Roderic Beaujot, Professor Emeritus of Sociology

New Book!

From Horse and Buggy to GPS: Life on a Saskatchewan Farm

Lulu Press

This book tells the story of my parents Leon and Dorothy Beaujot, our lives on a family farm in Saskatchewan (1945-1985), their retirement (1985-2014), and the stories of their parents who arrived in Canada from Belgium and France over the period 1892 to 1911: Félicien and Bertheline Beaujot and Paul and Julienne Mullie.

After a discussion  of the conditions that allowed for European settlement in Western Canada, I summarize the history of the community of Saint Hubert in Southeastern Saskatchewan, where my grandparents lived their lives and my parents were married (1945) and are buried (2014). Originally called “La Rolanderie,” this settlement was established in the mid-1880s by “French counts” who sought to start a new life on the prairies of what was then Canada’s North West. While the aristocrats soon returned to Europe, they and others who came at that time built a vibrant community based on religion, language and assistance across neighbours. This is also the story of a community that has since disappeared, with only an empty church and cemeteries remaining.

This story of my parents and grandparents shows how life changed on family farms: shelter and food, earning a living, family and community. Family farming underwent much change, from horse and buggy days to increasing specialization and mechanization in agriculture. In the horse and buggy days, the garden, farm animals and the natural environment provided for much of household consumption. The family was the basis of market production: grains, livestock, cream, eggs. Over time, the family specialized in dry grains. As of the early 1980s, they had abandoned the practice of summer fallow. In 1981, an air seeder was purchased, allowing for single-pass minimum till continuous cropping, and anticipating the no-till operations that two of their sons would develop.

Available at: www.lulu.com see Lulu Bookstore and search for “Beaujot”
Also available as a OSF preprint: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/nzcwe/

B.A. Collège Mathieu (University of Ottawa), 1967
B.A. University of Alberta, 1970
M.A. in Sociology, University of Alberta, 1972
Ph.D. in Sociology, University of Alberta, 1975

With a PhD in Sociology from University of Alberta (1975), Roderic Beaujot was Demographer at Statistics Canada (1974-76) and has since been at the University of Western Ontario: Assistant Professor (1976 1982), Associate Professor with tenure (1982 89), Full Professor (1989-2011), Professor Emeritus (2011-present). 

He was Principal Investigator for Population Change and Lifecourse, a Strategic Knowledge Cluster funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and Past Chair of the Statistics Canada Advisory Committee on Demographic Statistics and Studies.

He has been President of the Canadian Population Society (2000-02) and the Federation of Canadian Demographers (1987-90). He was a member of the Canadian Delegation at the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994).

Beaujot’s research interests include the evolving demographics of Canada and implications for social policy in areas of family, health, labour force, pensions, education, and social security.

As President of the Federation of Canadian Demographers, Beaujot led the 1989 bid to hold the 1993 IUSSP Congress in Montreal. He also helped fund and organize the IUSSP Distinguished Lecture Series at the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994), including publishing a summary which appeared in Canadian Studies in Population 23(1): 69-98 (1996).

Languages: English and French

Countries of Professional Experience: Canada, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sweden, Mali.

Visiting positions:

• Visiting Scholar, Demographic Unit, Stockholm University, Summer of 1997
• Visiting Scholar, Office National de Planning Familial et de la Population, Tunisia, 1982-83.
• Summer Intern, The Population Council, Summer of 1973.
• Research assistant, Institut National de Statistique et d’Economie Appliquée, Morocco, Summer, 1971.

Selected Publications (2012-)
for more see Full CV

Books:

(2021) From Horse and Buggy to GPS: Life on a Saskatchewan Farm. Lulu Press.

(2016) Population Change in Canada , (with Don Kerr) (3rd ed.) Oxford University Press.

Book Chapters:

(2022) Beaujot, Roderic, Jianye Liu and Zenaida Ravanera. 2022. Gender Inequality in Family Patterns. Pp. 206-221 in Monica Mi Hee Hwang, Edward Grabb and Jeffrey G. Reitz, Social Inequality in Canada: Dimensions of Disadvantage, 7^th Edition. Oxford University Press.

