Summer 2010 Vol. 40 no. 2 for Families About Families Transition

Family Diversity

The Vanier Institute of the Family transition summer 2010 • 1 Editor’s Note

n July 1st, the implications of current Donors Support VIF’s Work Canadians come trends for families and for The Vanier Institute of the Family gratefully acknowledges all those who together in back policy and programs. support our work of promoting the well-being of Canada’s families. yards,O parks, and concert The following is a sneak halls to celebrate what it peak at some of the content Individual Donors means to be Canadian. Each from the opening segments Ingrid Connidis Barbara Heather Sheila Munro Ernest Craik Seamus Henry David Northcott celebration is unique - the of Families Count. We start Sue Edelman Carolyn Ho Susan Palijan music, the food and the with a précis of Professor Joan Fidler Burrows Barbara Kohl David Pearson chatter an emblem of the Eric Sager’s compelling Jean Fournier Donna Lero Douglas Perry rich diversity that defines look at the evolution of Carol Fraser Judith Mappin Aron Spector Jim Gannon Shelagh M’Gonigle Gail Watson our communities and our ‘family’ in Canada. Using a collective identity as a nation. chronological map, Dr. Sager This diversity is similarly outlines the socio-cultural reflected in the varied ways and political terrain upon in which Canadians come which the meaning and Transition Summer 2010 Vol.40, No.2 together – and apart - as practice of family has shifted. Verna Bruce families. For over 40 years, In his words, “…family is President the Vanier Institute of the always a historical construct. Jean T. Fournier Editorial contributions and comments are Family has monitored This is true for individuals, Executive Committee Chair welcome. Material for publication is subject Clarence Lochhead to editing. Contact: trends in family structure, and it is equally true for Jenni Tipper, Editor Transition Executive Director Telephone 613-228-8500 formation and function. an entire society or nation. Jenni Tipper Email: [email protected] Perspective, in this context, Everything about family in Editor The contents of Transition may be reprinted is VIF’s most valuable asset. Canada today is shaped by Lucie Legault or used on radio or television without Distribution Clerk permission, Howevere, a credit is requested. By establishing a focal our remembered past, our If in print, please send a copy to VIF. lens on the relationships social memory.” Transition is published quarterly by the Vanier Institute of the Family (VIF) for Transition was founded in 1970 and responsibilities that This illuminating piece distribution to its members. To become a ISSN0049-4429 member, or to find out more about VIF, Charitable Reg. # 10816 8337 RR0001 comprise ‘family’, the is followed by a series please see page 14 for contact information. Publications Mail Agreement NO. Insitutue has been able to of statistical snapshots 0040006500 To report a change of address, send your Return undeliverable draw important lines of excerpted directly from old Transition address label, with your new Canadian addresses to understanding between the part 1 that reflect the broad address, to Vanier Institute of the Family. Circulation Department See page 14 for contact. 94 CentrepointE Drive lived experiences of families range of family diversity Ottawa, Ontario K2G6B1 and the ever-changing world in Canada. Findings from Email: [email protected] of present-day Canada. sections II and III will be This issue of Transition highlighted in the September brings Canada’s diversity issue of Transition to coincide Contents to light with key findings with the launch of VIF’s new from the soon-to-be-released web-site and with the print Family and Social Memory: Why History Matters fourth Edition of Profiling publication of Families Count. Eric Sager ...... 1 Canada’s Families (now It is my hope you will Families Count IV - Family Diversity titled, Families Count). First agree that Families Count Vanier Institute of the Family ...... 5 published in 1994, this will make a valuable, flagship publication presents highly relevant and serious a comprehensive, reliable contribution to how we statistical portrait of families understand and support in Canada. Best characterized Canada’s families in all that as a databook, Families Count they are. has been divided into three parts: 1) Family Diversity; 2) Jenni Tipper, Editor Family Economic Security; The Vision of the Vanier Intitute of the Family is to make families as important 3) Family and Community to the life of Canadian society as they are to the lives of individual Canadians Life. Each section offers Design and production: phd creative - Peter Handley R.G.D. thoughtful commentary on Family and Social Memory: Why History Matters by Eric Sager

