News

Marie Connolly at the Matinée RQAP 2023

November 13, 2023 – At the Matinée RQAP 2023, Marie Connolly, Director of the GRCH, will have the opportunity to speak about the paper Child Penalties in Canada, which she co-authored with Marie Mélanie Fontaine and Catherine Haeck and which is forthcoming in Canadian Public Policy. The Matinée RQAP is an opportunity to discuss the challenges facing Quebec women and families in a changing labour market, as well as the evolving contribution of public policies such as the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP).

The event will take place at Salle Godin, Hôtel10, 10 rue Sherbrooke O, Montreal, on November 28, 2023, from 7:45 a.m. to noon. Please note this event will be held in French.

To register and learn more about the event.


Seminar – Geographic mobility and intergenerational transmission of income in Quebec

October 2023 – If the region in which a person grows up is a strong determinant of their chances of improving their situation compared to that of their parents, then the social elevator is broken. Despite initiatives to promote equal opportunities, the reproduction of inequalities from generation to generation has worsened in Quebec in recent decades.

During this seminar organized by CIRANO, Marie ConnollyXavier St-Denis and Yacine Boujija will present the results of the very first study which examines the influence of geographic mobility on the intergenerational transmission of income in Quebec. They follow the journey of 1.4 million young people and show that the phenomenon of social immobility affects more young people who grew up outside big cities, and particularly those who still live there in their early thirties.

The seminar will take place at the CIRANO (Center for Interuniversity Research and Analysis of Organizations) – Suite 1400, 1130 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest in Montreal, on Monday, October 30 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

For registration and more details, follow this link.


Laëtitia Renée and Xavier St-Denis join the GRCH

October 6th 2023 – The Research Group on Human Capital (GRCH) is proud to welcome two new researchers !

Laëtitia Renée joined the Department of Economics at the University of Montreal in 2022, holding a Ph.D. from McGill University. Her specialization is in econometrics, and she focuses on socio-economic inequalities in education as well as gender disparities in the labor market.

Xavier St-Denis is an assistant professor specializing in social inequalities at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), Center for Urbanization, Culture, and Society. He also serves as the director of the Group for the Study of Social Statistics (GESS). His areas of interest encompass socio-economic inequalities in education and employment, the sociology of work and organizations, and social demography.

The expertise of Laëtitia Renée and Xavier St-Denis will undoubtedly be appreciated within the GRCH!


“Geographic mobility and intergenerational transmission of income in Quebec”, the latest CIRANO project report from Boujija, Y. Connolly, M. and St-Denis, X.

June 2023 – In this study, the authors examine the contribution of geographic mobility to the intergenerational transmission of income in Quebec. The study uses data from Statistics Canada’s Intergenerational Income Mobility Database (BDMIR) to estimate the link between geographic mobility and socioeconomic mobility.

Four cohorts of young people are followed over time: those born between 1967 and 1970, between 1972 and 1975, between 1977 and 1980 and between 1982 and 1985. This represents a sample of almost 1.4 million observations.

The authors show that the deterioration of social mobility in Quebec stems mainly from two phenomena :

  1. a deterioration in the socioeconomic status of young people residing outside major urban centers at age 16 and having grown up in a family at the bottom of the income distribution, combined with…

2. … an improvement in the situation of young people from these same regions, but having grown up in a family at the top of the parental income distribution. This study contributes to enriching knowledge and suggests that policies supporting geographic mobility could contribute to increasing social mobility in Quebec.

Download the project report: https://cirano.qc.ca/files/publications/2023RP-11.pdf


 

Congratulations to Christ Kévin Bazie who joins the National Research Council !

June 2023 – Christ Kévin Bazie announced this week his entry into the National Research Council, which they say is the largest research and technology institution in Canada.

It is partly thanks to his presentations with the Poster-format-GRCH and his various parallel training courses in data sciences that he allowed him to access the position of data analyst with development opportunities.

I would like to thank the GRCH again, which gave me a lot and I did not fail to mention to the NRC my membership of the GRCH with its exceptional professors” – Christ Kévin Bazie


 

Presentations by Nicholas Lawson and Marie Connolly at the Princeton Industrial Relations Section Centennial Symposium on June 8th, 2023 :

  • 1:00-1:15 p.m.: Nicholas Lawson “Business organizations and the minimum wage”. This study shows that higher minimum wages are associated with smaller firms with fewer layers in their hierarchy, but also with higher levels of productivity.

Visit Nicholas Lawson’s website by clicking here

  • 3:15-3:30: Marie Connolly “Intergenerational transmission of income among Generation 1.5 in Canada: the role of age at immigration”. In this study, the researchers attempt to understand the causal effect of age at immigration by estimating a model in which the rank of children is explained by interactions between age at arrival and the predicted mean rank. second-generation immigrants from the same region of origin, living in the same region in Canada, from the same birth cohort, taking into account the income of their parents

Find Marie Connolly’s full article by clicking here as well as her website.

The symposium will take place at Robertson Hall – the Arthur Lewis Auditorium


Presentation by Marie Connolly at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Canadian Economists.

June 2023 – Marie Connolly presented the paper stemming from Anne Mei Le Bourdais-Coffey’s memoir (co-written paper with Catherine Haeck) at the annual meeting of the Association of Canadian Economists.


Congratulations to Mélissa Coissard for her award!

May 2023 – Mélissa Coissard won the prize for the best oral communication at the Interordre conference on student research in the human and social sciences.


 

 

 

 

Visit of Pierre-Loup Beauregard (UBC) and Sébastien Montpetit (TSE) from May 3 to August 7 at the GRCH!

May 2023 – The Human Capital Research Group is pleased to announce the visit of two doctoral students this summer.

Our first guest, Pierre-Loup Beauregard is a PhD student at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia. His work focuses on demographic changes in occupied neighborhoods and their impacts on residents. In particular, he studies the impacts on public schools and their roles in gentrification processes.

For more information on Pierre-Loup, visit his website at the following address:https://sites.google.com/view/pierreloupbeauregard

We then present Sébastien Montpetit, an applied microeconomist in the last year of his doctorate at the Toulouse School of Economics (TSE). Her research interests focus mainly on the economic integration of minorities and women in developed countries as well as family policies. In terms of methods, he is interested in estimating theoretical models or using micro-data and cost-benefit analysis.

His most active research projects concern:

    • The impact of Quebec’s universal child care reform on social well-being. (This project will be presented on May 5 at the GRCH. NB: This paper is co-written with Pierre-Loup.)

    • Economic costs and motivations for wearing the veil among Muslim women in France.

Having completed my Bacc in 2017 in the economics department of ESG-UQÀM, it will be a pleasure to meet my teachers there!”

Sébastien, will present himself this Friday, May 5 at 3 p.m.:

>Friday, May 5, 2023
>3:00 p.m., room DS-5650

For more information on Sébastien, visit his website at the following address: https://www.sebastienmontpetit.com/fr/


Congratulations to Anne-Charlotte Latour for accepting her application for the Health and Society Institute Fund Scholarship!

