Anne Martin-Matthews has a primary research focus on aging, health, and social gerontology. In recent years, she has maintained her research activities while also actively engaged in academic and research administration, serving as the inaugural Associate Vice-President Health at UBC (2019-2022), and the Acting Vice-President, Research, Knowledge Translation and Ethics, for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) in Ottawa (2017- 2018). Prior to that, she completed two terms (2004-2011) as the Scientific Director of the Institute of Aging, one of 13 national Institutes of the CIHR. Under her leadership, the CIHR Institute of Aging led the development of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), launched in 2009, a 20-year study of 50,000 Canadians aged 45-85.  Since coming to UBC in 1998, she has held positions as Associate Dean Research, Associate Dean Strategic Initiatives, and Dean pro tem in the Faculty of Arts. She has been a member of the Department of Sociology since 2008. Prior to coming to UBC, she was founding Director of the pan-University Gerontology Research Centre, and a member of the Department of Family Studies, at the University of Guelph (1978-1997).

Anne  Martin-Matthews’ publications include two books, Aging and Caring at the Intersection of Work and Home Life: Blurring the Boundaries (2008); Widowhood in Later Life (1990); three edited volumes (on methodology; policy development; and Canadian gerontology in an international context); and journal articles and chapters on health and social care, aging and social support, work-family balance, and rural aging.

She is the Past President of the Research Committee on Aging of the International Sociological Association (President, 2010-2014). A former Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal on Aging (1996-2000), she is a member of the editorial board of Ageing and Society (UK).

Anne has served on review and scientific advisory committees for provincial funding agencies and government ministries in Ontario and British Columbia and for national and federal agencies, including Health Canada, Veterans Affairs Canada. She currently serves on the scientific advisory committee for the Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care, Academy of Finland; EQualCare, a collaborative research initiative of Finland, Germany, Latvia and Sweden, funded by the European Union; the President’s Research Council of CIFAR: the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research; and the Women’s Age Lab, Women’s College Hospital, Toronto. She is a member of the Board of Directors of AGEWELL – Canada’s Network of Centre of Excellence in aging and technology; and the Health Data Research Network (Canada).

Throughout her career, Anne has had a particular focus on mentoring. In recognition of her creation of an annual interdisciplinary and national Summer School in Aging (SPA) run by the CIHR Institute of Aging; an international collaboration (with Italy and Sweden) in the creation of an International Summer School in Aging, and her mentoring of a generation of trainees in aging research in Canada, she received the Canadian Association on Gerontology’s Evelyn Shapiro Recognition Award for Excellence in Student Mentoring (2016) and a UBC Killam Award for Excellence in Mentoring (2017). In 2012, CIHR created the “Anne Martin-Matthews Doctoral Research Prize of Excellence in Research on Aging”, in recognition of her “commitment to the mentoring of the next generation of researchers on aging”. It is awarded annually to a top-ranked doctoral student in aging in Canada.

Anne Martin-Matthews is a Fellow of the (U.S.) Gerontological Society of America and of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. She holds a Distinguished Alumnus Award from McMaster University, and a Commemorative Medal for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, from the Canadian Association on Gerontology, and for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, from the Government of Canada. In recognition of her contributions to research on aging, she was awarded Honorary Degrees in Civil Law from Newcastle University (UK) in 2010, and Memorial University in 2018, and was inducted as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2018.

Research Topics

Aging and life course; health and society; health and social care services especially home and community care; intersections of formal and informal care, especially involving the nexus of the public and private spheres; transitional life events such as widowhood.

Research Interests

My current research focuses on two areas of inquiry in the sociology of aging. The first examines the provision of health and social care to elderly people, examined from the perspectives of agency providers, home care workers, elderly clients, and family carers. The focus is on three points of intersection: the nexus of public and private spheres, where workers provide publicly funded services in the private home sphere; of professional and non-professional labour, examining relationships between employers, co-workers, clients and caregivers; and of paid and unpaid labour, focusing on the emotional vs contractual nature of ‘care’, provision of unpaid time to meet client need, and the unpaid labour of family and friends in ‘sharing’ of care.  This CIHR-funded project, Home Care in Canada: Caring at the Nexus of the Public and the Private Spheres, examines data from British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia. Current research explores the application of the concept of ‘ensembles’ to the dynamics of care for older people, and the intersection of relational space and time dynamics in care in later life.

My second area of research focuses on Finland – Canada comparisons of issues of formal and informal care, working with post-doctoral fellow, Mari Aaltonen, Tampere University, Finland. In current analyses, we are examining two waves of data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.

Selected Publications: Articles and Chapters

Anne Martin-Matthews & María-José Torrejón (2022), “Care ensembles: examining relational aspects of care in the context of home care”, International Journal of Care and Caring, 6(4): 478-492.

Torrejón, María-José & Martin-Matthews, Anne (2022). “A qualitative approach to bridging and bonding social capital: Experiences of a cohort of Chilean older people”, Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 296, March, 114710.