amily” is one of the most Let me suggest another level of Consider the meaning of family complex and fascinating meaning. Family is what we remem- in the world of Frances Stewart of words in the English ber it to be. We all think we know Upper Canada in the 1830s. She “Flanguage. The word can be applied to what a family is, because we were all describes the work of her daughters, social groups of many shapes and sizes. brought up in families of some type. all under the age of 16. When a person has a baby, they are And how easily is becomes ought! We Anna Maria is the general “starting a family.” When a sports team know what family ought to be, overseer of the household has a high degree of cohesion and especially if ours was conflicted or concerns, who makes all the solidarity, its members declare it to be a absent. Every individual’s under- preserves and pickles, cakes, etc. family. When a nation is united, it is a standing of family is shaped by his or She also has the care of Johnny, happy family; if part of the nation her past. It follows that family is the third boy, who is now over threatens to separate, it is contemplating always a historical construct. This is five years old…. Ellen mends all a divorce. As these examples suggest, true for individuals, and it is equally the stockings for the little boys “family” is never just a social unit; it is true for an entire society or nation. and repairs their clothes. She has also an ideal, or a symbolic construct, Everything about family in Canada the care of George in particular and the word is the bearer of values today is shaped by our remembered who is three; besides this she is embedded in the context of its use. past, our social memory. manager and caretaker of the

The Vanier Institute of the Family transition summer 2010 • 1 poultry. In spring she sometimes their teen-aged offspring attends to the sowing followed them, especially when they and raising of plants lived in the growing urban centres. The and nurseries of young family was still an economic unit, but Every individual’s apple trees. Bessie is in charge of it was shrinking in size, and its mem- Charlie, the infant, she is always bers no longer worked beside each understanding of busy and can make most of her other on the same tract of land. Behav- own underclothes and knits. iour changed, especially in towns or family is shaped For these youth, as for the people cities where mobility and social contact of New France a century before, there expanded. Young people were meeting by his or her past. is no individual identity, no personal- and choosing their marriage partners, It follows that ity, apart from one’s membership in a often outside the networks and prefer- family, with all the labour and duties ences of parents, although usually with family is always entailed in such membership. This parental consent. family is a patriarchal economic The memory of the farm family a historical co-operative dedicated to survival and endured, however, and gave birth to to the inheritance of a patrimony that an ideal – a multi-generational, construct. would help secure the next generation harmonious family in which each in their own families. member was devoted to the welfare of During the last half of the 19th all. This ideal collided with the new century, the foundations of this type of realities, and the first great family rural family-household began to erode. “crisis” was born. Some feared that the Compulsory schooling, beginning in family was dying. Ontario in the 1870s and gradually Churches, moral reformers and the adopted by other provinces, took Canadian state embarked on a crusade children under the age of 12 out of the to save marriage, children and family. home and gradually limited their role Aboriginal peoples were told to as family workers. Manufacturing and abandon their kin networks and retailing slowly replaced home-based longhouses, and to live like European production. Fathers, more often than families. In 1890, the federal govern- mothers, took wage-paid jobs and ment made polygamy a criminal

2 • transition Summer 2010 The Vanier Institute of the Family offence. As historian Sarah Carter the population. The co-resident family household was the breadwinner. He argues, Canada’s nation-building was transformed: it became a “nuclear went into the world of work to earn a strategies included the imposition of family” of parents and their own “family wage.” The wife-mother was a monogamous heterosexual marriage as children, living in a new kind of homemaker, the bearer of children, and the basis of family formation. In privacy, usually without servants or the manager of the domestic domain. Quebec, the Catholic Church, aware lodgers or other non-kin. The result Women took paid jobs, but usually that marital fertility was declining, was a new “familialism” – a culture when they were young and single, or if strengthened its pro-natalist family that celebrated an idealized family they were widows. In 1901, only 16.5% rhetoric. Temperance and prohibition form, the suburban nuclear family. of all women aged 15 and over report- movements defended the family Over the last few decades, histori- ed an occupation to census enumera- against the evils of liquor. Child savers ans, novelists and film-makers in tors; among married women, less than and moral reformers proclaimed the Canada and the United States have four per cent reported an occupation. sacred duty of motherhood. Child punctured many of these myths, blown These participation rates crept slowly protection acts and a federal juvenile away the nostalgia and uncovered a upwards through the first half of the delinquency act in 1908 set out to save dark underside to family life in the century, but remained low in 1951, children from neglectful parents, and postwar decades: alienation, sexism, despite the large numbers who took to make the state a surrogate parent family violence, homophobia, frustrat- jobs or entered the armed forces when courts determined that parents ed expectations of affluence, and much during the Second World War. The were incapable. more. But an ideal puts deep roots into balance and content of work and By 1951, the co-resident family was culture and memory. The memory of family life were different for women much smaller than ever before: 3.7 that nuclear family of the postwar than for men, although one’s social people on average, compared to about years endured, and for many it became class made a difference to that balance, five at the beginning of the century. a sacred trust. “The traditional family and poverty persuaded many women The baby boom was a brief interrup- unit of a married man and woman to combine household labour with tion in the long decline in marital fertil- with children is…the one true family paid employment. ity that had begun in the 19th century. unit. Other forms of household are In time – too slowly for some and Changes in housing supply and the simply not families.”1 too quickly for others – Canadian growth of suburbs helped to create a The postwar family ideal con- governments developed a so-called new dream – the single-family de- tained within it an assumption about “welfare state.” Taken together, the tached home – and the dream was the work roles of family members: the policies and institutions of social coming true for a larger proportion of assumption that the male “head” of security were the core of Canada’s

