Common law

Increasingly, people are choosing common-law unions. In Canada, the number of common-law unions has more than doubled since 1981, the first time the statistic was tallied. At the time, there were 357,000 common-law relationships—about 6% of all couples. By the 2001 Census, roughly 14% of all couples were common law. Common-law unions are most prevalent in Quebec, where more than 30% of all families are common law.

Perhaps an indication of the changing times, living common law has become younger people's favoured arrangement for a first conjugal relationship. The probability of a Canadian woman living in a common-law union in her first union decreases with age; 8% of women aged 50 to 59 years of age fall into this category, whereas 42% of 30-to-39 year–old women and 53% of those aged 20 to 29 are expected to choose common law as their first union. As well, most older people who enter a relationship after their first marriage has ended now enter a common-law relationship.

Common-law unions tend to be temporary and transitory, though they often transform into marriage. However, those marriages break up far more frequently than marriages not born out of common-law relationships. The economic circumstances of the couple often influence whether a common-law union will end or transform into marriage. Not surprisingly, men and women react differently in similar situations. Statistics show that the better a woman's economic position, the less likely she is to marry her common-law partner and the more likely she is to leave the union. For a man, on the other hand, earning a better income makes him more likely to formalize the union in marriage.