Fourth-year honours sociology and feminist and gender studies student Lily Fraser, from Truro, NS, is exploring how young adults are making decisions about their current and future families for her honours thesis. This summer she is working on getting Mount Allison Research Ethics Board approval and writing the beginning of the thesis with funding through Mount Allison’s ISRG program and the Universitas Fund.  

“I have been reading and writing about themes such as parenthood, housing, voluntary kin, family estrangement, and intimate relationships,” she says. “Learning about these areas of literature will set me up nicely for conducting focus groups in the fall when students are back on campus. These focus groups will act as the core of my research project, providing insight into how Gen Z Mount Allison students are making family decisions.” 
 
Her research will indicate whether personal and social conditions, like housing, affordability, and climate crises, influence young adults’ decisions about their families, while indicating if and how they pose barriers to young adults’ family plans. This research will also highlight various kinds of families, which can provide evidence for shifting the common understanding of family in policy and practice around Canada.  
 
 “This research is very valuable as it provides me with the opportunity to study what I am interested in and something that will have real world impact, while not worrying about paying tuition. It has helped shape my plans for the future by inspiring me to set bigger goals for myself and striving to achieve them.” 

With the results of the focus groups, combined with her literature review, she will provide policy recommendations that will seek to improve the family lives of all Canadians.  

She plans to pursue a master’s in sociology after Mount Allison with a focus on studying how we can practice forms of care beyond the nuclear family structure.