Many economists have until fairly recently treated the family as a "black box" -- analysing the behaviour of "the family" rather than of the individuals within the family. In this paper, we outline the new "collective" approach to modelling family behaviour which makes explicit the fact that...

One major objection to neoclassical economic theory raised by feminist economists is that traditional theory neglects what goes on within families. This paper examines the policy relevance of this feminist critique by asking whether our understanding of the poverty experiences of individual...

This paper explores the connection between the labour market and child overweight status in Canada. The labour market is a social institution which plays a critical role in determining how families live their day-to-day lives, for example, how much time and which parts of the day are available...

High on the research agenda of feminist economists is the development of better models of what goes on within families. This paper contributes by conducting empirical tests of the impact of social/institutional factors on behavior within marriage. As one example, “divorce-threat” bargaining...

This paper uses longitudinal microdata from the Statistics Canada National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) to study the family income dynamics of Canadian children from the time they are 4 or 5 until they are 14 or 15. Dynamics of family income have been studied less often than...

We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth to ask whether (a) parenting a child with a disability or chronic condition leads to lower maternal health status; (b) the association is larger over the longer term; and (c) health consequences are larger for lone than married...