Rachel Margolis

Rachel Margolis is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Western Ontario, where she conducts research at the intersection of demography and family studies. Her academic work focuses on how family dynamics shape population change, with particular attention to kinship structures in aging societies and the effects of parental benefits policies on families.

Dr. Margolis received her PhD in sociology and demography from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011. Her research interests span demography, family dynamics, population change, kinship structures, aging societies, parental benefits policies, Indigenous fertility, loneliness studies, and Canadian divorce trends. She examines how demographic shifts affect family structures across the life course and how policy interventions influence family formation and stability.

Her publication record reveals a strong focus on kinship networks, aging populations, and family dynamics. Recent work examines loneliness trajectories across countries, kin loss and bereavement, children's cognitive outcomes following grandparental death, and the care gap in later life across European nations. Her research employs sophisticated demographic methods to analyze large-scale datasets from multiple countries, revealing important patterns in how family structures are evolving globally.

Dr. Margolis has established herself as a leading researcher in the demography of kinship, with publications appearing in top journals including Demography, Journal of Gerontology, and Social Science Research. Her work bridges demographic methods with sociological theory to provide nuanced understandings of contemporary family change.