A fourth-year interdisciplinary doctoral student in health and society, Anne-Charlotte is particularly interested in the disciplines of health economics, microeconometrics and social epidemiology.

Her first thesis essay focuses on economic mobility and the determinants of health, education, well-being and early childhood development in Canada.


Congratulations to Lucie Raymond-Brousseau who holds the Best Master’s Thesis

With her thesis The role of universities and intergenerational social mobility in Quebec, Lucie Raymond-Brousseau, master’s student in economics, presents a descriptive analysis of the contribution of Quebec universities to intergenerational income mobility in Quebec, under the direction of Marie Connolly and Catherine Haeck, Department of Economics.


Congratulations to Djossou Tchénagnon who holds the Best Master’s Thesis (Honourable Mention)

Master’s student in economics, Djossou Tchénagnon presents a dissertation that modifies Acemoglu’s job search model to study the impact of the temporary foreign worker program (TFWP) on the salary of natives.

Under the title, Integration of (im)migrant workers under a ban on changing employers in the country: salary impact on other employees within the affected occupations, Djossou Tchénagnon’s thesis was produced under the supervision of Marie Connolly and Nicholas Lawson, Department of Economics.


Doctoral student Erik Igelström in Montreal to visit the GRCH

Erik Igelström is a final year PhD student in the Social Sciences and Public Health Unit at the University of Glasgow MRC/CSO. He is currently visiting McMaster University for a three-month doctoral exchange with Professor Jim Dunn, studying the relationship between social mobility, income inequality and mortality in metropolitan areas of Canada and the United States. In his doctoral work, he applies causal inference methods to estimate the causal effects of income on health at the individual level.

Visiting McMaster, we are fortunate to have him in Montreal April 14-19 to visit the GRCH.


Congratulations to Félix-Antoine Gaudreault who is starting his PhD in the Netherlands!

March 2023 – It is at the Tinbergen Institute, attached to the Erasmus School of Economics (Netherlands), that Felix-Antoine begins a doctorate under the supervision of Peter Koudijs.

At the end of these five years of contract, his research will give us a better understanding of how households make their financial decisions but also the effect of these decisions on their wealth and well-being. His first paper will study, more specifically, the effect of mortgage amortization on household wealth accumulation and wealth inequality between households who have chosen to buy a house and renters, all things otherwise equal.

Félix-Antoine’s general research agenda gives us an overview of his study, it is divided into two stages. First, it consists of understanding the effect of financial decisions (obtaining a credit card, loan for the purchase of a vehicle or a house, investing in financial markets, etc.) on the wealth of households and wealth inequalities between them. His research also aims to determine whether each household is equipped in the same way to make these decisions and what is the best way to encourage households to make optimal decisions (tax policies, financial education, etc.).


Upcoming event April 14, 2023: GRCH-OPES Workshop on Education and Intergenerational Mobility

The Research Group on Human Capital will hold its sixth workshop in collaboration with the Observatory for children’s education and health (OPES) on Friday, April 14, 2023, at the University of Quebec in Montreal. Seven academic researchers from the fields of Economics and Psychology will present recent work. The presentations primarily feature empirical research using microeconometric models, with a particular emphasis on questions of identification of causal effects. The workshop is intended to promote discussion and exchanges on the theme of intergenerational mobility and its association with education. The workshop is open not only to academics (professors, researchers, graduate students), but also to administrators and policymakers as well as to officials from governmental institutions with an interest in the topic.

The workshop will take place at the University of Quebec in Montreal, building Président-Kennedy, 201 Président-Kennedy Avenue (Place-des-Arts metro station), room PK-1140, from 9:00 AM to 4:45 PM.

For more information, click here.


Invitation and launch of the book “The under-education of men and womens’ choices of professions”

March 2023 – Professor Catherine Haeck and her co-authors, Pr. Robert Lacroix, Pr. Claude Montmarquette and Pr. Richard E. Tremblay are launching a book explaining three phenomena related to gender and educational pathways. They first explored how women are now more educated than men. However, despite this reversed trend, the differences in the choices of professions and disciplines made by men and women persist. By retracing the course of the last seventy-five years, the authors share their explanations of the possible causes of these phenomena and analyze their economic and social impacts. They finally put forward a series of measures to be put in place, in the light of their analysis. Congratulations to the authors and enjoy your reading!

  • Date and time: Tuesday, March 28 from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
  • Location: Cirano, 1130, Sherbrooke Ouest, suite 1400, Montréal H3A 2M8
  • Language: French
  • Limited spots
  • Wine and appetizers will be served

The book will be available in bookstores from March 20.


Congratulations to Tchénagnon Armand Djossou for completing his Master’s Thesis!

February 2023 – A graduate of the ESG of UQÀM in economics, Tchénagnon Armand Djossou submitted his master’s thesis entitled “Integration of (im)migrant workers banned from changing employers in the country: wage impact on other employees in the affected occupations”. His research included studying the effects of temporary foreign worker programs (TFWP) on other local workers already in place (natives). Specifically, he analysed the impact of the TFWP on the salary and employment of natives. The main contribution of this thesis is theoretical and the model presented by the author shows that the TFWP could reduce the wages and increase the unemployment of natives insofar as an increase in the proportion of temporary foreign workers on the labor market would encourage businesses to create more precarious employment. The author points out that there are, however, combinations of parameters for which the model predicts a positive effect of TWP on natives. Subsequently, he tested the model’s predictions empirically using the Labor Force Survey (LFS) data from January 2015 to January 2022 provided by Statistics Canada, as well as data on temporary foreign worker flows provided by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). This empirical work seems to validate the negative relationship with the salary of natives predicted by the theoretical model. However, the relationship with native unemployment is not the one anticipated; which presents new avenues to explore regarding the impact of these workers on the local market.

The RGHC has also made available the codes used to produce the thesis results, as well as the data access procedure, on the Université du Québec à Montréal’s dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.5683/SP3/PUGBPP (Djossou, 2022).

Tchénagnon Armand wrote his dissertation under the supervision of professors Marie Connolly and Nicholas Lawson. Congratulations!
>To read the Master’s Thesis (in French)


Congratulations to Christ Kévin Bazié for completing his Master’s Thesis!

January 2023 – A graduate of the ESG of UQÀM in economics, Christ Kévin Bazié submitted his master’s thesis entitled “The relationship between unemployment insurance and unemployment: heterogeneity and variation over time”. Through his research, Christ Kévin analyzed the relationship between generous unemployment benefits and the length of time spent unemployed, in an American context. He discovered that in a context of increasing unemployment insurance, some people remain unemployed longer. This seemed particularly the case among the most educated individuals. However, the effects of more generous allowances vary between individuals. His study also suggests that some women are more sensitive than men to increases in benefits. The longer unemployment period of these women could be due to a greater social acceptance of their unemployment situation, as well as the fact that their jobs are more precarious, if they were already working. Race did not appear to have an effect on the length of the unemployment period.

