Families, Mobility, and Work

Employment-related geographical mobility is widespread and increasing within Canada and around the world. Prolonged daily commutes, working away for extended periods, and being employed in mobile workplaces can affect work and family lives along with creating personal risk and compromising well-being.

Families, Mobility, and Work allows readers to experience and explore many of the challenges, opportunities and effects of diverse forms of work-related mobility through a family-centred lens. Assembling findings from substantial research, rooted primarily in the Canadian context, this expansive collection explores intersections between family lives and diverse types of mobility across multiple populations of workers, regions, and sectors. Authors consider a wide range of work-related geographical mobility patterns and their implications including intimate adult relationships, parenting, gender roles, commuting, perspectives on disability, youth as sources of support in families, communities with migrant workers, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Canada’s mobile labour force.

Families, Mobility, and Work is a rich, engaging, and broadly accessible volume, comprising research-based articles, personal stories, songs, poetry, and a photographic essay. These collected perspectives aim to remind us that while families may be the most adaptable institutions in our society, we require evidence-based workplace practices, community and social supports, public policies, and programs if families are to thrive as they endeavour to harmonize their work and mobility rhythms with their broader lives.

Barbara Neis (Ph.D., F.R.S.C., C.M.) is Professor Emerita and John Lewis Paton Distinguished University Professor in Memorial University’s Department of Sociology. A member of the Order of Canada, she holds two honorary doctorates (University of Tromsø and York University) and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada where she is past President of the Academy of Social Sciences. Her research focuses on interactions between work, environment, health and communities in marine and coastal contexts. Since the 1980s, she has carried out and led collaborative research initiatives on the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries including in the areas of fishermen’s knowledge, science and management; maritime occupational health and safety; rebuilding collapsed fisheries; and gender and fisheries.

Nora Spinks, CEO of the Vanier Institute of the Family from 2011 to 2021, worked with people who study, serve, and support families to optimize family well-being in Canada. A well-known keynote speaker, author, and sought-after guest on television and radio, Nora regularly provides the “family lens” on issues of significance to Canadians. She has contributed to the success of many government, community, and workplace policies and programs. An internationally recognized advisor and consultant to business, labour, government, and community leaders, she increases our understanding of the diversity of families; the complexity of family life; and how families are impacted by social and economic factors.

Dr. Christina Murray, BA, RN, PhD, is an Associate Professor with the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Prince Edward Island. Her nursing practice has been grounded in public health and community development. Since 2015, Christina has been leading a program of interdisciplinary, collaborative narrative research focusing on labour migration and its impact on the health of individuals, families, and communities. She was the principal investigator on the Tale of Two Islands study and the Families, Work and Mobility community outreach project and is currently leading a project focused on grandparents raising their grandchildren on PEI. Christina lives on PEI with her husband, Gilles, and daughters, Mairin and Makena.