Welcome to the follow-up study for the Toronto Family Study conducted on 888 families between 1992 and 1996.
In that initial study, almost thirty years ago, we interviewed mothers, fathers, and children from 9 to 16 years-old in each family. We were interested in parental work experiences, family practices, gender roles in the household, health, and stress. Research developed from the participation of these families informed our understanding of how families in the early 1990’s dealt with dual-earner parenting and how children reacted to the different work and family profiles of their parents. On this web site, you will see evidence of the results of this survey (in the Publications and Presentations tab), communicated through with publications in top academic journals and presentations at major conferences.
Now, more than 25 years later, these children are between 36 and 45 years-old with their own career and family trajectories. We are following up the children from the initial study to investigate whether and how growing up in families with different gender and work roles during mid-childhood may impact both work choices and family responsibilities as adults.
The follow-up study is a unique opportunity to link childhood family life to later adult life, at a time when family practices were in flux and new demands were being made on parents as they combined new work and family roles. There are several related questions this follow-up study will inform:
Do childhood families in which the mother worked, fathers helped with domestic tasks, and parents believed in gender-equal roles (we call these families “gender-egalitarian”) have long-term effects on children’s aspirations, work choices, family choices, and labour market outcomes in mid-adulthood?
Do gender egalitarian family environments lead to distinct work and family outcomes for boys compared to girls?
Do gender egalitarian family environments in the homes of foreign-born parents produce greater or reduced egalitarianism in the households of grown-up children?
Do gender egalitarian family environments result in greater or reduced well-being in the families of their grown-up children?
We know that younger cohorts of women and men are, in general, more egalitarian in their attitudes towards gender roles than older cohorts. Many generation X and Y and millennial children (born in the 1970s and 1980s) have grown up in families with working mothers, and thus may prefer an ideal that involves sharing work and family roles equally. Indeed, previous research has shown that employed women are more gender egalitarian, and that exposure to these ideals and the arrangements that go with them results in less gender stereotyped children. However, previous research has not evaluated the durability of these effects into mid-life. The current research will explain the impact of family and work arrangements in childhood on the behaviour of grown-up children with respect to both work choices and family responsibilities. The study will provide valuable insight into the inter-generational transmission of social norms, immigrant experience, and the changing patterns of work and family in Canada at the turn of the 21st century.