(2015) "Aboriginal Demography" (with Don Kerr) pp 179-208 in David Long and Olive Patricia Dickason (eds.) Visions of the Heart: Canadian Aboriginal Issues 4th ed. Oxford University Press.

(2013) "Population and immigration policy" (with Muhammad Munib Raza) pp.129-162 in P. James and M. Kasoff (eds.) Canadian Studies in the New Millenium 2nd ed. University of Toronto Press.

Refereed Journal Publications:

(2020) "Determinants of adults’ solo living in Canada: a longitudinal perspective" (with Jianye Liu, Juyan Wang, and Zenaida Ravanera) Journal of Population Research 37(1): 53-71.

(2019) "Screening for dementia caused by modifiable lifestyle choices using Hybrid PET/MRI" (with Frank S. Prato, William F. Pavlosky, Steven C. Foster, and Jonathan D. Thiessen) Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease Reports 3 (2019): 31-45.

(2018) "Maximum Canada: What do Canadians wish to maximize?" (with Lise Patterson) Canadian Studies in Population 45(1-2): 67-78.

(2018) "Measuring the effects of stress and social networks on the health of Canadians" (with Jianye Liu and Zenaida Ravanera) Applied Research in Quality of Life 13(4): 891-908.

(2017) "Gender Inequality in the Family Setting" (with Jianye Liu and Zenaida Ravanera) Canadian Studies in Population 44(1-2): 1-13. Reprinted with permission from Oxford University Press.

(2017) "Canada: The case for stable population with moderately low fertility and modest immigration" Canadian Studies in Population 44(3-4): 185-190. 

(2016) "Introduction: Comparative demography of Australia and Canada" (with Peter McDonald) Canadian Studies in Population 43(1-2):1-4.

(2014) "Why do we still need a census?" Comment in The Canadian Geographer.

(2014) "Childlessness of men in Canada: Result of a waiting game in a changing family context" (with Zenaida Ravanera)  Canadian Studies in Population 41(1-2):38-60.

(2013) "Family policies in Quebec and the rest of Canada: Implications for fertility, child care, women’s paid work and child development indicators" (with Ching Du and Zenaida Ravanera) Canadian Public Policy 39(2): 221-239.

(2013) "Social capital and economic integration of visible minority immigrants in Canada" (with Muhammad Raza and Gebremariam Woldemicael) International Migration and Integration 14(2):263-285.

(2012) "Fertility behavior of immigrants in Canada: Converging trends" (with Gebremariam Woldemicael) International Migration and Integration 13(3):325-341

Reviews

(2015) World Population and Human Capital in the Twenty-First Century, edited by W. Lutz, W.P. Butz and Samier KC, reviewed in Canadian Studies in Population 42(3/4): 163-64.

(2015) Les théories de la migration reviewed in Canadian Studies in Population 42(1-2): 165-6.

(2012) Ageing Populations in Post-industrial Democracies: Comparative Studies of Policies and Politics reviewed in Canadian Public Policy 38(3): 443-444.

(2012) International Handbook of Population Aging reviewed in Canadian Studies in Population 39(1-2): 145-147.

Note: for Papers Presented look in the Research tab.

Professor Beaujot's research interests include evolving demographics (fertility, mortality, immigration, internal migration, aging, regional distribution) and implications for social policy in areas such as health, family, labour force, language, multiculturalism, equal opportunity, pensions, education, and social security.

On fertility, his research interest include questions of gender and families, especially the earning and caring activities over the life course as seen in the division of paid and unpaid work, and how these form the context through which to interpret childbearing behaviour.

