Kim Shuey, Associate Professor

Kim Shuey is a sociologist who focuses on social inequality across the life course.  She primarily studies health inequality and the relationship between work and health.  Recent research examines life course pathways of economic hardship beginning in childhood and the effect of social mobility on health in midlife. Other work examines multiple explanations for the transmission and persistence of poor health across generations. These papers (published in top journals in the field including the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, The Journals of Gerontology, and the American Journal of Sociology) underscore the importance of studying health longitudinally as a salient manifestation of social inequality resulting from patterns of advantage and disadvantage that are reproduced and transmitted across generations within families.  A second focus of her research is on the consequences of employment for health and well-being.  In particular, she is interested in how the insecurity associated with precarious employment environments affects workers.  Papers examining precarious work, job stress, and disability accommodations have been published in journals such as Work and Occupations and Social Currents.

Current Research Projects

"Agency, resources, and resistance: Home/unschooling as a case study." Funded by a Faculty of Social Sciences internal research grant.

"Healthy & Productive Knowledge Workers: The Impact of a Personal or Familial Mental Health Issue in Health Care, Education and Accounting/IT Professions & Accommodating Return to Work." Funded by a SSHRC / CIHR Healthy and Productive Work Partnership development grant.

" Investigating health trajectories over the life course and across generations: A longitudinal analysis of the transmission of health and socioeconomic inequality from parents to their adult children." Funded by CIHR Operating grant in Advancing Theoretical and Methodological Innovations in Health Research.

Recent Publications (Past 5 Years)
for more see Full CV

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

(2018) "A Longitudinal Analysis of the Intergenerational Transmission of Health Inequality" (with Andrea Willson) The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences.

(2018) "It’s the lack of structure that’s causing the problem: Managerial competence, the treatment of workers, and job stress in precarious firms" (with

(2017) "Trajectories of Work Disability and Economic Insecurity Approaching Retirement" (with Andrea Willson) The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences

(2016) Willson, Andrea and Kim Shuey. "Life Course Pathways of Economic Hardship and Mobility and Midlife Trajectories of Health" Journal of Health and Social Behavior 57(3):407-22.

(2016) Etherington, Nicole, Andrea Willson, and Kim Shuey. "Heterogeneity in Chronic Disease Outcomes among Women and Men in Midlife: Examining the Role of Stability and Change in Childhood Economic Hardship" Longitudinal and Life Course Studies 7(1):3-24.

Book Chapters:

(2016) Shuey, Kim, Andrea Willson, and Katherine Bouchard. “Disability and Social Inequality in Canada”  (pp. 258-273) in E. Grabb and N. Guppy (eds.) Social Inequality in Canada: Dimensions of Disadvantage , 6th Edition, Oxford University Press. 

Currently Teaching

• 2298B - 001 Special Topics in Sociology: Environmental Sociology
• 9258A - 650 Sociology of the Life Course
• 9587B - 650 MA Sociological Research 

Post-Doctoral Supervision

2012-2013 Catherine Gordon

2009-2010 Emily Jovic

Thesis Supervision

Supervisory Status: MA, PhD&

PhD Thesis

Jennifer Elgie, current, A methodological approach to Aboriginal partner violence and the transmission of gendered trauma (Supervisor)

Vesna Pajovic, current, Trajectories of Precarious Work (Supervisor)

Megan MacCormac, current, Case-based approach to family research (Supervisory Committee Member)

Lesley Bikos, current, The Effect of Police Culture on Men and Women Police Officers in Canada (Supervisory Committee Member)

Michael Haight, Current, Digital Inequality in Canada: Understanding Differentiated Use of the Internet (Supervisory Committee)

Nicole Etherington, 2016, Gender Differences in Health Trajectories over the Life Course  (Supervisory Committee)

Jillian Bracken, 2015 (Music Education, Western), Family Music Listening Legacies: A Case Study-based Investigation of the Intergenerational Transmission of Music Listenership in Selected Families (Supervisory Committee)

Yvonne Asare-Bediako, 2014, Children's Mental Health: The Contribution of a Sociological Perspective (Supervisory Committee Member).

Emily Jovic, 2009, On Time and Off Time Career Trajectories in the New Economy: The Case of Information Technology Work (Supervisory Committee Member)

MA Thesis

Matthew Stackhouse, current, Canadian Rural Communities and their Health Behaviours, Health Status and Health Service Use (Supervisory Committee Member)

Gwynne Ng, 2018, Acculturation, stress, and the health of recent immigrants (Supervisory Committee Member)

Kyle Militello, 2017, Workplace expectations of post-secondary sexual minority students (Supervisory Committee Member)

Kaitlyn Blair, 2015,  Looking to the Future: Considering the Educational and Occupational Aspirations of Deaf Canadians  (Supervisory Committee)

Veronica Zapotoczny, 2014, Childhood Disadvantage and Vulnerability in Adolescence (Supervisor)

Haosen Sun, 2014, The Role of Grandparent Support in Children’s Mental Health Outcomes (Supervisor)

Kayla Baumgartner, 2011, Inequality in Perceptions of Health: A Crossnational Comparison (Supervisor)

Kristen Bishop, 2011 (Health and Rehabilitation Sciences – Health & Aging, Western), Developing a Model to Explain the Process of Aging with Adult-Onset Physical Disability (Supervisory Committee Member)

Elisabeth Bartlett, 2010, Inequality in Natural Health Product Use: The Canadian Regulatory Regime (Co-supervisor)

MA Research Papers

Mackenzie Dukelow, current, "Homeschooling in Canada and its relationship with formal educational institutions" (Supervisor)

Stephen Fernandez, current, "Mental health in adolescence and educational attainment" (Supervisor)

Cavita Meetun, 2017, "Migrant Inequality: An Analysis of Income and Net-Worth Disparities" (Supervisor)

Vesna Pajovic, 2017,  “A novel measure of work stress: Identifying stressor patterns in Canada using latent class analysis” (Supervisor)

Rhian Foley, 2017, “Sexual violence policies on Canadian Campuses” (Supervisor)

Monica Bochus, 2015, "Neighbourhood Context and Youth Mental Health: The Role of Local Community Programming in a Mid-sized Ontario Urban Centre" (Supervisor)

Michael Thorpe, 2011, "Intervention Timing and Depression: An Examination of the Time Lapse Between Onset and Intervention" (Supervisor)

Ph.D Sociology, Florida State University
M.S. Sociology, Florida State University
B.A. Sociology, Franklin & Marshall College