About 40 percent of Canadian children ages 0–14 do not live with married parents, according to a new report by Cardus, a think tank.
Data collected during COVID-19 suggested “a significant decline in marriage rates, divorce rates, and fertility,” according to the report, “Canadian Children at Home: Living Arrangements in the 2021 Census,” published Feb. 28. The report indicated it used previously unreleased Statistics Canada data from the 2021 census to examine the living arrangements of children from newborn to age 14 in Canadian families.
Parental marital status and the portion of intact families is an indirect measure of family stability, suggested the report. “Measuring instability in the family lives of children is important because instability is correlated with a higher risk of poor outcomes among children,” it said….