Population Change and Lifecourse Principal Investigator with Amélie Quesnel-Vallée, Byron Spencer, Céline Le Bourdais, Kevin McQuillan, Paul Bernard, Susan McDaniel, Zheng Wu and Partners Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Health Canada, Human Resources and Social Development Canada, Policy Research Initiative, SSHRC Strategic Knowledge Cluster Grant

Beaujot, Roderic and Zenaida Ravanera, 2015, Population Change and Life Course: Taking Stock and Looking to the Future . PCLC Discussion Paper Vol 3, Issue 1(8).

Family Change and Social Cohesion in a Globalizing Era

Family, Community and Health in the Context of Economic Change

The population of Canada

(2016) Kerr, Don and Roderic Beaujot, Population Change in Canada , 3rd Edition, Toronto: Oxford.

(2015) Kerr, Don and Roderic Beaujot, 2015 Aboriginal Demography," pp. 179-208 in David Long and Olive Patricia Dickason (eds) Visions of the Heart: Issues Involving Aboriginal Peoples in Canada , Don Mills: Oxford University Press.

(2010) Beaujot, Roderic and Juyan Wang, "Low fertility in Canada: The Nordic model in Quebec and the U.S. model in Alberta" Canadian Studies in Population 37(3-4): 411-443.

(2002) "Projecting the future of Canada’s population: assumptions, implications, and policy" Presidential Address to the Canadian Population Society, Toronto, May 2002. Published in Canadian Studies in Population 30(1): 1-28.

(2000) "Les deux transitions démographiques du Québec, 1860-1996" Cahiers Québécois de Démographie 29(2): 201-230.

Immigration and the population of Canada

(2013) Beaujot, Roderic and Muhammad Munib Raza, "Population and immigration policy" pp. 129-162 in P. James and M. Kasoff (eds) Canadian Studies in the New Millennium Second Edition , Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

(2013) "Immigration and the population of Canada: The role of policy" Colloquium of the Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Western University, 26 September 2013.

Family change: earning and caring

(2015) Beaujot, Roderic, Jianye Liu and Zenaida Ravanera, The converging gender trends in earing and caring in Canada Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series 3(3): Article 2.

(2013) Beaujot, Roderic, Ching Du and Zenaida Ravanera, "Family policies in Quebec and the rest of Canada: Implications for fertility, child care, women’s paid work and child development indicators" Canadian Public Policy 39(2): 221-239.

(2013) Beaujot, Roderic, Jianye Liu and Zenaida Ravanera, "Family diversity and inequality: the Canadian case" Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series 1(1): Article 7.

(2005) Roderic Beaujot and Jianye Liu, "Models of time use in paid and unpaid work" Journal of Family Issues 26: 924-946.

(2005) Beaujot, Roderic, Zenaida Ravanera and Thomas Burch, "Toward a HRSD (Human Resources and Social Development) Family Research Framework" Lead Paper at Social Development Canada Expert Roundtable on Challenges for Canadian Families, Ottawa, 1-2 December 2005.

(2002) "Earning and caring" Porter Lecture at the meetings of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, Toronto, May 2002.

(2000) Earning and Caring in Canadian Families Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Research Network Participation

Academic Director, University of Western Ontario Research Data Centre, 2004-2014.

Chair, Advisory Committee on Demographic Statistics and Studies, Statistics Canada, 1994-2016, member for 1992-2016.

Executive Committee, Canadian Research Data Centre Network, 2010-2014.

Member, Institut de Statistique du Québec, Comité consultatif sur les statistiques démographiques et sociales, 2006-2013.

Thesis Supervision

PhD Theses 

Kerr, Don. Life cycle demographic events and economic well-being, June 1992.

Zhao, John. Leaving parental homes in Canada, October 1994.

Halli, Shiva. Asian ethnic fertility in Canada: An application of the minority group status hypothesis, July 1984.

Ng, Edward. Dependents and resource allocation in an aging society, July 1992.

Kerr, Don. Life cycle demographic events and economic well-being, June 1992.

Matthews, Beverly. The relationship between gender and fertility strategies, August 1994.

Zhao, John. Leaving parental homes in Canada, October 1994.

Hosgor, Ayse. Development and women’s employment status: Evidence from the Turkish Republic 1923-1990, November 1996.

