Answer:
Explanation:
Fifty years of families in Canada: 1961 to 2011
During the 50-year period from 1961 to 2011 which corresponded with the censuses of population, considerable social and economic changes occurred in Canada that influenced evolving family dynamics.
The concepts and measurements used in the census have changed over time to reflect this diversity (see Box 1).
Box 1: Timeline of conceptual changes by census year
1981: First year data are available for common-law unions.
2001: Same-sex common-law couples are first counted.
Also in 2001, the census family concept include:
children in census family who were previously married
skip-generation families (grandparents and grandchildren in the same dwelling and without the presence of a middle-generation parent)
a child and his/her lone parent (middle generation) living in a three-generation household. Prior to 2001, the two older generations would have formed a census family.
2006: Same-sex married couples are first counted, following the legalization of same-sex marriage across Canada in 2005.
2011: Couples with children can be classified as intact families or stepfamilies.
Data on common-law couples were available for the first time from the 1981 Census of Population, and they represented 5.6% of all census families that year. Since then, the proportion of common-law couples has grown steadily to 16.7% of all census families in 2011. In fact, for the first time in 2011, the number of common-law couple families in the country surpassed the number of lone-parent families (1,567,910 compared to 1,527,840).
The share of lone-parent families has increased
In 2011, lone-parent families represented 16.3% of all census families. This was almost double the share of 8.4% in 1961 when relatively more childbearing took place within marriage and divorce rates were lower .
While today's census families are characterized by diversity, this was also the case for families in the first half of the 20th Century, but often for different reasons.
Widowhood and remarriage following the death of a spouse were more common in the early decades of the 1900s, when there was higher maternal mortality and higher mortality rates overall for infants, children and adults. There were also many deaths which occurred during the two world wars and the Korean War. In 1921, for example, nearly 1 in 10 children aged 14 and under (8.8%) had experienced the death of at least one parent. As a result, lone-parent families were relatively prevalent in the early decades of the 20th Century. These families represented 12.2% of all census families in 1941; a level that was higher than in 1961 (8.4%), near the height of the baby boom, and that was not surpassed again until 1986.
The ratio of female lone-parent families to male lone-parent families has been fairly constant over the past 50 years at about 4 to 1. While the sex distribution of lone-parent families changed little between 1961 and 2011, the legal marital status of lone parents evolved considerably during this time .
In 1961, the majority of lone parents (61.5%) were widowed; a small proportion (2.7%) reported never having been married and the remaining 35.8% were divorced or separated. accompanied by an increase in the prevalence of never-married or divorced lone parents. By 2011, the most common legal marital status for lone parents was divorced or separated (50.8%), followed by a more than ten-fold increase for those who were never married (31.5%), while 17.7% of all lone parents were widowed.
Families and households have become smaller
Canadian families have become smaller over time. This occurred partly because of a decline in the total fertility rate after the baby boom and the fact that lone-parent families increased in recent decades. The average number of children per family decreased from 2.7 in 1961 to 1.9 in 2011.
While family size declined over the period, the number of households increased. In each 5-year period between 1961 and 2011, the number of private households grew faster than the population, particularly between 1966 and 1981 .
Households have also become smaller in recent decades. This has been due largely to increased shares of one- and two-person households and to decreases in the proportion of large households comprised of five or more people.
In 2011, households consisting of one person accounted for 27.6% of all households; about a three-fold increase from 9.3% in 1961. During the same period, the share of large households comprised of five people or more decreased from 32.3% in 1961 to 8.4% in 2011.
