R Margolis
Biographic Data
| ID | 42280 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R Margolis |
| GIVEN NAMES | R |
| FAMILY NAME | Margolis |
| SIGNATURE | MARGOLIS R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Western University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3331-591X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 55 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 510 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 55 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
The Quebec Parental Insurance Plan
This study traces the historical evolution of the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP), the paid parental leave program introduced in 2006 in Quebec, Canada, and its contribution in promoting economic, health, and gender equity; family well-being; and healthy child development. Drawing on both historical insights and reviewed evidence, it offers evidence-based policy considerations to inform the design of inclusive, equitable, and adaptable pare…
Immigrant Fertility in Canada 2001–2021
Canada has low fertility and relies on immigration to support the labor force and population growth. However, if recent waves of immigrants have the same or lower rates of fertility than native-born Canadians, then immigration becomes a demographic revolving door rather than long-term solution for the country’s population pressures. This paper provides estimates for immigrant fertility in Canada 2001–2021, examining heterogeneity by age at migrat…
Canadian Jewish Fertility in Comparative Perspective (2001-2021)
This analysis focuses on two factors leading to changes in Canada’s religious composition—religious differences in fertility and immigration to Canada. I provide updated estimates for Jewish fertility in Canada and its subpopulations, including the first fertility estimates for secular Jews in Canada, those reporting Jewish ethnic origins but no religion. Secular Jews have much lower fertility than those reporting Jewish religion. I then examine …
The Future Availability of Family Caregivers
Discussions about future care needs of U.S. older adults have frequently called attention to ongoing changes in families as the harbinger of a looming family care shortfall. To explore this premise, we paired estimates from the National Health and Aging Trends Study with projections of kinship patterns by age, sex, race through 2040. We defined care gaps in two complementary ways: the number of older adults with care needs who have (1) no family …
A Profile of Great-Grandparenthood in the United States
Great-grandparents are key figures in the transmission of family history and values. Despite their recognized importance, there is scant population-based research estimating the prevalence of great-grandparents in the contemporary United States. This research note uses the most recently available nationally representative survey data to characterize great-grandparenthood in the United States from 1996 until 2012, when the Health and Retirement St…
The Changing Demography of Jewish London, Ontario
Canada’s Jewish population is growing slowly and aging rapidly. However, the national portrait may hide great variation across different contexts. This article examines Canada’s tenth largest Jewish community, that of London, Ontario. First, I highlight the size of the Jewish community according to different measures and how it’s changed between 2001 and 2021. Next, I examine the households in which London’s Jews live and what we can learn about …
The Effects of Extended Parental Benefits on Parents’ Employment and Earnings in Canada
Paid parental benefits, with individually earmarked time for mothers and fathers, aim to promote gender equality in labor force participation, wages, and childcare. The Canadian province of Québec expanded parental benefits over and above the federal policy in 2006 with the Québec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP), which introduced paid paternity leave and lower eligibility criteria as its key features. This policy aimed to increase gender equality …
Older Adults' Descendants and Family Networks in the Context of Global Educational Expansion
Family networks are key to understanding the well-being of older adults because kin provide instrumental and financial support, help manage health and disability, and encourage social integration. Two momentous societal changes have shaped the families of contemporary older adults: the first and second demographic transitions and global educational expansion. The intersection of these two processes raises questions about how older adults are fari…
Trends in Indigenous fertility in Canada, 2001-2021
BACKGROUNDIndigenous peoples in Canada are among the youngest and fastest-growing populations in the country and have had higher fertility rates than non-Indigenous populations. OBJECTIVEThis paper examines how Indigenous fertility in Canada changed over two decades .It also examines how Indigenous fertility varies across different Indigenous populations and how the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous fertility has changed. METHODSThe paper…
Loneliness Trajectories and Chronic Loneliness Around the World
