Congratulations to Professor Peng, named Canada Research Chair in Global Social Policy
This honour recognizes Professor Peng’s academic achievements and her contributions to the emerging field of global social policy. The Canada Research Chair program recognizes scholars in Canada who are “outstanding, world-class researchers whose accomplishments have made a major impact in their fields,” who are recognized internationally as leaders in their fields, who have strong track records training students and who are currently planning innovative original research.
Professor Peng merits the honour as a leader in the field of global social policy. This emerging field seeks to understand how changes in globalization and modes of governance impact social and economic policies and individual citizenship rights at local, national and global levels. It draws its knowledge base from welfare state, political economy, public policy and development studies scholarship, and employs comparative and multi-scalar analysis methods in its analyses.
Professor Peng is one of the world authorities in global social policy, specializing in gender and family policies and welfare states in East Asia. Her research has brought conceptual and empirical understanding to social policy developments and change. Her work has been influential not only to comparative social policy and Asian political economy scholarships, but also for key global policy institutions, such as the United Nations Research Institute on Social Development (UNRISD), UN Women, International Labor Organization (ILO), and World Bank. Her research has shown how changes in domestic factors, such as demography, economy, labour market, and family and gender relations interact with global structures and actors in shaping social policy development within countries. Peng is currently the Director of the Centre for Global Social Policy in the Department of Sociology and the Principal Investigator of the SSHRC funded Partnership Research project (2013-2019), Gender, Migration and the Work of Care: an international comparative perspective.
Professor Peng is the fourth faculty member in the Department of Sociology to receive a Canada Research Chair. She is preceded by Professor John Myles who was a Canada Research Chair in the Social Foundations of Public Policy and Professor Monica Boyd who held the Canada Research Chair in Immigration, Integration and Public Policy. Professor Scott Schieman currently holds a Canada Research Chair in the Social Contexts of Health.