Submissions are now open for the Work and Family Researchers Network 8th Biennial Conference, June 17-20, 2026, Concordia University, Montreal Canada. The conference theme is Centering Care Across the Life Course.
About the 8th Biennial Conference
- More than 400 participants from across the globe are expected to attend, sharing perspectives on work and family in the Global South, the Global North, and transnational contexts.
- Social events will include sponsored lunches, evening receptions, networking dinners, and engagement with the local community.
- Discount hotel rooms and low-cost student housing options are available.
- Sponsored travel grants are offered to support individuals from the Global South.
- Early Career Fellowships and a Predoctoral Preconference are offered to support scholars in the formative stages of their careers on June 17, 2026.
- The main conference will take place June 18-20, 2026.
- Submission deadline is October 1, 2025. Upon request, submissions up to September 1, 2025 will receive expedited review to facilitate Canadian visa approvals.
To submit your paper, poster, or session proposal, follow this link:
WFRN has obtained a special event code that can help expedite visa applications and speed their processing. The special event code will be provided when participants register for the conference. Upon request, paper, poster and session proposals received up to September 1, 2025 will be placed on a fast-track review to facilitate successful submissions of Canada visa applications. WFRN encourages participants traveling from abroad to submit proposals, pay registration fees and submit visa applications as soon as possible.
Conference Theme
The 2026 conference theme is Centering Care Across the Life Course.
Care is foundational to human well-being and to the functioning of our workplaces, families, and societies, yet it remains chronically undervalued. The 2026 WFRN Conference theme “Centering Care across the Life Course,” will explore how we can place care at the core of work, family, and policy conversation, ensuring that care and caregiving responsibilities are supported equitably.
This theme emphasizes care not only as caregiving responsibilities (for children, elders, and others with needs across the life course), but also as relational labor that sustains healthy families, workplaces, and communities. Whether expressed through care work in families, professional care work, informal caregiving, or relationship-building at work, care deeply shapes individual trajectories and well-being, workplace experiences, and organizational cultures.
Achieving a care-centered society requires both structural reforms and cultural shifts, ensuring policies reflect the needs of diverse caregivers while also building public and political support for care as a shared societal responsibility. This conference invites scholars, practitioners, policymakers, journalists and other stakeholders to explore solutions that prioritize care, in all its forms.
For more information on the 2026 conference and travel to Canada, visit the conference webpage.