These results suggest that policies and interventions targeted to middle age and older adults living alone and with limited work histories or with chronic conditions are critical in reducing the public health challenges of chronic loneliness
Sibling Availability, Sibling Sorting, and Subjective Health Among Chinese Adults
Despite rising numbers of only children in China, little is known about their family dynamics and well-being in adulthood—for example, how often they marry other only children and whether those in siblingless families have worse or better health than others. Theoretical expectations produce opposing predictions: siblings might provide social and emotional support and reduce parental caregiving pressures, but only children might receive more suppo…
Changes in Family Structure and Increasing Care Gaps in the United States, 2015–2050
Research on caregiving in the United States has not clearly identified the scope of the gap between care needed and care received and the changes implied by ongoing and anticipated shifts in family structure. This article examines the magnitude of contemporary gaps in care among older adults in the United States and how they are likely to evolve through 2050. We use data from the Health and Retirement Study (1998–2014) to estimate care gaps, oper…
Are Rural Areas Holdouts in the Second Demographic Transition? Evidence From Canada and the United States
A central premise of the first demographic transition theory is that demographic change would occur more slowly in rural than urban areas. Few studies, however, have investigated whether rural areas remain holdouts during the second demographic transition. To address this gap, this study (1) examines trends among rural and urban families in Canada and the United States over a 30-year period and (2) determines whether compositional differences in …
Maternal Labor Force Participation During the Child’s First Year and Later Separation Anxiety Symptoms
Separation anxiety symptoms are frequent among preschool-aged children, but it is also a possible gateway for diagnosis of separation anxiety disorder. Early maternal employment after childbirth can increase the risk for the development of separation anxiety symptoms. From an economic perspective, however, securing employment is one effective strategy to ensure child well-being. This study investigated how mothers’ participation in the labor forc…
The Care Gap in Later Life Across European Countries
Our study introduces the concept of the care gap and shows that although it is most common among unpartnered adults without children it is also quite common for those with immediate family. A broader network partially but not completely substitutes for care gaps among those without immediate family. Our results offer new insights into the demand for public care services in countries with diverse welfare states
Family Ties and Older Adult Well-Being
Our results highlight that family ties are important for older adults well-being, not just through their existence but also their quality and strength
Life Events and Loneliness Transitions Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults Around the World
The results demonstrate the importance that family and household connections play in determining loneliness at these ages. These findings suggest that addressing late-life loneliness may require a focus on key life events, especially those concerning changes in families and households
Health Across Borders
The formal demography of kinship V
Background: The death of kin has psychological, physical, and economic effects on other members of a kinship network. Recently developed formal demographic models provide the deaths of kin, of any kind, at any age of a Focal individual. However, causes of death have yet to be accounted for. Objectives: Our objective is to extend the matrix kinship model to analyze losses of kin by cause of death, given age-specific schedules of risk due to each c…
Lost support, lost skills
Bereavement & mental health
The COVID-19 pandemic has left millions of children and adolescents grieving the sudden death of a grandparent. Yet, we lack knowledge of the mental health implications of a grandparent's death for youth. This study uses longitudinal data to examine if the loss of a grandparent increases adolescent grandchildren's likelihood of experiencing their mothers' major depressive disorder, and of having depressive symptoms themselves. Using data from the…
Mourning in a Pandemic
These results highlight that the millions of COVID-19 widow(er)s face extreme mental health risks, eclipsing those experienced by surviving spouses pre-pandemic, furthering concerns about the pandemic's lasting impacts on health
Population Aging, Demographic Metabolism, and the Rising Tide of Late Middle Age to Older Adult Loneliness Around the World
This study examines how population aging shapes a crucial aspect of mental health and social well-being: loneliness. Drawing on theories of demographic metabolism, United Nations population estimates and projections, and survey data covering approximately 50 percent of the world's population aged 50 and above living in 27 countries, we estimate the role of population aging in shaping cross-national differences in loneliness from 1990 to 2050. We …
The Effect of Expanded Parental Benefits on Union Dissolution