Aaltonen, M., Martin-Matthews, A., Puïkki, J., Eskola, P., & Jolanki, O.,   “Experiences of people with memory disorders and their spouse carers on influencing formal care: ‘They ask my wife questions that they should ask me’.” Dementia: the international journal of social research and practice. Published Online February 17, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1471301221994300

Torrejón, M. J. & Martin-Matthews, A., “Public Policy and Experiences of Aging: Social Relationships and Social Integration in Chilean Policy on Aging”, Journal of Aging & Social Policy. Published online January 7, 2021 (https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/WF49HCJWY6U9GURZUFE7/full?target=10.1080/08959420.2020.1851430

Aaltonin, M., Sakamoto, M., El Adam, S., Martin-Matthews, A., McGrail, K.,  Strumpf, E. (2020), “Dementia and poor continuity of primary care delay hospital discharge in older adults – a population-based study from 2001 to 2016”.   Journal of American Medical Directors Association. Published online, December 22, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2020.11.030

Torrejón, M. J.  & Martin-Matthews, A. (2020).  “Relationships in late life from a personal communities approach: perspectives of older people in Chile”. Ageing ^(a1) Department of Sociology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada& Society. First View, published online 15 October 2020. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X20001385

Kelly, C., Hande, M.J., Dansereau, L., Aubrecht, K., Martin-Matthews, A.  & Williams, A.  “Doing “whatever they can imagine:” Social task shifting in directly-funded home care”.  International Journal of Care and Caring.  Published online 21 September 2020.  https://doi.org/10.1332/239788220X15984633282891

Tong, C.E., McKay, H.A., Martin-Matthews, A., Mahmood, A. & Sims-Gould, J (2020). ” ‘These few blocks, these are my village’: The physical activity and mobility of foreign-born older adults”. The Gerontologist. 60 (4): 638-650. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnz005

Martin-Matthews, A. & Cloutier, D. S.  (2018), “Household spaces of ageing: when care ‘comes home’”. Ch. 14 in Skinner, M., Andrews, G., & Cutchin, M. (eds.) Geographical Gerontology: Perspectives, Concepts, Approaches. Routledge Studies in Human Geography Series.

Martin-Matthews, A. (2017). “‘Doing Family’: Lenses, Patterns and Futures”. Ch 15 in Gazso, A. &  Kobayashi, K.M. (eds.), Continuity and Innovation: Canadian Families in the New Millennium, Toronto: Nelson Publishing.

Tong, C. E., Byrne, K., Sims-Gould, J., & Martin-Matthews, A. (2016).  “Types and patterns of safety concerns in home care: client and family caregiver perspectives.” International Journal for Quality in Health Care. 28 (2): 214-220.    http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzw006

Cloutier, D. S., Martin-Matthews, A., Byrne, K.  & Wolsey, F. (2015). “The space between: Using ‘relational ethics’ and ‘relational space’ to explore relationship-building between care providers and care recipients in the home space”. Social and Cultural Geography. 16(7):764-782.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2015.1020336

Sims-Gould, J., Byrne, K., Tong, C. & Martin-Matthews, A. (2015). “Home support workers’ perceptions of family members of their older clients: A qualitative study”. BMC Geriatrics (Vol 12, 2015): 15:165   http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-015-0163-4

Martin-Matthews, A., Tong, C., Rosenthal, C.J. & McDonald, L. (2013). “Ethno-cultural Diversity in the Experience of Widowhood in Later Life: Chinese Widows in Canada.”  Journal of Aging Studies. 27(4): 507-518.https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1016/j.jaging.2012.12.011

Martin-Matthews, A., Tong, C. E. & Sims-Gould, J. (2013). “The realities and challenges of home care policies in Canada: Client, family, worker and manager perspectives”, Canadian Review of Social Policy. Special Issue on ‘Aging in Canada’  68/69: 55-74. http://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1370183849?accountid=14656

Byrne, K., Frazee, K., Sims-Gould, J.  & Martin-Matthews, A.  (2012). “Valuing the older person in the context of delivery and receipt of home support: Client perspectives”, Journal of Applied Gerontology. 31(3): 377-401. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0733464810387578

Byrne, K., Frazee, K., Sims-Gould, J.  & Martin-Matthews, A.  (2011). “‘I’m satisfied… but’: Clients’ and families’ contingent responses about home care”. Home Health Care Services Quarterly. 30 (4):161-177 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01621424.2011.622242

Martin-Matthews, A. (2011). “Revisiting Widowhood in Later Life: Changes in patterns and profiles, advances in research and understanding”. Canadian Journal on Aging 30(3): 339-354.   http://dx.doi:10.1017/S0714980811000201

Sims-Gould, J. & Martin-Matthews, A.  (2010). “‘We share the care’: Family caregivers’ experiences of their older relative receiving home support services”, Health & Social Care in the Community, 18 (4): 415-423.   (Reprinted in Health and Social Care in the Community, Carers Virtual Issue.  August 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2524.2010.00913.x

Martin-Matthews, A., Sims-Gould, J.  & Naslund, J.  (2010). “Ethno-cultural diversity in home care work in Canada: Issues confronted, strategies employed”, International Journal of Ageing and Later Life 5 (2): 77-101. http://dx.doi.org/10.3384/ijal.1652-8670.105277

Martin-Matthews, A. (2007).  “Situating ‘home’ at the nexus of the public and private spheres: Aging, gender and home support work in Canada”, Current Sociology 55 (2), 229-249.  Reprinted 2012: Pp. 23-41 in M. Cutchin, C. Kemp & V. Marshall (eds.), Researching Social Gerontology, Volume I.  Sage Publications. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011392107073305

Recent Presentations:

2018. “A (Self) Reflexive Lens on Gerontology: Over Time, Through Change, With Aging”, Inaugural William F. Forbes Lecture, Network for Aging Research, University of Waterloo. https://uwaterloo.ca/network-for-aging-research/events/william-forbes-lecture