As another result of his research, Christ Kévin highlighted that even if the generosity of benefits always leads to an increase in the duration of unemployment, this increase has become less and less important over the last three decades. He calls this phenomenon “Deceleration of overtime unemployment”. As the labor market is central to a country’s economic prosperity, better understanding this complex phenomenon appears essential.

As an avenue for future research, it would also be interesting to consider non-financial motivations associated with returning to work, as well as possible structural changes that may affect the labor market.

The RGHC has also made available the codes used to produce the thesis results, as well as the data access procedure, on the Université du Québec à Montréal’s dataverse at https://doi.org/10.5683/SP3/JDCGEX (Bazié, 2023).
Christ Kévin wrote his dissertation under the supervision of professor Nicholas Lawson. Congratulations!
>To read the Master’s Thesis (in French)


Employment Opportunity, Research Internship or Postdoctoral Fellowship

December 16, 2022 – Professor Marie Connolly, from the Department of Economics of ESG UQAM, is looking for a student, postdoctoral fellow, or research professional to work on a microempirical project on the role of wealth inequality in intergenerational transmissions. The data are accessible at the Quebec Interuniversity Centre for Social Statistics.

Project Description
Research on intergenerational mobility almost exclusively deal with the intergenerational transmission of income, since fiscal data contain detailed information on income, with a longitudinal component (an exception is Black et al. (2019), who exploit Swedish administrative data on wealth). Inequality of wealth is however generally stronger than inequality of income; it could therefore be possible that intergenerational transmission of wealth be more important than that of income when considering the transmission of socioeconomic status from one generation to the next (Benhabib et al., 2019). We propose to decompose the intergenerational transmission of total income into different components based on the type of income, to appreciate the role of wealth inequality, and to use the capitalization method (Saez and Zucman, 2016) to estimate wealth transmission.

General Duties

  • quantitative analysis of large data bases (data manipulation, estimation of statistical models)
  • project management in terms of data and associated codes

Qualifications

  • university degree in economics or other related discipline
  • experience in quantitative analysis and database management
  • knowledge of Stata
  • knowledge of SAS and R (an asset)
  • knowledge of French and English
  • valid security clearance to work at a Statistics Canada RDC (an asset)

> To check out the complete job description (English on second page)
> To apply, please send your cover letter and resume directly to: connolly.marie@uqam.ca


The RGHC is Taking Part in the 15th Excellence en Relève Colloquium of the CIQSS

October 26, 2022 – Congratulations to the Master’s graduate students Félix-Antoine Gaudreault and Lucie Raymond-Brousseau who will present their research findings at the 15th Colloque Excellence en Relève du CIQSS!
Félix-Antoine’s presentation is entitled “Nonlinear Effect of Class Size on the Cognitive and Non-cognitive Development of the child: Estimation with Data from the 2012 and 2017 Quebec Surveys on Child Development in Kindergarten” (title translated from French). Lucie will present the results of her study “The Role of Universities and Intergenerational Mobility in Quebec” (title translated from French).

  • Date and time: November 8, 2022 from 8:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
  • Format: Hybrid
  • Location: CIQSS office, 3535 Chemin Queen-Mary, room 420 and online
  • Admission: free
  • Limited spots

Registration

Check out the full program (in French)

Congratulations to Félix-Antoine and Lucie for their upcoming presentations!


Congratulations to Félix-Antoine Gaudreault for completing his Master’s Thesis!

September 17, 2022 – A student at the RGHC, Félix-Antoine Gaudreault submitted his thesis last August entitled “Non-linear effect of class sizes on the cognitive and non-cognitive development of the child – estimation with data from the Quebec survey on the development of kindergarten children in 2012 and 2017”. His research concludes that the effect of class size on children’s cognitive and non-cognitive development is generally small and statistically significative. However, smaller class sizes does have a certain effect when only disadvantaged children are taken into account. The policy of general class size reduction, as implemented by the Government of Quebec in 2016, does therefore not seem to be an interesting public policy. The statistical analysis presented in this thesis demonstrates that a policy targeted at the areas most in need could have a significant effect on disadvantaged children. These children usually present an early developmental delay.

The RGHC has also made available the codes used to produce the thesis results, as well as the data access procedure, on the Université du Québec à Montréal’s dataverse at https://doi.org/10.5683/SP3/SRV0RF (Gaudreault, 2022).

Félix-Antoine wrote his dissertation under the supervision of professors Marie Connolly and Catherine Haeck. Congratulations!
>To read the Master’s Thesis (in French)


Conference | Two Years of Pandemic: What Impacts on Children and How to Reduce the Negative Aspects

June 23, 2022 – Prof. Catherine Haeck delivered a presentation on June 10, as part of the inaugural international conference of the Observatory for Children’s Education and Health (OCEH) The conference was held under the theme: “Two years of pandemic: what impacts for children and how to support resilience?”. Established in December 2020, OCEH’s mission is to understand and mitigate the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education and development of children in Quebec. The June conference made it possible both to bring together scientific knowledge about the impacts of the pandemic and to identify strategies to reduce its impacts. Topics discussed during the day included: the impacts of school closures on children’s learning, “catching-up” strategies, healthy lifestyles and mental health.
>To find out more about the OCEH


Welcome to Andrei Munteanu — New Professor at the ESG

June 9, 2022 – Pr. Andrei Munteanu (Ph.D. 2021, McGill University) is an Assistant Professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal’s School of Management’s (ESG UQAM) Department of Economics since 2022. His research is primarily in applied microeconomics with a particular interest in the economics of education and labour economics. More specifically, he studies the effects of public policy on educational inequality, social mobility, poverty persistence and the intergenerational transmission of human capital. Congratulations and welcome to the team!


Congratulations to Marie Connolly for her New Associate Dean of Research (ESG) Position!

June 1, 2022 – Prof. Marie Connolly began her new role as Associate Dean of Research at the School of Management (ESG) today. Her functions will include supporting researchers and promoting ESG research. Her vision also encompasses shedding new light on the world and keeping decision-makers informed of research results. As data editor for the Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d’économie, she also intends to promote transparency in the scientific process, as well the reproducibility and replicability of research evidence. Congratulations and best of success!


Presentations to the National Assembly of Quebec and to ASDEQ

Crédit photo : Fonds de recherche du Québec

May 2022 – On May 12, through their role in the Observatory for the Education and Health of Children (OPES), Professor Catherine Haeck, from the RGHC, and Professor Sylvana Côté (UdeM), discussed impacts of the pandemic on the health and education of children before members of the National Assembly of Quebec. The professors also mentioned ways to limit the negative impacts on children. Their presentation took place during the scientific breakfast of the National Assembly of Quebec, in the presence of the chief scientist, Rémi Quirion.
>See the Journal de Québec article for more details (in French)

On May 13, 2022, Pre Catherine Haeck also presented results of her research under the theme “COVID has disrupted education and work: what will be the consequences?“, during the Annual Congress of the Association of Quebec Economists (ASDEQ)..


Congratulations to Mélissa Coissard for her Student Engagement Award!

