By Mata Press Service

Canadians still want to marry, but the family structure they say they value is steadily losing ground across the country.

A new national index from Cardus finds the prevalence of married families declined in every province and territory between 2001 and 2021, with the sharpest deterioration occurring in the final five years of the study.

The Canadian Married Family Index tracks three measures: the total fertility rate, the proportion of adults aged 25 to 54 who are married and the share of children aged 14 and under living with married parents. Each province and territory is measured against its own 2001 baseline rather than against a national standard.

Canada’s overall index score fell from 100 in 2001 to 87.40 in 2021. The steepest drop came between 2016 and 2021, when the national score slid from 93.08 to 87.40.

The decline was nationwide, but uneven.

Alberta recorded the smallest drop over the 20-year period, ending with an index score of 91.56, followed closely by Saskatchewan at 91.40. Manitoba stood at 89.77, Yukon at 88.24 and British Columbia at 87.43. Ontario finished at 87.00.

Nunavut recorded by far the steepest decline, falling to 70.66 in 2021. Quebec followed at 80.80, while Nova Scotia stood at 81.87, Newfoundland and Labrador at 83.35 and New Brunswick at 83.94.

The findings come as Canadians continue to express strong interest in marriage and family life.

An unpublished Angus Reid Group survey conducted with Cardus found that 62 per cent of unattached Canadian men aged 18 to 44 and 58 per cent of women in the same age group said getting married was important to them.

That gap between what Canadians say they want and what they achieve sits at the centre of the report.

“Most young adults aspire to marry and have children, but many struggle to achieve the stable family life they would like to have,” said Peter Jon Mitchell, director of the Family Program at Cardus and co-author of the study.

“We should be concerned about the decline of the married family, as this influences life satisfaction and outcomes for both parents and children.”

The report says the reasons behind the decline are complex and include economic and cultural pressures that can delay marriage and parenthood.

Young adults face high housing costs, insecure employment and a rising cost of living, while many also perceive a conflict between personal development and the responsibilities of raising children.

Cardus also cites previous research showing that about half of Canadian men and women reach the end of their reproductive years with fewer children than they had wanted.

The trend is unfolding as Canada’s fertility rate falls to record lows.

The report notes that the national total fertility rate dropped to 1.25 children per woman in 2024, far below the roughly 2.1 births needed for a population to replace itself without immigration.

Marriage remains the most common family structure for raising children in Canada, and the report cites research linking marriage with greater family stability, economic advantages, social mobility and better health and well-being.

For children, the report points to studies associating married-parent households with higher educational attainment, lower poverty risk and lower involvement in some risk behaviours. It also acknowledges that healthy children grow up in many kinds of families and that these relationships are correlations rather than proof that marriage alone causes better outcomes.

The decline accelerated sharply between the 2016 and 2021 census years.

Every province and territory recorded a substantial drop during that period. The authors say the COVID-19 pandemic may have contributed through economic uncertainty, delayed childbearing, restrictions on gatherings and reduced access to marriage and divorce services.

But the report makes clear the pandemic was only one part of a trend stretching back decades.

British Columbia, for example, briefly moved above its 2001 baseline in 2006 before beginning a long decline. Its score dropped from 95.19 in 2016 to 87.43 in 2021. Alberta followed a similar pattern but remained the strongest performer relative to its own baseline, falling from 101.10 in 2006 to 91.56 in 2021.

Regional differences are particularly striking in Quebec and the North.

Nearly as many children in Quebec live with cohabiting parents as with married parents, and the province’s large share of common-law couples has helped make Canada the G7 country with the highest proportion of couples living common law.

Quebec also maintained fertility rates above the Canadian average during the study period despite lower marriage rates.

About 23 per cent of Quebec children aged one to 17 had experienced the divorce or separation of their parents, compared with 18 per cent nationally, according to Statistics Canada data cited in the report.

Nunavut presents an even more distinctive picture.

Its index fell almost 30 points between 2001 and 2021, driven mainly by declines in the proportion of adults who were married and children living with married parents. Yet Nunavut continued to have the highest fertility rate in the country, reaching 3.00 children per woman in 2021. No other province or territory exceeded 2.15 during the study period.

The authors caution that the index should not be read as a ranking of which provinces have the “best” families.

Because every region is measured against its own 2001 baseline, the scores show how much family structure has changed within each jurisdiction rather than the absolute level of marriage or family stability across Canada.

Still, the regional pattern is clear. Ontario and the provinces to its west generally experienced smaller declines than Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

Mitchell said the findings should push policymakers and researchers to look more closely at the barriers facing Canadians who want to marry and raise children.

“Most Canadians hold positive attitudes toward marriage, and many desire to marry, yet the family form continues to decline,” he said.

“Canadians remain free to form the families they want, but we should consider why the married family structure is in decline, what the long-term effects might be, how we best support thriving families, and how we eliminate barriers that prevent and delay the transition into married life.”