The Vanier Institute of the Family transition summer 2010 • 3 family policies. The welfare state did parents who were not married at all, own family memory, and you are also not transfer responsibility for health married parents of the same sex, and very likely to find diversity and and material security from individuals blended groupings of varying origins. change. In my own life as a child and and families to the state; on the con- Communications and transportation teen-ager, I lived at various times in a trary, the welfare state was designed to technology undermined the equation two-generation nuclear family house- offer support and incentives to families of family with household: the family hold, a multiple-family household, a in providing for their own welfare. The nexus of parent-child-grandchild did single-parent household, a solitary “family” in Family Allowances, for not require co-residence to sustain an household, and non-family institu- example, referred to mothers, who intense personal and physical proxim- tions. Such experience persuades me to were supported as managers of the ity. New patterns and sources of equate change and diversity with household economy, reflecting and immigration to Canada brought new strength and tolerance, not weakness reinforcing a family ideal assumed to mixes of kinship and family values. and instability. be “traditional” and normal. This Canada’s family policies have We know family not by what it is, family, so the policy said, now had the failed to keep pace with these realities, but by what it does. I conclude by means to ensure its own welfare. although laws relating to marriage, remembering a very famous Canadian A cultural ideal can be remarkably divorce, and children have changed. family: it consisted of an elderly durable: it can live longer than the Canada’s cash benefits for families, spinster, her brother, and a non-kin social reality which gave it traction. although amounting to several billions child – Anne of Green Gables. We The idea that a wife was primarily and per year, are small by international know this small group to be a family, even exclusively a homemaker, and standards.2 The Canadian preference not by its form, which was as untypical that she would be available to care for for parental leave and modest cash a century ago as it would be today, but children at home, collided with the support reflects and reinforces the old rather by what those people did with new realities of the late 20th century: ideal, so firmly rooted in social memo- and for each other. Family exists in child rearing was only one segment of ry, that a parent, usually the mother, such doing and sharing, such collective the long life course of women; women stays home. action and mutual support, and it were multi-taskers, working in and Our family policies, like the family exists in the active memories of beyond the home. The idea that father itself, are the outcomes of a long and Canadians from families of many earned the “family wage” no longer complex history. Family law and policy traditions. In such critical social made sense when the earnings of in Canada is changing in response to a memory, renewing itself in every wives were critical to the family’s flexible pluralism that reflects the generation, lies our hope for the future standards of living. The idea that a acceptance of multiple traditions and of Canadian families. “family” was always a single, stable changing family forms. Memories and entity consisting of two heterosexual ideals are being reconstructed, and few Eric Sager (PhD, UBC, 1975) is a professor adults united for the rest of their life of us imagine that there is a single of history at the University of Victoria. He was Director of the Canadian Families Project course, and the biological offspring of model of family that is “traditional,” (1996-2002), a Major Collaborative Research their union, became much more any more than we imagine that Cana- Initiative funded by the Social Sciences and difficult to sustain, although many da is a nation with a singular identity. Humanities Research Council of Canada. He tried to preserve that ideal. The family Examine our history, and we find a has written about the history of sailing ships in became a fluid and highly variable diversity of families and households, Atlantic Canada, the history of unemployment, micro-social unit: it could include and we find change. Look into your and the history of families and households.

Endnotes 1 Letter to the editor, Globe and Mail, 9 October 1996.

2 This paragraph is indebted to Paul Kershaw, Lynell Anderson, Bill Warburton, Clyde Hertzman, 15 by 15: A Comprehensive Policy Framework for Early Human Capital Investment in BC (August 2009), at the BC Business Council Outlook web site: http://www.bcbc.com/Events_Descriptions/2020.asp.