May 18, 2022 – The RGHC team congratulates doctoral student Mélissa Coissard for her recent student engagement award! Mélissa received this honor for having initiated and organized for the first time within the economics department of UQAM, informal talks events between professors and doctoral students. These talks aim to allow students to benefit from the wealth of experience and knowledge of professors, by inviting them to discuss a research- or research-career-oriented topic. Although a lot of research-related expertise is passed on from supervisors to their students, there is also valuable guidance on the do’s and don’ts of the profession that are rarely discussed.

The events also created more interactions between professors of the Department and the doctoral students and helped foster a climate of trust and support. Six professors have already had the opportunity to in the talks and discuss topics such as reproducibility in research and the publication process.

Congratulations to Mélissa for this great initiative!


Publication of the “Social Mobility in Québec According to Different University Pathways” Report

May 9, 2022 – Professors Marie Connolly and Catherine Haeck, as well as Lucie Raymond-Brousseau, master’s student in economics, have recently published their report on the social mobility of graduates with a bachelor’s degree from various Quebec universities. Based on administrative data on all Québec students, they observed that the graduation rate of undergraduate students was lower for people from lower-income families. This graduation rate increased with parental income quintile. However, the analysis also suggests that the overall intergenerational mobility of young university graduates is fairly good in comparison with the general population.
> To read the full report (in French)


The RGHC Team is Taking Part in the Acfas, SCSE and CEA Conferences in May 2022

May 2022 – Members of the GRCH team will have the opportunity to present their research at various conferences in May.

89th Acfas Congress

Marie Mélanie Fontaine, Ph.D. in economics, will present with other researchers under the theme:

Professor Catherine Haeck will also share the results of her research in connection with:

The GRCH will also be present:

Enjoy the conferences!


The Effects of Kindergarten Class Sizes: New Publication in the Journal of Labor Economics

April 30, 2022 – Professors Marie Connolly and Catherine Haeck’s research on the impacts of kindergarten class sizes was recently published in the Journal of Labor Economics. The researchers demonstrated that the effects on children’s cognitive and non-cognitive development, when classes are limited to 20 students per class, were non-linear. According to this study, it would thus be more beneficial for society to target sizeable class size reductions in disadvantages areas, than to opt for a more marginal reduction across the board.
>To read the article


Congratulations to Ana Catherina for her scholarship and social involvement!

February 2, 2022 – A Master’s student in the UQÀM Department of Economics, Anna Catherina Ismachowiez Mamber has just received a scholarship from the SPUQ (Syndicat des professors.es de l’UQÀM) (2021-2022) for her great success at balancing her studies and social involvement. In 2021, she collaborated with medical students to research and write an economics and climate change sub-section in an IFMSA-Québec (International Federation of medical student associations) position paper. The text is titled: “IFMSA-Quebec Position Award: Climate Change and Sustainable Development”. Ana Catherina carries out her master’s degree under the supervision of Catherine Haeck and Charles Séguin, professors of economics. Empirical in nature, her thesis focuses on the effects of air pollution on the cognitive development of preschool children in Canada. His fields of interest focus mainly on environmental economics and labor economics, and more specifically, all that concerns pollution due to economic production and the effect it has on human capital. Congratulations to Ana Catherina for her scholarship and good continuation of the master’s degree!


Webinar with Marie Connolly | Women and the post-pandemic economy – perspectives on “she-cession”

  • Date and time: Thursday, January 27, 2022 from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
  • Format: webinar (registration required by January 26)
  • Fees: Free for members and students, $15 for non-members
  • Language: English
  • Speaker: Armine Yalnizyan, Fellow of the Atkinson Foundation on the Future of Workers
  • Moderator: Marie Connolly, professor in the Department of Economics, UQÀM

Professor Marie Connolly will moderate a discussion on women and the pandemic economy with Armine Yalnizyan, Fellow of the Atkinson Foundation on the Future of Workers and originator of the term “she-cession”. The term is widely used in the English-language press to characterize the impact of the pandemic on women; women having suffered some of the most negative impacts of the pandemic. The speaker will look at different economic and social dimensions of the impact of the recession and the recovery on women. In a context in which the Omicron variant threatens to cause a “she-cession” 2.0, the speaker will also discuss future prospects. The webinar is organized by the Montreal chapter of the Association of Quebec Economists.
>To register


The importance of reliable data to help identify issues and guide government decisions

December 20, 2021 – Professor Catherine Haeck will be collaborating on the Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY), a large, pan-Canadian longitudinal study that examines issues affecting the physical and mental health of 1-19 year olds. As a consequence of the Harper years, no longitudinal survey in the country has been conducted on cohorts of children between 2008 and 2019. The study of a new cohort of the CHSCY will start in the fall of 2022 and will examine some of the long-term effects of school closure during the pandemic. For example, the study will aim to observe whether distance education has had an impact on children and youth’s academic motivation, academic success or on their well-being. Answers to these type of research questions are essential to present reliable data to the government. Access to reliable data often leads to better decisions from the government and helps shine the spotlight on key findings and issues. This new study will be carried out with a $ 3 million grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada have committed to additional funding.
>Check out the complete article (in French).


Congratulations to Marie Mélanie Fontaine on earning her Ph.D.!

December 1, 2021- Marie Mélanie Fontaine received her doctorate in economics from UQÀM in March 2020, but her graduation ceremony did not take place until November 2021, given the pandemic.thesis is titled “Three Empirical Essays on the Economic Well-being and Work of Women in Canada”. Her research assesses the impact of significant events in the lives of parents and couples, including the birth of a child and marital dissolution, through the analysis of their income trajectories. Women’s income is generally negatively associated with these two events.
Mélanie now holds the position of analyst responsible for socio-economic indicators at the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ). As a piece of advice to share with those who are considering embarking on the road to a doctorate, she sums up that going for a PhD is not a long quiet river, but a great life experience nonetheless. Her journey has allowed her to learn a lot about herself and to make meaningful encounters. It also gave her the chance to meet her husband and her daughter’s father (also a doctoral student)! Congratulations again, Mélanie!


CIHR Grant of $ 3M to Professor Haeck and Colleagues

October 8, 2021 – Following their last competition for the funding of projects related to public health, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) granted major support of $ 3 million over four years to a team of researchers including Professor Catherine Haeck of the GRCH of the École des sciences de la gestion (ESG). The funds will support a new round of the Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY). Scheduled for 2022, the survey will measure the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the development and health of young Canadians aged 1 to 17. Congratulations to everyone involved!


August 4 Webinar Featuring a RGHC Paper on the Reopening of Primary Schools and Parental Work

This first webinar collaboration between the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN) and the Canadian Journal of Economics (CJE) will feature, amongst others, the “Primary School Reopenings and Parental Work” paper by Pierre-Loup Beauregard, Marie Connolly, Catherine Haeck, and Tímea Laura Molná. The objective of this webinar is to highlight work that will be published in the forthcoming COVID-19 special issue.

Date and time: August 4, 2021 from 1:00-2:00 p.m.

