Children

In today's smaller families, children have fewer brothers and sisters around the dinner table than their parents had. Midway through the last century, 20% of Canadian children lived with at least five brothers or sisters. That figure dropped to just 1% in 1991. Most children nowadays have only one brother or sister, or remain an only child. In 2001, families had an average of 1.1 children. Of 5.3 million families with children at home in Canada, 43% had only one child, 39% had two children and 18% had three or more children.

Today's children also have older parents. In 1983, women in their thirties and older accounted for only 14% of live births to first-time mothers. By 1999, this proportion had more than doubled to  32%. The story is similar for the fathers of babies born to first-time mothers. In 1983, men in their thirties and older fathered 32% of the babies of first-time mothers. By 1999, that had risen to 51%.

Some children are taking longer to leave the nest these days. Although the proportion of young adults aged 20 to 29 living with their parents decreased between 1971 and 1981, it has since increased notably. In 2001, 41% of young adults lived with their parents, compared with 39% in 1996, 33% in 1991 and 27% in 1981. The proportion of younger set of this age group (ages 20- to 24-year-olds) was more likely to still be living at home, especially men, at 64%, versus women, at 52%).