Objective The aim of the study was to examine whether gender equality‐focused parental benefits affect the union stability of couples. Background Generous, flexible, and gender equality‐focused parental benefits have been shown to increase fathers' use of parental leave and time with children. Even though these policies have no explicit aims regarding relationship stability, two longstanding theoretical perspectives (traditionalist and egalitaria…
Bereavement From Covid-19, Gender, and Reports of Depression Among Older Adults in Europe
Objectives The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has left older adults around the world bereaved by the sudden death of relatives and friends. We examine if COVID-19 bereavement corresponds with older adults’ reporting depression in 27 countries and test for variations by gender and country context. Method We analyze the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe COVID-19 data collected between June and August 2020 from 51,383 o…
Happiness
Understanding how having children influences parents’ subjective well-being (“happiness”) has great potential to explain fertility behavior. We study parental happiness trajectories before and after the birth of a child, using large British and German longitudinal data sets. We account for unobserved parental characteristics using fixed-effects models and study how sociodemographic factors modify the parental happiness trajectories. Consistent wi…
A Global Perspective on Happiness and Fertility
The literature on fertility and happiness has neglected comparative analysis. we investigate the fertility/happiness association using data from the world values Surveys for 86 countries. we fnd that, globally, happiness decreases with the number of children. this association, however, is strongly modifed by individual and contextual factors. most importantly, we find that the association between happiness and fertility evolves from negative to n…
Older Adults Without Close Kin in the United States
Kinless-ness should be of interest to policy makers because it is more common among those with social, economic and health risks; those who live alone, with low levels of wealth, and disability. Aging research should address the implications of kinless-ness for public health, social isolation, and the demand for institutional care
Kin Count(s)
Kinship networks are important but remain understudied in contemporary developed societies. Because hazards of vital events such as marriage, fertility, and mortality vary demographically, it is likely that average numbers of extended kin also vary meaningfully by education and race, but researchers have not addressed this topic. Existing research on kinship in developed societies focuses on group-level differences in multiplex kin networks such …
The Demography of Multigenerational Caregiving
Multigenerational caregiving is important because it affects social and economic outcomes. Existing studies usually exclude theoretically and empirically important aspects-emotional care and horizontal care-that may systematically underestimate gender differences. In this study, we comprehensively describe caregiving by gender and age and examine how sensitive estimates are to the inclusion of directions and types of care. Using the Generations a…
Kinlessness Around the World
As demographic changes affecting kinlessness continue, we expect the scale of the kinless population to grow around the world
Parental Well-being Surrounding First Birth as a Determinant of Further Parity Progression
A major component driving cross-country fertility differences in the developed world is differences in the probability of having additional children among those who have one. Why do people stop at having only one child? We hypothesize that the experience of the transition to parenthood is an important determinant of further fertility. Analyzing longitudinal data from Germany, we find that the experience during the transition to parenthood, as mea…
Perceptions of Neighborhood Disorder
Objectives. The study of neighborhood effects on health and well‐being has regained prominence in recent years. Most authors have relied on Census data and other administrative data sources to assess neighborhood characteristics. Less commonly employed, but gaining in popularity, are measures from surveys that ask neighborhood residents about various aspects of their neighborhood environment. Such surveys are a potentially attractive alternative …
Healthy Grandparenthood
Healthy grandparenthood represents the period of overlap during which grandparents and grandchildren can build relationships, and grandparents can make intergenerational transfers to younger kin. The health of grandparents has important implications for upward and downward intergenerational transfers within kinship networks in aging societies. Although the length of grandparenthood is determined by fertility and mortality patterns, the amount of …
The Changing Demography of Grandparenthood
Demographic changes affect the time that individuals spend in different family roles. Mortality decline increases the time an individual can spend as a grandparent, but childlessness decreases the proportion of people who ever become grandparents, and fertility postponement delays when grandparenthood begins. This article examines changes in the length of grandparenthood at the population level and why it has changed in Canada over a 26-year peri…