Format: free webinar (registration is required)
Language: English
Presenters: Pierre-Loup Beauregard and Derek Mikola
>To register


Congratulations to Mélissa Coissard for her New Scholarships!

Mélissa Coissard, doctoral student in economics under the research supervision of professors Marie Connolly and Catherine Haeck, won three new scholarships this spring:
– merit scholarship from the Quebec Society and Culture Research Fund (FQRSC), ($21,000 / 3 years)
– merit scholarship from the J.-A. DeSève Foundation – Doctorate ($5,000)
– scholarship from the Association étudiante de l’École des sciences de la gestion (AéESG) – Engagement (1000 $)

Her research project aims to identify the impact and economic spinoffs of Quebec political interventions on the cognitive and non-cognitive development of young children. In particular, it will analyze the impact of two Quebec public policies: the preschool for four-year-olds-program, as well as the impact of the school interruption caused by the pandemic, as part of a study carried out for the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEES). Congratulations Mélissa!


Research Dissemination Competition: Students Stand Out!

FeuArtificeCongratulations to the students involved in the RGHC who participated in the science popularization competition of the ESG Vice-Dean for Research! Nicholas Thibault and Mélissa Coissard stood out in the following categories:

A special mention to Krystel Poirier for her text on her research carried out on the taxation of sugary drinks. A total of 27 participants took part in this competition open to all ESG graduate students. Internet The winners were determined by popular vote on the ESG website. Congratulations to all the participants for their efforts in disseminating their research!

>Discover all the participants’ texts and visuals (in French).


Data and Database Limitations | Acfas 2021

Date: Tuesday, May 4, 2021 from 9:15 to 9:45
Type: Conference | Workshop
Location: Online
Language: French

Professors Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly will present a portrait of the accessibility of public administration data in Quebec, and more particularly on tax, health and education data.
They will also address the importance of democratizing access to data in science to help promote the emergence of young researchers and reduce the public cost of data collection.

> For more details (in French)
> To register for the Acfas 2021 Conference (in French)


Le rôle de l’État dans la lutte aux inégalités | Acfas 2021

Date : lundi 3 mai 2021 de 10 h 55 à 12 h
Type : Colloque | Panel
Lieu : En ligne
Language: French

Professor Marie Connolly will be a panelist and take part in the discussion on increasing socioeconomic inequalities in Canada, Quebec and other countries.
The panel will discuss different types of inequalities and present examples of the effects of certain public policies on their reduction or aggravation.

> For more details (in French)
> To register for the Acfas 2021 Conference (in French)


Collaborative Initiative with Statistics Canada on Intergenerational Income Mobility

February 10, 2021 – Dr. Marie Connolly and Dr. Catherine Haeck launched a collaborative initiative with Statistics Canada to augment and update the Intergenerational Income Database (IID). They obtained funding that enabled Statistics Canada to add three cohorts of teens and parents to the IID, as well as increase the covered reference period. The new data will help researchers perform intergenerational comparisons of income mobility in Canada across a wider range of cohorts and over a longer period of time. The study of intergenerational transmission of income can offer a key in understanding increases in inequality over time.
>To find out more


Mélissa Coissard wins the Ambassador for Research – Doctorate Scholarship

January 22, 2021 – Mélissa is a doctoral student in economics and won the $5,000 Ambassador for Research – Doctorate scholarship in November 2020. Her thesis focuses on the “study of the impacts of Quebec public policies on the development of young children”. Mélissa seeks to quantify the impacts of the kindergarten for four-years-old program on the educational trajectories of children. Her work is supervised by Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly. Throughout the year, Mélissa will take part in various meetings to promote research, including with undergraduate students, and share her passion for research.
Mélissa also won the $10,000 Éric Girard scholarship in November 2020, thanks to her excellent academic record.
>Find out more about Mélissa in her video (in French).


Understanding the Factors that Affect Student Success in School: a Publication by Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly Featured in La Presse

Eleve du primaireJanuary 18, 2021 – Our children and youth are Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly’s priority. In order for researchers to understand the reasons behind each student’s success, however, data is needed – in large amounts. Canada must relaunch the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), and Quebec must use the impressive amount of data it collects to better understand how children are doing and how to help them. Read this excellent article by Francis Vailles (in French) on how accessing data for research purposes is important to help improve the collective well-being of children and youth.

Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly also wrote the chapter “Public Administration Data Accessibility” in the “Le Québec économique 9: Perspectives et Challenges de la Transformation Numérique” volume (in French) published this week by CIRANO.


Nomination of Marie Connolly as data editor for the Canadian Journal of Economics

2020 – In order to ensure credibility in research, analysis of data reproducibility is essential. As data editor, Marie Connolly performs pre-acceptance verification checks and implements best practices in this area. In this regard, she supported the creation of the ReadMe template, a social science replication package. To find out more, consult the template README for social science replication package and the social science Data and Code Guidance by Data Editors.

The Canadian Journal of Economics is a journal of the Canadian Economics Association.

>Journal policies on data availability and date confidentiality


The consequences of pandemic school closures on student success – Webinar with Catherine Haeck

December 15, 2020 – Academic director of the UQÀM branch of the Quebec Interuniversity Center for Social Statistics (QICSS), Catherine Haeck offered a one-hour webinar on the possible consequences of pandemic school closures on student success. She exposed the various inequalities in Canadian students’ skills, drawn from data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). She also discussed the limits of our current knowledge on the transmission of the virus in children.

To watch the QICSS webinar (in French)
To see the presentation (in French)


Catherine Haeck: Emerging Faculty Award

Catherine HaeckNovember 2, 2020 – Specialized in education economics and labor economics, Catherine Haeck is director of the Statistics Canada Data Laboratory for UQAM and INRS, and guest researcher at the Centre interuniversitaire québécois de statistiques sociales. CIRANO Fellow and Principal researcher for the Competences axis, she also a member of the Psychosocial Maladjustment in Children Research Group (GRIP CHU Sainte-Justine), member of the Research Group on Human Capital (ESG UQAM) and affiliated researcher at the Education Policy Research Initiative. As a principal investigator and co-investigator, she has received more than $9m in research grants (including SSHRC and FQRSC) and published in the Journal of Labor Economics, Labor Economics, Journal of Human Capital and Canadian Public Policy.

>Discover Catherine Haeck’s profile (in French).


Schools will remain closed in the Greater Montreal area

May 14, 2020 – Listen to Catherine Haeck, professor of economics at ESG UQAM, expert in economics of education, click here to listen to her interview with Patrick Lagacé (in French).


An open letter to Le Devoir

April 29, 2020 – Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly sign an open letter in today’s Le Devoir on the reopening of schools and the benefits for children in terms of learning and mitigation of inequalities. Many references to various studies are made in the letter. Here are the links:

  1. Our research on inequalities
  2. The link between cognitif development and labour market outcomes
  3. Economic growth, recessions and health, the paradox simply explained
  4. Human capital development before age 5
  5. Mortality among children, UNICEF
  6. Epidemiology of COVID-19 for children aged less than 10
  7. Internet access and school closures, summary by Statistics Canada
  8. Long term effects of school closures, evidence from teacher’s strike
  9. Internet in Canada, connecting families program
  10. Virtual schools, what do we know?
  11.  