4 • transition Summer 2010 The Vanier Institute of the Family Families Count Family Diversity

ost of us understand what concerns about the disintegration of their own, they lack the dimensions ‘family’ means in a deeply “family”, the great majority of Canadi- necessary for a more fulsome appre- personal way. We build ans live in couple families, either ciation of what it means to be a family. Mmeaning through the prism of our own married or common-law. There is no Building a deeper understanding unique set of experiences within the doubt about the on-going importance of the basic trends in family composi- context of a broader set of societal that Canadians attach to families. For tion demands consideration of a much norms, values and expectations. Truly IValmost everyone, according to Reg broader set of socio-demographic understanding what it means to be a Ribby, “the significance of families factors, such as: population growth family in Canada, however, requires extends beyond how they shape and ageing, rising rates of immigra- looking beyond our own immediate individuals and their personal relation- tion, increasing cultural, racial and experience to include the diverse ships. Most Canadians believe firmly ethnic diversity, rising rates of cohabi- spectrum of relationships and respon- that families are important foundations tation and educational attainment, sibilities that make up family life from of our communities and, indeed, of the declining rates of fertility, increased coast to coast to coast. nation as a whole.” mobility and the phenomenal advanc- History teaches us that family has In the past, heterosexual marriage, es in technology. These are the varied never been one thing to all people. birth or adoption were the only contexts and characteristics of family That families have changed and ‘legitimate’ routes into family. Today, life in the 21st Century that merit our continue to change is now part of these gateways include cohabitation, attention and understanding. These conventional wisdom. The variety and same-sex marriage and blended are the factors that significantly impact diversity of family forms found today families. Understanding the ”how, how, as individuals and as families, speaks to the dynamic ways in which when and why” of family structure we navigate the various points of families come together, come apart, and formation, however, begs a much transition along the life course. and redefine themselves across the life deeper analysis of family-life practices Our ability to understand the course. These patterns, in turn, impact over time. It is not enough to count constantly shifting dynamics and the ways in which we care and support the number of marriages and divorc- characteristics of family life is central each other. es, the number of babies born in a to our capacity as a nation to respond Canadians, by and large, still given year or average family size. to the many opportunities and chal- choose to live in families. Despite These numbers are important, but on lenges facing families today.

The Vanier Institute of the Family transition summer 2010 • 5 Canada’s population living in private households and collective dwellings (2006)

85.2% History teaches us People living in private households with relatives that family has never been one thing to all people. 10.6% People living alone That families have changed and 2.5% People living in private households continue to change with non-relatives is now part of 1.7% People living in conventional collective dwellings wisdom.

Sources: Statistics Canada, 2006 Census of Population, Catalogue no. 97-554-XCB2006006 and 97-553-XCB2006018.

The following excerpts are drawn tion, who is living where and with population aging, this trend will have directly from part 1 of Families Count: whom, they can never fully capture wide ranging ramifications. Whereas Profiling Canada’s Families 1V(2010, “family.” Individuals living on their Canada has always been a “3M” currently in production) and illuminate own are certainly members of families society – that is, multicultural, multi- some of these recent trends in family – involved in the give and take of linguistic, and multi-religious –, the demographics, articulating the increas- family life. Others are forging families make-up of the “3M” nature of the ingly complex pathways into and out of choice – creating bonds of care and population has shifted. Sustained of the family unit. The data and affection with individuals outside of levels of immigration from increas- analysis captured in Families Count their immediate kinship circle. ingly diverse source countries is helps us build this understanding by While the proportion of Canadians transforming communities, neighbour- making the links between how changes living alone may be growing, the hoods, schools, workplaces, and public in family make-up and function, and in majority of Canadians, by and large, institutions, especially in Canada’s social, economic and political contexts still live in families. What is changing largest cities. impact individual and collective is how families come together and the Increasing diversity challenges us health, well-being and prosperity. ways in which they care and support to rethink how we understand families each other. Family life has never been – how they operate and how we Families Count can be pre-ordered as diverse or as dynamic. collectively support them. No longer now (see attached order form) for confined geographically, the ties of publication in September, 2010. Greater Racial and Ethnic Diversity kinship are spread far and wide. Of the many socio-demographic trends Children in new immigrant families influencing Canadian families today, navigate often more than one culture Canada’s People, Canada’s Families rising rates of immigration and racial and language. Their parents too often In 1901, the Census recorded that close and ethnic diversity is among the most navigate a hostile labour market in to nine in ten Canadians lived in compelling. More than 225,000 immi- their efforts to support their families families – a figure surprisingly close to grants on average have been admitted here in Canada and family members today’s numbers. These records, to Canada each year since the early back home. Canada prides itself in however, don’t tell the whole story. 1990s. Population projections suggest being an ethnically diverse society. While statistical agencies strive to that the proportion of foreign-born Yet dealing with such diversity re- determine, with increasing sophistica- Canadians will continue to grow. Like mains a work in progress.