A Cohort Perspective on the Demography of Grandparenthood
How has the demography of grandparenthood changed over the last century? How have racial inequalities in grandparenthood changed, and how are they expected to change in the future? Massive improvements in mortality, increasing childlessness, and fertility postponement have profoundly altered the likelihood that people become grandparents as well as the timing and length of grandparenthood for those that do. The demography of grandparenthood is im…
Emerging Adulthood, Emergent Health Lifestyles
During the transition to adulthood, many unhealthy behaviors are developed that in turn shape behaviors, health, and mortality in later life. However, research on unhealthy behaviors and risky transitions has mostly focused on one health problem at a time. In this article, we examine variation in health behavior trajectories, how trajectories cluster together, and how the likelihood of experiencing different behavior trajectories varies by sociod…
Measuring Older Adult Loneliness Across Countries
This article establishes that even single-item measures of loneliness contribute meaningful information in diverse settings. Similar to the measurement of self-rated health, there are nuances to the measurement of older adult loneliness in different contexts, but it has reliable and consistent measurement properties within many countries
No Spouse, No Son, No Daughter, No Kin in Contemporary China
Access to kin forms the basis of an emergent system of stratification in China, which will be amplified as cohorts with only one child age into older adulthood
Educational Differences in Healthy Behavior Changes and Adherence Among Middle-aged Americans
Although the better-educated are more likely to practice healthy behaviors when measured at one point in time, there is no clear evidence regarding whether more educated people are more likely to initiate healthy behavior changes in the face of new chronic conditions and whether they are better able to adhere to these healthy changes, once made. I use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) (1992-2010) to examine smoking cessation and sta…
The Physical, Mental, and Social Health of Middle-Aged and Older Adults Without Close Kin in Canada
Our results highlight some concerns about the well-being of kinless adults in Canada, especially as related to physical and mental health and two aspects of social health, loneliness, and civic participation. We find some substitution occurring, whereby middle-aged and older adults without family are interacting more with friends than comparable peers, but such substitution is marginal
Use of Parental Benefits by Family Income in Canada
Objective: This article examines how two recent policy extensions affected the use and sharing of parental benefits in Canada and how this differed by family income.Background: Paid parental benefits positively affect economic and health outcomes. However, not all policy changes increase leave-taking, especially among low-income families.Method: Drawing on administrative data from 1998 to 2012, we estimate linear probability models to examine the…
Older Adults With Three Generations of Kin
Although there has been much concern about the strains among those sandwiched between parents and children, it is far more common among older adults to also have grandchildren, and many of these adults are transferring resources both upward and downward to multiple generations
Siblings, friends, course-mates, club-mates
Family Ties and Older Adult Well-Being
Our results highlight that family ties are important for older adults well-being, not just through their existence but also their quality and strength
Population Aging, Demographic Metabolism, and the Rising Tide of Late Middle Age to Older Adult Loneliness Around the World
This study examines how population aging shapes a crucial aspect of mental health and social well-being: loneliness. Drawing on theories of demographic metabolism, United Nations population estimates and projections, and survey data covering approximately 50 percent of the world's population aged 50 and above living in 27 countries, we estimate the role of population aging in shaping cross-national differences in loneliness from 1990 to 2050. We …
The Psychological Benefits of Marriage and Children in Rural Malawi
Despite an extensive literature on the psychological rewards of marriage and children in high‐income countries, research on these relationships in low‐income countries remains limited. This paper draws on data from 4,133 adult women and men interviewed in the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health to examine how marital status, categorized as never, formerly, monogamously, and polygynously married, and number of children are associated …
The formal demography of kinship V
Background: The death of kin has psychological, physical, and economic effects on other members of a kinship network. Recently developed formal demographic models provide the deaths of kin, of any kind, at any age of a Focal individual. However, causes of death have yet to be accounted for. Objectives: Our objective is to extend the matrix kinship model to analyze losses of kin by cause of death, given age-specific schedules of risk due to each c…
