Media releases

• Brock-led research finds low-income mothers have less access to maternity leave

  Monday, May 30, 2016 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: R00110, 27 May 2016

  Some 40 per cent of employed mothers across Canada — with the exception of Quebec — are excluded from maternity or parental benefits under the federal Employment Insurance (EI) program, new Brock-led research has found.

  In contrast, only 10 per cent of mothers in Quebec are excluded from that province’s Parental Insurance Plan, formed in 2006 when Quebec exited the federal EI parental leave program, the research shows.

  In addition, mothers in households earning $30,000 or more receive disproportionately higher access to benefits than lower-income households, especially under the federal EI program.

  “Our findings quantify the extent to which Canada’s two labour market-based parental leave benefit programs unevenly reproduce and exacerbate class inequality,” says the study, Parental-leave rich and parental-leave poor: Inequality in Canadian labour market based leave policies.

  The research, led by Lindsey McKay, postdoctoral fellow in The Department of Sociology and a Research Associate with Brock’s Social Justice Research Institute, set out to examine if and how social class — defined by family income — determines mothers’ access to maternal or parental leave under the federal EI and Quebec programs.

  The research team, which includes Brock’s Canada Research Chair in Gender, Work and Care Andrea Doucet and Sophie Mathieu, lecturer at the Universite de Montreal, examined statistics from the national Employment Insurance Coverage Survey, compiled by Statistics Canada.

  “We point out a growing divide between Quebec and the rest of Canada and between households with different incomes, in terms of parental leave benefits in the first year of an infant’s life,” the research team concludes.

  “The implication is that where parents live in Canada, and how much they earn, matters to whether and how care work is supported.”

  The study also notes that the 2013 federal government survey excludes residents of Canada’s three territories and Indigenous people living on First Nations reserves.

  The study was published May 19 in the Journal of Industrial Relations.

  See story in The Brock News.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:
  Cathy Majtenyi, Research Communications/Media Relations Specialist, Brock University, cmajtenyi@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550, x5789 or 905-321-0566
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  Categories: Media releases

• Brock professor calls The Tragically Hip’s concert plans historic

  Thursday, May 26, 2016 | By Brock University

  EXPERT ADVISORY: R00109, 24 May 2016

  A Brock University professor says the farewell tour about to be embarked on by The Tragically Hip and lead singer Gord Downie will be “off the scale.”

  The band and it’s legendary frontman Downie have played a pivotal role in the history of Canadian music, says Brock Communication Pop Culture and Film associate professor Scott Henderson.

  The reaction across the country to Tuesday’s news that Downie has an incurable brain tumour has been that of complete shock. The 52 year old first noticed symptoms in December and has been receiving treatment ever since.

  Unfortunately, Downie’s neurologist at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto said Tuesday the singer’s tumour is one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer and the diagnosis is terminal.

  Henderson said The Tragically Hip have left an indelible mark on Canadian music.

  “I kind of wonder what we would have without them,” he said. “Downie’s lyrics and his ability to impart Canadiana into his music … it took that rock blues style and focused it in on interpreting and representing Canada.”

  The Tragically Hip said in a statement it intends to go on tour in Canada and that it will announce the schedule Wednesday morning.

  Henderson said that type of final tour is unprecedented, and he expects ticket demand to be massive.

  “We’ve seen older bands go on the road for a final tour, but this kind of finality, I can’t think of a band that has done this, where there is this certainty to it,” he says. “I really don’t know if it’s going to be maudlin or celebratory. But the reception will be rapturous.”
   
  Henderson is available for in-person, Skype and phone-in media interviews.
   
  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:
  * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970
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  Categories: Media releases