Catherine Haeck talks to Patrick Lagacé at 98.5FM

April 20, 2020 – Catherine Haeck talked to Patrick Lagacé on his radio show Le Québec maintenant on 98.5FM in the Montreal area. She talked about the place of children in the current debate around COVID-19 issues, among other things about the (unequal) effect of isolation on children’s learning and on the reopening of schools. You can listen to her here.


Marie Mélanie Fontaine successfully defends her Ph.D. thesis – remotely!

March 30, 2020 – Marie Mélanie Fontaine, Ph.D. student co-advised by Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly, successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis and obtained an “Excellent” mention. Probably a first for UQAM: the defense was done virtually, given the context of pandemic that we live in now. Everything went well despite the circumstances. Mélanie’s dissertation is titled “Three empiricals essays on women’s economic well-being and labour in Canada.” Congratulations Mélanie!


The Research Group on Human Capital receives close to $400,000 from FRQSC to fund studies on socioeconomic mobility

February 28, 2020 – Marie Connolly and Catherine Haeck each received a grant from the Fonds de recherche du Québec, Société et Culture, as part of the Concerted Actions programme on Poverty and Social Exclusion, Phase IV.

Connolly’s project is titled “Intergenerational Mobility in Quebec: Geographic Differences and the Role of Wealth Inequalities,” and is meant to be the continuation of a previous project on social mobility. This project has two objectives. The first is to describe the geographical differences in intergenerational mobility in Quebec and to understand their determinants. The second objective is to investigate the role of wealth inequalities on intergenerational mobility. The team is also composed of Catherine Haeck and Amélie Quesnel-Vallée, professors and members of the GRCH, and Gaëlle Simard-Duplain, postdoctoral researcher at HEC Montréal.

Haeck’s project is titled “Education and the Intergenerational Transmission of Income.” The project aims to investigate some of the mechanisms that underpin intergenerational mobility in Quebec. This will become possible thanks to new data linkages between administrative data and existing survey data from Statistics Canada. These linkages will allow researchers to have information on income, education, and occupation, for succesive cohorts of Canadian children and their parents. On her team are Pierre Lefebvre and Marie Connolly, GRCH researchers, as well as collaborators Christa Japel (UQAM), Sylvana Côté (Université de Montréal), Richard Tremblay (Université de Montréal), Simon Langlois (Université Laval), and Jean-William Laliberté (University of Calgary).

>For More News: News Archive

Welcome to Andrei Munteanu — New Professor at the ESG

June 9, 2022 – Pr. Andrei Munteanu (Ph.D. 2021, McGill University) is an Assistant Professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal’s School of Management’s (ESG UQAM) Department of Economics since 2022. His research is primarily in applied microeconomics with a particular interest in the economics of education and labour economics. More specifically, he studies the effects of public policy on educational inequality, social mobility, poverty persistence and the intergenerational transmission of human capital. Congratulations and welcome to the team!


Congratulations to Marie Connolly for her New Associate Dean of Research (ESG) Position!

June 1, 2022 – Prof. Marie Connolly began her new role as Associate Dean of Research at the School of Management (ESG) today. Her functions will include supporting researchers and promoting ESG research. Her vision also encompasses shedding new light on the world and keeping decision-makers informed of research results. As data editor for the Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d’économie, she also intends to promote transparency in the scientific process, as well the reproducibility and replicability of research evidence. Congratulations and best of success!


Presentations to the National Assembly of Quebec and to ASDEQ

Crédit photo : Fonds de recherche du Québec

May 2022 – On May 12, through their role in the Observatory for the Education and Health of Children (OPES), Professor Catherine Haeck, from the RGHC, and Professor Sylvana Côté (UdeM), discussed impacts of the pandemic on the health and education of children before members of the National Assembly of Quebec. The professors also mentioned ways to limit the negative impacts on children. Their presentation took place during the scientific breakfast of the National Assembly of Quebec, in the presence of the chief scientist, Rémi Quirion.
>See the Journal de Québec article for more details (in French)

On May 13, 2022, Pre Catherine Haeck also presented results of her research under the theme “COVID has disrupted education and work: what will be the consequences?“, during the Annual Congress of the Association of Quebec Economists (ASDEQ)..


Congratulations to Mélissa Coissard for her Student Engagement Award!

May 18, 2022 – The RGHC team congratulates doctoral student Mélissa Coissard for her recent student engagement award! Mélissa received this honor for having initiated and organized for the first time within the economics department of UQAM, informal talks events between professors and doctoral students. These talks aim to allow students to benefit from the wealth of experience and knowledge of professors, by inviting them to discuss a research- or research-career-oriented topic. Although a lot of research-related expertise is passed on from supervisors to their students, there is also valuable guidance on the do’s and don’ts of the profession that are rarely discussed.

The events also created more interactions between professors of the Department and the doctoral students and helped foster a climate of trust and support. Six professors have already had the opportunity to in the talks and discuss topics such as reproducibility in research and the publication process.

Congratulations to Mélissa for this great initiative!


Publication of the “Social Mobility in Québec According to Different University Pathways” Report

May 9, 2022 – Professors Marie Connolly and Catherine Haeck, as well as Lucie Raymond-Brousseau, master’s student in economics, have recently published their report on the social mobility of graduates with a bachelor’s degree from various Quebec universities. Based on administrative data on all Québec students, they observed that the graduation rate of undergraduate students was lower for people from lower-income families. This graduation rate increased with parental income quintile. However, the analysis also suggests that the overall intergenerational mobility of young university graduates is fairly good in comparison with the general population.
> To read the full report (in French)


The RGHC Team is Taking Part in the Acfas, SCSE and CEA Conferences in May 2022

May 2022 – Members of the GRCH team will have the opportunity to present their research at various conferences in May.

89th Acfas Congress

Marie Mélanie Fontaine, Ph.D. in economics, will present with other researchers under the theme:

Professor Catherine Haeck will also share the results of her research in connection with:

The GRCH will also be present:

Enjoy the conferences!


The Effects of Kindergarten Class Sizes: New Publication in the Journal of Labor Economics

April 30, 2022 – Professors Marie Connolly and Catherine Haeck’s research on the impacts of kindergarten class sizes was recently published in the Journal of Labor Economics. The researchers demonstrated that the effects on children’s cognitive and non-cognitive development, when classes are limited to 20 students per class, were non-linear. According to this study, it would thus be more beneficial for society to target sizeable class size reductions in disadvantages areas, than to opt for a more marginal reduction across the board.
>To read the article


Congratulations to Ana Catherina for her scholarship and social involvement!