Births that are Later-than-Desired
Loneliness Trajectories and Chronic Loneliness Around the World
These results suggest that policies and interventions targeted to middle age and older adults living alone and with limited work histories or with chronic conditions are critical in reducing the public health challenges of chronic loneliness
Perceptions of Neighborhood Disorder
Objectives. The study of neighborhood effects on health and well‐being has regained prominence in recent years. Most authors have relied on Census data and other administrative data sources to assess neighborhood characteristics. Less commonly employed, but gaining in popularity, are measures from surveys that ask neighborhood residents about various aspects of their neighborhood environment. Such surveys are a potentially attractive alternative …
A Global Perspective on Happiness and Fertility
The literature on fertility and happiness has neglected comparative analysis. we investigate the fertility/happiness association using data from the world values Surveys for 86 countries. we fnd that, globally, happiness decreases with the number of children. this association, however, is strongly modifed by individual and contextual factors. most importantly, we find that the association between happiness and fertility evolves from negative to n…
Health Shocks in the Family
Among older couples, women's smoking changes are more sensitive to health shocks in the partnership. Interventions aimed at preventing unhealthy behaviors should pay attention to how each partner deals with the stress of health shocks
Educational Differences in Healthy Behavior Changes and Adherence Among Middle-aged Americans
Although the better-educated are more likely to practice healthy behaviors when measured at one point in time, there is no clear evidence regarding whether more educated people are more likely to initiate healthy behavior changes in the face of new chronic conditions and whether they are better able to adhere to these healthy changes, once made. I use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) (1992-2010) to examine smoking cessation and sta…
Happiness
Understanding how having children influences parents’ subjective well-being (“happiness”) has great potential to explain fertility behavior. We study parental happiness trajectories before and after the birth of a child, using large British and German longitudinal data sets. We account for unobserved parental characteristics using fixed-effects models and study how sociodemographic factors modify the parental happiness trajectories. Consistent wi…
Better Off Alone Than With a Smoker
Being partnered does not always mean healthier behavior changes. Rather, the association between partnership status and smoking changes depends greatly on the health behavior changes of the partner. The partnership context at the time of smoking cessation sets the stage for longer term patterns of adherence, shaping health in older age
Parental Well-being Surrounding First Birth as a Determinant of Further Parity Progression
A major component driving cross-country fertility differences in the developed world is differences in the probability of having additional children among those who have one. Why do people stop at having only one child? We hypothesize that the experience of the transition to parenthood is an important determinant of further fertility. Analyzing longitudinal data from Germany, we find that the experience during the transition to parenthood, as mea…
Siblings, friends, course-mates, club-mates
Educational and Gender Differences in Health Behavior Changes After a Gateway Diagnosis
Upon receiving a hypertension diagnosis, education is a more important predictor of behavior changes for women compared with men, which may help explain gender differences in the socioeconomic gradient in health in the United States
Older Adults With Three Generations of Kin
Although there has been much concern about the strains among those sandwiched between parents and children, it is far more common among older adults to also have grandchildren, and many of these adults are transferring resources both upward and downward to multiple generations
Children’s Sex and the Happiness of Parents
Demographers are interested in sex preferences for children because they can skew sex ratios and influence population-level fertility, parenting behavior, and family outcomes. Based on parity progression ratios, in most European countries, there are no sex preferences for a first child, but a strong preference for mixed-sex children. We hypothesize that mixed-sex preferences also influence parental happiness. Parents' disappointment with a second…
Kin Count(s)
Kinship networks are important but remain understudied in contemporary developed societies. Because hazards of vital events such as marriage, fertility, and mortality vary demographically, it is likely that average numbers of extended kin also vary meaningfully by education and race, but researchers have not addressed this topic. Existing research on kinship in developed societies focuses on group-level differences in multiplex kin networks such …
The Changing Demography of Grandparenthood