Richards, Judy-Lynn. (co-adviser) Demographic correlates, social relations, and norms as determinants of availability of adult children as potential, instrumental, and basic-and-instrumental care providers, November 2002.

Omariba, Walter, Levels, trends and correlates of child mortality in Kenya: An exploration into the phenomenon of death clustering, December 2004.

Hennebry, Jenna, Globalization and the Mexican-Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program: Power, Racialization & Transnationalism in Temporary Migration, April 2006.

Telake Sahleyesus, Daniel, Fertility transition in Ethiopia: A Focus on Urban Fertility and the Urban-Rural Differences, June 2006.

Jurdi, Rozzet, Dynamics of contraceptive utilization in three Arab countries: Advances and challenges in promoting women’s reproductive health, June 2009.

Aysan, Mehmet, Welfare Regimes: the welfare of the old in comparative perspective, 20 July 2011.

Du, Ching (Jiangqin), The Transformation of Conjugal Partnerships: Union Transitions and Trajectories in Canada. 27 March 2012.

Raza, Muhammad, Social and human capital: The determinants of economic integration of South Asian immigrants in Canada. 29 November 2012.

MA Theses 

Hirooka, K. Satisfaction with neighbourhood among immigrants in Toronto, December 1980.

Tong, Shirley. Spouse satisfaction and fertility, May 1982.

Rassam, Andrée. Syrian farm households: Women’s labour and the impact of technology, July 1984.

Andrews, Mike. (1) Proposal to evaluate Ontario’s Assisted Rental Housing Program, as it pertains to families in London, Ontario. (2) Proposal to evaluate the Essex County Diversion Program. (3) A critique of the Addiction Research Foundation’s evaluation of the Therapeutic Community, May 1985.

Ng, Edward. Secularization and fertility in Islamic Tunisia, September, 1986.

Chen, Jiajian. Fertility transition in Mexico and Peru, September, 1986.

Charette, Denis. Gay identity formation, May 1987.

DeWit, Margaret. Kin support and formal service utilization among the elderly, September 1988.

McCormick, Mark. Symbolic aspects of Public Policy, January 1991

Han, Yohan. An examination of minority groups and fertility, June 1992.

Green, Carole. The continuum of care: a children’s services planning model, January 1993

Hou, Feng. Return inter-provincial migrants in Canada, May 1993

Kimulu, Elizabeth. Integration into development and status of women: the case of Kenya, July 1993

Cook, Cynthia. Understanding Instability in the Labour Force, January 1995

Knezic, Zora. Child care constraints on female work commitment and fertility, September 1995

Smith, Peter. A comparative analysis among men of gender-role orientations toward marriage and family, September 1996.

McFarlane, Seth. Work-family conflict: determinants of the domestic division of labour, May 1997

Hango, Darcy. Childhood residential mobility and educational attainment in Canada, September 1998.

Conti, Angela. Under-employment in Canada: A comparison of post-secondary graduates between 1989 and 1994, September 1998 (co-advisor).

Cooke, Martin. One leaving home: Return and circular migration between First Nations and Prairie Cities, June 1999.

Mannan, Haider. Determinants of contraceptive usage and method choice in Bangladesh, September 1999.

Musilli, Sabrina. Educational homogamy and marital satisfaction, June 2001.

Wilson, Jessica. Elderly Canadians and supportive exchange relationships, Nov. 2001.

Tenkorang, Eric. Family structure and child outcomes: A longitudinal study of sexual behaviour of Canadian adolescents, May 2004.

Yeboah, Henry. Adolescent employment: Determinants and consequences, June 2004.

Lou, Yimin. What happens to the ‘Healthy immigrant effect:’ The mental health of immigrants to Canada, August 2005

Moyser, Melissa. Why are Canadians having children? An investigation of the value attributed to children and its impact on demand for children, October 2005

Zahid, Mustafa, advisor for area paper, Factors affecting infant and child mortality in Pakistan, April 2005.