Census report on Canadian Households

I'm not sure that there are very many surprises here, except perhaps that for the first time in Canadian census history we now have more adults who "have never been married than have".

Just over 51 per cent of adults, aged 15 or over, were unmarried, up from 49.9 per cent in 2001, while 48.5 per cent were married, down from 50.1.

Twenty years ago, more than 60 per cent of adult Canadians were married and just 38.6 per cent unmarried.

And

Since 2001, there has also been a 3.5 per cent increase to 6.1 million in the number of families in which there is a married couple. However, this was only a fraction of the 18.9-per-cent surge in common-law-couple families, which has now reached almost 1.4 million. It is also well below the 7.8-per-cent jump in lone-parent families, now just over 1.4 million.

But no big shocker there. Anyone with eyes can see this happening. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.


And the Globe reports:

“The overall picture certainly is one of an increasing diversification of our families and households,” said Doug Norris, senior-vice president and chief demographer at Environics Analytics.

“For the first time ever, we've got more couples without children than with children, we've got over a quarter of our households with one person only,” he said.

Again, no big surprise. Having kids is expensive, and there is little societal incentive to do otherwise.


History of the evolution of marriage and the Canadian family here, courtesy of the Post.

Toronto stats examined here (Star)