February 2, 2022 – A Master’s student in the UQÀM Department of Economics, Anna Catherina Ismachowiez Mamber has just received a scholarship from the SPUQ (Syndicat des professors.es de l’UQÀM) (2021-2022) for her great success at balancing her studies and social involvement. In 2021, she collaborated with medical students to research and write an economics and climate change sub-section in an IFMSA-Québec (International Federation of medical student associations) position paper. The text is titled: “IFMSA-Quebec Position Award: Climate Change and Sustainable Development”. Ana Catherina carries out her master’s degree under the supervision of Catherine Haeck and Charles Séguin, professors of economics. Empirical in nature, her thesis focuses on the effects of air pollution on the cognitive development of preschool children in Canada. His fields of interest focus mainly on environmental economics and labor economics, and more specifically, all that concerns pollution due to economic production and the effect it has on human capital. Congratulations to Ana Catherina for her scholarship and good continuation of the master’s degree!


Webinar with Marie Connolly | Women and the post-pandemic economy – perspectives on “she-cession”

  • Date and time: Thursday, January 27, 2022 from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
  • Format: webinar (registration required by January 26)
  • Fees: Free for members and students, $15 for non-members
  • Language: English
  • Speaker: Armine Yalnizyan, Fellow of the Atkinson Foundation on the Future of Workers
  • Moderator: Marie Connolly, professor in the Department of Economics, UQÀM

Professor Marie Connolly will moderate a discussion on women and the pandemic economy with Armine Yalnizyan, Fellow of the Atkinson Foundation on the Future of Workers and originator of the term “she-cession”. The term is widely used in the English-language press to characterize the impact of the pandemic on women; women having suffered some of the most negative impacts of the pandemic. The speaker will look at different economic and social dimensions of the impact of the recession and the recovery on women. In a context in which the Omicron variant threatens to cause a “she-cession” 2.0, the speaker will also discuss future prospects. The webinar is organized by the Montreal chapter of the Association of Quebec Economists.
>To register


The importance of reliable data to help identify issues and guide government decisions

December 20, 2021 – Professor Catherine Haeck will be collaborating on the Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY), a large, pan-Canadian longitudinal study that examines issues affecting the physical and mental health of 1-19 year olds. As a consequence of the Harper years, no longitudinal survey in the country has been conducted on cohorts of children between 2008 and 2019. The study of a new cohort of the CHSCY will start in the fall of 2022 and will examine some of the long-term effects of school closure during the pandemic. For example, the study will aim to observe whether distance education has had an impact on children and youth’s academic motivation, academic success or on their well-being. Answers to these type of research questions are essential to present reliable data to the government. Access to reliable data often leads to better decisions from the government and helps shine the spotlight on key findings and issues. This new study will be carried out with a $ 3 million grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada have committed to additional funding.
>Check out the complete article (in French).


Congratulations to Marie Mélanie Fontaine on earning her Ph.D.!

December 1, 2021- Marie Mélanie Fontaine received her doctorate in economics from UQÀM in March 2020, but her graduation ceremony did not take place until November 2021, given the pandemic.thesis is titled “Three Empirical Essays on the Economic Well-being and Work of Women in Canada”. Her research assesses the impact of significant events in the lives of parents and couples, including the birth of a child and marital dissolution, through the analysis of their income trajectories. Women’s income is generally negatively associated with these two events.
Mélanie now holds the position of analyst responsible for socio-economic indicators at the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ). As a piece of advice to share with those who are considering embarking on the road to a doctorate, she sums up that going for a PhD is not a long quiet river, but a great life experience nonetheless. Her journey has allowed her to learn a lot about herself and to make meaningful encounters. It also gave her the chance to meet her husband and her daughter’s father (also a doctoral student)! Congratulations again, Mélanie!


CIHR Grant of $ 3M to Professor Haeck and Colleagues

October 8, 2021 – Following their last competition for the funding of projects related to public health, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) granted major support of $ 3 million over four years to a team of researchers including Professor Catherine Haeck of the GRCH of the École des sciences de la gestion (ESG). The funds will support a new round of the Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY). Scheduled for 2022, the survey will measure the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the development and health of young Canadians aged 1 to 17. Congratulations to everyone involved!


August 4 Webinar Featuring a RGHC Paper on the Reopening of Primary Schools and Parental Work

This first webinar collaboration between the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN) and the Canadian Journal of Economics (CJE) will feature, amongst others, the “Primary School Reopenings and Parental Work” paper by Pierre-Loup Beauregard, Marie Connolly, Catherine Haeck, and Tímea Laura Molná. The objective of this webinar is to highlight work that will be published in the forthcoming COVID-19 special issue.

Date and time: August 4, 2021 from 1:00-2:00 p.m.

Format: free webinar (registration is required)
Language: English
Presenters: Pierre-Loup Beauregard and Derek Mikola
>To register


Congratulations to Mélissa Coissard for her New Scholarships!

Mélissa Coissard, doctoral student in economics under the research supervision of professors Marie Connolly and Catherine Haeck, won three new scholarships this spring:
– merit scholarship from the Quebec Society and Culture Research Fund (FQRSC), ($21,000 / 3 years)
– merit scholarship from the J.-A. DeSève Foundation – Doctorate ($5,000)
– scholarship from the Association étudiante de l’École des sciences de la gestion (AéESG) – Engagement (1000 $)

Her research project aims to identify the impact and economic spinoffs of Quebec political interventions on the cognitive and non-cognitive development of young children. In particular, it will analyze the impact of two Quebec public policies: the preschool for four-year-olds-program, as well as the impact of the school interruption caused by the pandemic, as part of a study carried out for the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEES). Congratulations Mélissa!


Research Dissemination Competition: Students Stand Out!

FeuArtificeCongratulations to the students involved in the RGHC who participated in the science popularization competition of the ESG Vice-Dean for Research! Nicholas Thibault and Mélissa Coissard stood out in the following categories:

A special mention to Krystel Poirier for her text on her research carried out on the taxation of sugary drinks. A total of 27 participants took part in this competition open to all ESG graduate students. Internet The winners were determined by popular vote on the ESG website. Congratulations to all the participants for their efforts in disseminating their research!

>Discover all the participants’ texts and visuals (in French).


Data and Database Limitations | Acfas 2021

Date: Tuesday, May 4, 2021 from 9:15 to 9:45
Type: Conference | Workshop
Location: Online
Language: French

Professors Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly will present a portrait of the accessibility of public administration data in Quebec, and more particularly on tax, health and education data.
They will also address the importance of democratizing access to data in science to help promote the emergence of young researchers and reduce the public cost of data collection.

> For more details (in French)
> To register for the Acfas 2021 Conference (in French)


Le rôle de l’État dans la lutte aux inégalités | Acfas 2021

Date : lundi 3 mai 2021 de 10 h 55 à 12 h
Type : Colloque | Panel
Lieu : En ligne
Language: French

Professor Marie Connolly will be a panelist and take part in the discussion on increasing socioeconomic inequalities in Canada, Quebec and other countries.
The panel will discuss different types of inequalities and present examples of the effects of certain public policies on their reduction or aggravation.