Demographic changes affect the time that individuals spend in different family roles. Mortality decline increases the time an individual can spend as a grandparent, but childlessness decreases the proportion of people who ever become grandparents, and fertility postponement delays when grandparenthood begins. This article examines changes in the length of grandparenthood at the population level and why it has changed in Canada over a 26-year peri…
Projections of white and black older adults without living kin in the United States, 2015 to 2060
Significance Family members provide the majority of social support for most older adults, but not all individuals have living family. Those without living close kin report higher rates of loneliness and experience elevated risks of chronic diseases and nursing facility placement. How the population of older adults without living family, the kinless population, will change in the coming decades merits consideration. Historical racial differences a…
Older Adults Without Close Kin in the United States
Kinless-ness should be of interest to policy makers because it is more common among those with social, economic and health risks; those who live alone, with low levels of wealth, and disability. Aging research should address the implications of kinless-ness for public health, social isolation, and the demand for institutional care
Healthy Grandparenthood
Healthy grandparenthood represents the period of overlap during which grandparents and grandchildren can build relationships, and grandparents can make intergenerational transfers to younger kin. The health of grandparents has important implications for upward and downward intergenerational transfers within kinship networks in aging societies. Although the length of grandparenthood is determined by fertility and mortality patterns, the amount of …
Emerging Adulthood, Emergent Health Lifestyles
During the transition to adulthood, many unhealthy behaviors are developed that in turn shape behaviors, health, and mortality in later life. However, research on unhealthy behaviors and risky transitions has mostly focused on one health problem at a time. In this article, we examine variation in health behavior trajectories, how trajectories cluster together, and how the likelihood of experiencing different behavior trajectories varies by sociod…
Kinlessness Around the World
As demographic changes affecting kinlessness continue, we expect the scale of the kinless population to grow around the world
No Spouse, No Son, No Daughter, No Kin in Contemporary China
Access to kin forms the basis of an emergent system of stratification in China, which will be amplified as cohorts with only one child age into older adulthood
Self-Rated Health by Sexual Orientation Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in Canada
Our findings add to the paucity of research on older sexual minorities in Canada. They highlight the importance of separating out sexual minority groups because bisexual women have distinct health profiles. In addition, this is the first study to examine the health of respondents who "do not know" their sexual orientation, and future research should distinguish between different explanations for their poor health
Births that are Later-than-Desired
A Cohort Perspective on the Demography of Grandparenthood
How has the demography of grandparenthood changed over the last century? How have racial inequalities in grandparenthood changed, and how are they expected to change in the future? Massive improvements in mortality, increasing childlessness, and fertility postponement have profoundly altered the likelihood that people become grandparents as well as the timing and length of grandparenthood for those that do. The demography of grandparenthood is im…
Capturing trends in Canadian divorce in an era without vital statistics
Statistics Canada ceased publishing vital statistics on marriage and divorce in 2008, leaving a knowledge gap in these important demographic indicators
The Demography of Multigenerational Caregiving
Multigenerational caregiving is important because it affects social and economic outcomes. Existing studies usually exclude theoretically and empirically important aspects-emotional care and horizontal care-that may systematically underestimate gender differences. In this study, we comprehensively describe caregiving by gender and age and examine how sensitive estimates are to the inclusion of directions and types of care. Using the Generations a…
Use of Parental Benefits by Family Income in Canada
Objective: This article examines how two recent policy extensions affected the use and sharing of parental benefits in Canada and how this differed by family income.Background: Paid parental benefits positively affect economic and health outcomes. However, not all policy changes increase leave-taking, especially among low-income families.Method: Drawing on administrative data from 1998 to 2012, we estimate linear probability models to examine the…
Psychology (40 works) · Medicine (33 works) · Sociology (31 works) · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving (28 works) · Population (26 works) · Demography (25 works) · Gerontology (24 works) · Demography (23 works) · Health disparities and outcomes (23 works) · Developmental psychology (20 works)