2021 Census Updates—Canada’s “Family Portrait”

On July 13, Statistics Canada released data and analyses from the 2021 Census on families, households, and marital status. This highly anticipated release provides Canadians with its first updated portrait of family households during the pandemic and is the agency’s first to report on the gender diversity of couples in Canada.

This release includes information on family structure, marital status, living arrangements, foster children, couples with and without children, and a variety of other topics related to family households across the country.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• In 2021, half (50%) of the 8.6 million couples in Canada were living with children – down from 64% in 1981.
   
• More than 32,000 couples in Canada included at least one transgender or non-binary person, one-third of whom were raising children.
   
• More than one in five children in one-parent families (21%) lived with their father, up from 14% in 1981.
   
• More than one-third (35%) of young adults aged 20 to 34 lived with at least one parent, up from 31% in 2001, but the same as in 2016.
   
• Four in 10 Canadians (39%) aged 25 to 29 were part of a couple, down from 68% in 1981.
   
• There were nearly 442,000 multigenerational households, which have been the fastest-growing census family household type since 2001.
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Statistics Canada will publish additional analysis and resources based on this data in coming months. The next 2021 Census release is on September 21, 2022, and will disseminate information on housing, and on First Nations people, Métis, and Inuit in Canada.

For more information, visit Statistics Canada by clicking here.

Sue McGregor, PhD, IPHE, Professor Emerita (MSVU)