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Welcome to the website of the Research Group on Human Capital of UQAM’s School of Management (ESG UQAM).

The main objective of the Research Group on Human Capital (Groupe de recherche sur le capital humain) is to contribute to the economics research on all aspects of human capital, using mainly a microeconometric approach based on survey microdata representative of the population or on administrative data. The Group’s research themes include notably education, labor and well-being, and concern above all children, youth and families. One of the priorities of the Research Group on Human Capital is to study the effects of public policies on human capital and its development broadly speaking, as well as on inequalities.


Events

Celebration – Ten years, it’s something to celebrate!

The Research Group on Human Capital is celebrating its tenth anniversary! In a combo of festivities, the Research Chair in Intergenerational Economics (CREEi) and the GRCH are jointly celebrating their tenth anniversary, as well as the renewal of the CREEi for the next five years. Come join Raquel Fonseca and Marie Connolly, co-chairs of the CREEi, for a discussion panel (in French) moderated by Nathalie de Marcellis-Warin of CIRANO on research and public policies featuring Catherine Haeck (ESG UQAM), Marie-Louise Leroux (ESG UQAM) and Pierre-Carl Michaud (HEC Montréal). The panel will be followed by a cocktail where you will be able to catch up with those who contributed to the activities of the GRCH and CREEi over the past ten years.

The event will take place at the Université du Québec à Montréal, building Sherbrooke, 200 rue Sherbrooke Ouest (Place-des-Arts metro station), room SH-4800, from 4pm to 7pm.

For the schedule, (free) registration, and more details, follow this link.


News

An animated video to explain our article on school reopenings

February 2024 – A first for the GRCH! We have just published our outreach video on the leading video science communication channel, SciTube. This animation reports on results from a study published in the Canadian Journal of Economics in 2022 on school reopenings and parental work. Enjoy!


New publication in the Canadian Journal of Economics

February 2024 – Marie Connolly and Catherine Haeck just published the article Intergenerational Income Mobility Trends in Canada in the latest issue of the Canadian Journal of Economics. Stemming from a multi-year effort and data development funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et Culture, in partnership with Statistics Canada, this article shows that intergenerational income mobility has declined in Canada between the cohorts of children born in the early sixties to those born in the mid-eighties. You can also find the data and code replication package de réplication on Borealis.


An article in Canadian Public Policy and two in The Conversation/La Conversation Canada on child penalties

February 2024 – Marie Connolly and Catherine Haeck pen two articles in The Conversation and La Conversation, reporting on findings from their article publisehd in November 2023 in Canadian Public Policy. This article, Child Penalties in Canada, was coauthored with Marie Mélanie Fontaine, former Ph.D. student at the GRCH, and is the fruit of her doctoral thesis. You can also find the related data and code replication package on the Dataverse of the GRCH.


Three new GRCH Working Papers for the new year

January 2024 – GRCH members have released three new working papers in the GRCH series of working papers. You can read right away the studies of Nicholas Lawson in “Discrimination and the Fiscal Benefits of Immigration,” Working Paper 24-01, as well as those from Andrei Munteanu in “Intergenerational Persistence in the Effects of Compulsory Schooling in the U.S.” with Titus Galama and Kevin Thom), Working Paper 24-02, and in “School Choice, Student Sorting and Academic Performance,” Working Paper 24-03.


In the Media

September’s ADHD

March 24, 2024 – Research by the GRCH is at the heart of a La Presse article on the effects of age. The article, part of a series on those effects, talks about the findings in a study done by Catherine Haeck, Pierre Lefebvre, Philip Merrigan, and Geneviève Lefebvre. The study, available on CIRANO’s website, is about the link between the relative age in class and ADHD diagnostic. This link is identified using the age cutoff to start school.

Happy reading!


Catherine Haeck feeds Paul Journet’s reflections in La Presse

March 20, 2024 – In a column on the Education Minister’s idea of a dashboard on Québec schools, Paul Journet mentions his discussions with Catherine Haeck. She talks about the available data and their accessibility.

Happy reading!


GRCH research cited in La Presse

March 4, 2024 – Catherine Haeck and her research on ADHD and immature behaviour in class, done jointly with Philip Merrigan and Pierre Lefebvre from the GRCH, are cited in an article by Francis Vailles in La Presse on class composition in primary schools.


Why do we put so much pressure on kids?

February 27, 2024 – Catherine Haeck talked with Patrick Lagacé on 98.5 FM in Montréal about Jérémie Battaglia’s documentary on the pressure we put on children and the constant evaluations we subject them to.


An appearance on Global News

February 25, 2024 – Marie Connolly was interviewed by Sean Previl from Global News to comment a study by Pew Research Center. It was an opportunity to talk about her recent work on child penalties in Canada.