6 • transition Summer 2010 The Vanier Institute of the Family Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal population distribution by age group (2006)

30 30 Aboriginal population

25 Non-aboriginal population

20 18 17 16 15 14 14 15 13 13 13 percent 12 12

10 7 5 5

0 0 to14 15 to 24 25 to 34 35 to 44 45 to 54 55 to 64 65 and over Source: Statistics Canada (2008), Aboriginal Peoples Highlight Tables, 2006 Census of Population, Catalogue no. 97-558-XWE2006002.

Growing Aboriginal Population the labour market and begin to form Changing Family Structure Equally compelling is the rapid families of their own. The clear majority of Canadians population growth among Aboriginal choose to live in families, albeit peoples.1 In 2006, nearly 1.2 million High Levels of Educational Attainment smaller families on average. But the people identified themselves as an The drive for postsecondary credentials form those families are taking contin- Aboriginal person, that is, North is also having a profound impact on the ues to change. And the ways in which American Indian/First Nation, Métis form and function of Canadian families. people come together to form families or Inuit.2 This is up from just under Levels of educational attainment have – at different points in their lives – is one million in 2001 and 800,000 in been increasing steadily in Canada. changing, reflecting shifts in cultural, 1996. The Aboriginal population is Roughly one-half of Canadians aged 25 political and economic attitudes about much younger than the rest of the to 64 years (48%) have either a college partnering. population. In 2006, the median age for or university education. 3 Fifty years ago, the majority of all Aboriginal people was 27 years, Canadian young people have been families were comprised of a legally compared to 40 years for the non-Ab- flocking to post secondary institutions married husband and wife and at least original population. in greater numbers since the last one child. According to the 2006 A rapidly growing young Aborigi- recession in the early 1990s. This shift Census, this family is still the most nal population stands in stark contrast has profoundly shaped the life course of numerous but it is no longer the to the aging of the general population these young people. They are devoting majority. In the 1981 Census, 55% of all in Canada and, as such, represents both more years to education and, as a result, census families were married-couple a unique challenge and an opportunity. are leaving home later, forming unions families with children. This proportion High rates of poverty continue to later, and having children later (or not at slipped below the 50% mark in 1991 stymie the healthy development of all). The pursuit of higher education is and dropped to 38.7% of families in Aboriginal children and youth and also changing who we marry, when and 2006. Conversely, the proportion of compound the difficulties among how we will raise our children, and with common-law families moved up from Aboriginal families and communities what resources. It has fundamentally 6% of all families in 1981 to 15.5% in undergoing profound cultural, environ- affected gender roles in the home and in 2006. The proportion of common-law mental and economic change. Much the workplace, informing the aspira- couples without children doubled needs to be done to support and invest tions and world view of men and during this period while the propor- in Aboriginal youth as they move into women alike. tion with children more than tripled.4

The Vanier Institute of the Family transition summer 2010 • 7 Percentage distribution of census families (1981-2006)

60 55.0%

50

40 38.7% Married couples with children 28.2% 30 29.9% Married couples without children

20 11.3% 15.9% Lone-parent familes

10 8.5% Common-law couples without children 3.7% 6.9% Common-law couples with children 1.9% 0 1981 1986 1991 1996 2001 2006

Source: Statistics Canada, 2006 Census of Population, Catalogue no. 97-553-XCB2006007.