> For more details (in French)
> To register for the Acfas 2021 Conference (in French)


Collaborative Initiative with Statistics Canada on Intergenerational Income Mobility

February 10, 2021 – Dr. Marie Connolly and Dr. Catherine Haeck launched a collaborative initiative with Statistics Canada to augment and update the Intergenerational Income Database (IID). They obtained funding that enabled Statistics Canada to add three cohorts of teens and parents to the IID, as well as increase the covered reference period. The new data will help researchers perform intergenerational comparisons of income mobility in Canada across a wider range of cohorts and over a longer period of time. The study of intergenerational transmission of income can offer a key in understanding increases in inequality over time.
>To find out more


Mélissa Coissard wins the Ambassador for Research – Doctorate Scholarship

January 22, 2021 – Mélissa is a doctoral student in economics and won the $5,000 Ambassador for Research – Doctorate scholarship in November 2020. Her thesis focuses on the “study of the impacts of Quebec public policies on the development of young children”. Mélissa seeks to quantify the impacts of the kindergarten for four-years-old program on the educational trajectories of children. Her work is supervised by Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly. Throughout the year, Mélissa will take part in various meetings to promote research, including with undergraduate students, and share her passion for research.
Mélissa also won the $10,000 Éric Girard scholarship in November 2020, thanks to her excellent academic record.
>Find out more about Mélissa in her video (in French).


Understanding the Factors that Affect Student Success in School: a Publication by Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly Featured in La Presse

Eleve du primaireJanuary 18, 2021 – Our children and youth are Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly’s priority. In order for researchers to understand the reasons behind each student’s success, however, data is needed – in large amounts. Canada must relaunch the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), and Quebec must use the impressive amount of data it collects to better understand how children are doing and how to help them. Read this excellent article by Francis Vailles (in French) on how accessing data for research purposes is important to help improve the collective well-being of children and youth.

Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly also wrote the chapter “Public Administration Data Accessibility” in the “Le Québec économique 9: Perspectives et Challenges de la Transformation Numérique” volume (in French) published this week by CIRANO.


Nomination of Marie Connolly as data editor for the Canadian Journal of Economics

2020 – In order to ensure credibility in research, analysis of data reproducibility is essential. As data editor, Marie Connolly performs pre-acceptance verification checks and implements best practices in this area. In this regard, she supported the creation of the ReadMe template, a social science replication package. To find out more, consult the template README for social science replication package and the social science Data and Code Guidance by Data Editors.

The Canadian Journal of Economics is a journal of the Canadian Economics Association.

>Journal policies on data availability and date confidentiality


The consequences of pandemic school closures on student success – Webinar with Catherine Haeck

December 15, 2020 – Academic director of the UQÀM branch of the Quebec Interuniversity Center for Social Statistics (QICSS), Catherine Haeck offered a one-hour webinar on the possible consequences of pandemic school closures on student success. She exposed the various inequalities in Canadian students’ skills, drawn from data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). She also discussed the limits of our current knowledge on the transmission of the virus in children.

To watch the QICSS webinar (in French)
To see the presentation (in French)


Catherine Haeck: Emerging Faculty Award

Catherine HaeckNovember 2, 2020 – Specialized in education economics and labor economics, Catherine Haeck is director of the Statistics Canada Data Laboratory for UQAM and INRS, and guest researcher at the Centre interuniversitaire québécois de statistiques sociales. CIRANO Fellow and Principal researcher for the Competences axis, she also a member of the Psychosocial Maladjustment in Children Research Group (GRIP CHU Sainte-Justine), member of the Research Group on Human Capital (ESG UQAM) and affiliated researcher at the Education Policy Research Initiative. As a principal investigator and co-investigator, she has received more than $9m in research grants (including SSHRC and FQRSC) and published in the Journal of Labor Economics, Labor Economics, Journal of Human Capital and Canadian Public Policy.

>Discover Catherine Haeck’s profile (in French).


Schools will remain closed in the Greater Montreal area

May 14, 2020 – Listen to Catherine Haeck, professor of economics at ESG UQAM, expert in economics of education, click here to listen to her interview with Patrick Lagacé (in French).


An open letter to Le Devoir

April 29, 2020 – Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly sign an open letter in today’s Le Devoir on the reopening of schools and the benefits for children in terms of learning and mitigation of inequalities. Many references to various studies are made in the letter. Here are the links:

  1. Our research on inequalities
  2. The link between cognitif development and labour market outcomes
  3. Economic growth, recessions and health, the paradox simply explained
  4. Human capital development before age 5
  5. Mortality among children, UNICEF
  6. Epidemiology of COVID-19 for children aged less than 10
  7. Internet access and school closures, summary by Statistics Canada
  8. Long term effects of school closures, evidence from teacher’s strike
  9. Internet in Canada, connecting families program
  10. Virtual schools, what do we know?
  11.  

Catherine Haeck talks to Patrick Lagacé at 98.5FM

April 20, 2020 – Catherine Haeck talked to Patrick Lagacé on his radio show Le Québec maintenant on 98.5FM in the Montreal area. She talked about the place of children in the current debate around COVID-19 issues, among other things about the (unequal) effect of isolation on children’s learning and on the reopening of schools. You can listen to her here.


Marie Mélanie Fontaine successfully defends her Ph.D. thesis – remotely!

March 30, 2020 – Marie Mélanie Fontaine, Ph.D. student co-advised by Catherine Haeck and Marie Connolly, successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis and obtained an “Excellent” mention. Probably a first for UQAM: the defense was done virtually, given the context of pandemic that we live in now. Everything went well despite the circumstances. Mélanie’s dissertation is titled “Three empiricals essays on women’s economic well-being and labour in Canada.” Congratulations Mélanie!


The Research Group on Human Capital receives close to $400,000 from FRQSC to fund studies on socioeconomic mobility

February 28, 2020 – Marie Connolly and Catherine Haeck each received a grant from the Fonds de recherche du Québec, Société et Culture, as part of the Concerted Actions programme on Poverty and Social Exclusion, Phase IV.

Connolly’s project is titled “Intergenerational Mobility in Quebec: Geographic Differences and the Role of Wealth Inequalities,” and is meant to be the continuation of a previous project on social mobility. This project has two objectives. The first is to describe the geographical differences in intergenerational mobility in Quebec and to understand their determinants. The second objective is to investigate the role of wealth inequalities on intergenerational mobility. The team is also composed of Catherine Haeck and Amélie Quesnel-Vallée, professors and members of the GRCH, and Gaëlle Simard-Duplain, postdoctoral researcher at HEC Montréal.

Haeck’s project is titled “Education and the Intergenerational Transmission of Income.” The project aims to investigate some of the mechanisms that underpin intergenerational mobility in Quebec. This will become possible thanks to new data linkages between administrative data and existing survey data from Statistics Canada. These linkages will allow researchers to have information on income, education, and occupation, for succesive cohorts of Canadian children and their parents. On her team are Pierre Lefebvre and Marie Connolly, GRCH researchers, as well as collaborators Christa Japel (UQAM), Sylvana Côté (Université de Montréal), Richard Tremblay (Université de Montréal), Simon Langlois (Université Laval), and Jean-William Laliberté (University of Calgary).

>For More News: News Archive