Objectives

The research program’s main objective will be to study both migration and family reproduction at the regional level in Quebec during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Family reproductive dynamics reflect the connections between three forms of reproduction: biological, material, and social. The aim is therefore to explore the links between migratory behaviour, personal reproductive practices tied to fertility, and the domestic environment in which they take shape. In doing so, the research program will consider the combined role of household economic resources, social relations, and institutional means of regulating private life.

The starting point will be the mid-nineteenth century, when large population movements associated with industrialization were underway, but fertility rates had yet to decline. The analysis will continue up to the middle of the following century. During the first decade of the twentieth century, Quebec shifted from being a predominantly rural society to a predominantly urban one. This coincided with a continental and international reconfiguration of migratory flows and a sudden decline in fertility. The Canada Research Chair in the History of Population Dynamics in Quebec (19th and 20th Centuries) will aim to make highly innovative use of well-established academic approaches to migration and family reproduction across multiple disciplines: history, sociology, demography, and geography.

The Chair’s research program will make full use of state-of-the-art international-calibre digital databases (described below), in order to achieve the following three specific objectives :

1. Describe and compare migration dynamics at the local and regional levels in Quebec, while also considering migrations outside Quebec.
2. Analyze fertility behaviour in terms of individual and family trajectories examined at the household level, as well as in terms of kinship and community-based networks.
3. Examine the connections between reproductive behaviour and migratory behaviour in the life trajectories of men and women from intra- and multi-generational perspectives.

This project is of great scientific and social importance; it will challenge current advances in historical demographic studies at the national and international levels and will echo many concerns regarding population dynamics and contemporary “living together”.