axis
• Director: Shannon Hebblethwaite, Department of Applied Human Sciences
• Co-investigators: 16 researchers from Concordia University

Granting agency: Concordia Office of the Vice-President, Research & Graduate Studies, $ 180,000

engAGE aspires to change how we think about aging. Through innovative, collaborative, interdisciplinary research, engAGE researchers work with older people and their communities in order to address challenges and facilitate opportunities in all realms of life: social, physical, cognitive, emotional and political. engAGE brings together researchers from a broad range of disciplines, from fine art to physics, to explore creative ways to study age and explore opportunities to enhance health and wellbeing across the life course. We work together with older people, community groups, health care practitioners, and industry partners to provide thoughtful analysis of the strengths and challenges that we experience in relation to age and then to suggest strategies for change.

Research Axes

Our research community is committed to broadening traditional to the study of aging, advancing collaborative research that will address the needs and complexities of an aging population and train future generations of researcher and practitioners to do the same. Under the transversal pillar of “community-engaged scholarship” that emphasizes agency, social participation, and inclusion of older adults in the aging process, engAGE provides a platform to facilitate research undertaken within four inter-related areas:

• Culture, creativity and aging: Brings together research that emphasizes the variegated mediated cultural experiences of older people and considers the importance of creative approaches to later life that facilitate engagement with the arts and humanities.
• Community, Care and Connectivity: Emphasizes research that involves communities in the development of practices and policies. This cluster also encourages a re-visioning of care (both formal and informal) that emphasizes older people as social actors who participate in a bidirectional and intergenerational experience of aging, social inclusion, and a sense of belonging.
• Health, Wellbeing and the Lifecourse: Focuses on understanding how health and wellbeing are impacted as we age, aiming at adapting, integrating and strengthening the participation of older people in activities to promote an understanding of ageing as a biological and physical phenomena that is nevertheless situated socially and culturally.
• Politics, Policy and the Economics of Aging: Explores public policy and political engagement of older adults, pointing to the multitude of public, private and community actors who are implicated in the policy arena.

2016-2021

• Role: Co-Investigator
• Principal investigator:
  • Amanda Grenier, Department of Health, Aging and Society, McMaster University
• Co-investigators: 
  • Debbie Laliberte Rudman (Western)
  • Karen Kobayashi (Victoria)
  • Chris Phillipson (Manchester)

Granting agency: Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Insight Grant, Awarded: $231,520.

The aging of societies is globally recognized, with governments focused on planning for the needs of ‘greying’ populations. Yet, while there is growing evidence of inequality in late life, and attention to the impacts of precarity caused by labour and migration in earlier periods of the life course, research has often overlooked precarity in late life. Our research team will explore ‘precarious aging’ at three locations of inequality: older people with low income, older people who are foreign born, and older people with disabilities. This five-year project will use mixed methods that include conceptual reviews, semi-structured interviews with key informants and older people, analysis of statistical and administrative data, and policy analysis to: 1) Understand contemporary experiences of precarity and aging; 2) Examine the adequacy of existing conceptual frameworks and approaches to precarity and inequality; 3) Assess features of local, provincial, national, and international policies to determine challenges, and identify key areas for change in policy and programs. The results of this project will contribute to better conceptual understandings of precarity and inequality in later life, and establish a foundation upon which to base policy and practice recommendations. Results will also make substantial contributions to knowledge in social gerontology, and our respective disciplines of social work, occupational therapy, sociology and political science.

For more information, place contact Dr. Grenier at grenier@mcmaster.ca.

2014-2018

• Role: Co-Investigator
• Principal investigator: Kim Sawchuk, Concordia

Granting agency: SSHRC Partnership grant 2 993 263 $

Ageing, Communication, Technologies: experiencing a digital world in later life (ACT) is the first large-scale research initiative to address the transformation of the experiences of ageing in networked societies. The project’s international team brings together 12 universities, seven research institutes, seven community partners, 17 co-applicants and 18 collaborators.

The primary objective of the ACT project is to consider how digital ageism operates and to suggest strategies for change. ACT will develop curricula and provide a lasting collaborative platform for the theorization and critical analysis of the relationship between aging and digital worlds. For more information (http://actproject.ca/)