The proportion of lone-parent and then 3.1 persons by the mid 1980s changes in the age of first marriage. families was also higher in 2006 than in – where it remains today. The average age of first marriage has 1981 (15.9% of all census families in Smaller family size has spread been climbing for over three decades. 2006 compared to 11% in 1981), reflect- available family resources among In 2004, the typical first-time groom ing the long-term increase in lone-par- fewer people. This is particularly was 30.5 years-old – an increase of over ent families over the past three decades. relevant in the context of caregiving five years from 1970 when it was at a There is no question that families and population aging. Caring responsi- record low. Similarly, the average age have changed dramatically in the last bilities are now carried by fewer family of first-time brides has increased, fifty years.A ccording to a 2007 Ipsos- members, a situation complicated by reaching 28.5 years in 2004, up from Reid survey, a majority of Canadians the fact that extended families often the low of 22.6 years set in the 1960s. agreed that “there is no such thing as a live at a great distance from each other. Of the many trends influencing typical family.”5 Today’s families are In 2007, one-fifth of the population families in Canada, the delay of populated by step siblings and parents, aged 45 and over who provided care to marriage has been one of the most by same-sex parents, by children, a parent lived more than an hour away important. For young people today, parents, and other relatives – and from the parent in need.6 the transition to adulthood and increasingly, by couples alone. Smaller families and households economic independence is occurring These fundamental changes in the are driving changes – both positive over a longer period of time. Many in structure of families compel us to rethink and negative – in everything from this group are delaying marriage as how best to respect and support families housing to transportation to the they complete educational credentials, in all of their diversity – at every level demand for all manner of goods and pay down educational debt, and from policy to programs. services. Just as growing diversity in establish themselves in the labour family form requires new thinking, the market. Young people are also much Trends in Family Size trend towards smaller families will more likely to choose to cohabit as a Almost one hundred years ago, in 1921, also have significant implications for substitute for or precursor to mar- the average family was comprised of the ways in which society organizes to riage. Many younger adults in com- 4.3 people. In most cases, this was care and provide for people of all ages. mon-law unions will go onto marry at made up of two adults and an average a later age. of 2.3 children. Throughout the 20th Age at First Marriage Increasing The trend toward marriage and century, average family size continued Another way to look at the underlying cohabitation marks a profound shift in to decline, reaching 3.7 persons in 1971, changes in family formation is to track young people’s thinking about inde-

8 • transition Summer 2010 The Vanier Institute of the Family Conjugal status of Canadians aged 15 and over (2006)

“The family is not a 47.9% 27.6% crumbling institution. Legally married Never legally married What is happening, 10.5% however, is that Common-law people are freer than 5.9% Widowed they once were to 5.6% Divorced establish the kinds of 2.5% family arrangements Separated that best suit them.”

Source: Statistics Canada, 2006 Census of Canada, Catalogue no. 97-552-XCB2006007. pendence, life course, and the meaning cultural norms and patterns of participation, pursuit of post-second- of family. It is important to note that behaviour. What appears to be ary training, effective birth control, and young people aren’t necessarily relatively constant among Canadians, later marriage to name just a few – delaying forming relationships; they however, is the desire to form stable, women are having fewer children, and are choosing different routes to com- long-term, intimate relationships. family size is decreasing. mitment, and some are foregoing Many relationships, however, do In 2006, families with children had established tradition. For others, high end. The dissolution of marriages and an average of 1.8 children at home, rates of unemployment and low wage of common-law relationships is down from 2.0 children in 1981. For the employment is a significant barrier to difficult for those directly involved, children, the trend toward smaller setting up independent households. and for children, family members, and families means that they are growing friends. Change in the relationship is up with fewer brothers and sisters and Coming together, and apart more often than not accompanied by cousins. For parents, and mothers Canadians aspire to have happy, other changes in living arrangements, especially, these decisions mean that lasting relationships. For many, this household income, social support, they are spending less of their adult will take the form of marriage. work status, residence and neighbour- lives devoted to the care of dependent Indeed, a clear majority of Canadians hood, and in one’s sense of self. The children – and that fewer children will of all ages, fully 80%, report that care and support that individuals be available to assist them when they getting married at some point is have access to can make a significant are older themselves. “very important” (47%) or “some- difference in navigating these transi- At the same time, comparatively what important” (33%) to them.7 No tions and for the long term well-being high levels of repartnering after less than 90% of teens aged 15 to 19 of those involved. divorce or separation means that a years state that they expect to get small but growing group of children married, and 88% say that they Children and Family Transitions will experience an even larger family expect to stay with the same partner The typical family with children is now network with the addition of new for life.8 smaller than it once was. Even with parental figures, new step-siblings and Clearly, the reasons for choosing recent increases in the number of half-siblings.9 We know from the 2006 to marry, when and to whom are births, there has been a long-term General Social Survey that four in ten varied. Many of these reasons shift decline in the rate of fertility over the adults going through a martial or over time and reflect changes in past three decades. For a variety of common-law union separation had social, demographic, economic and reasons – high levels of labour force dependent children.10 Understanding

The Vanier Institute of the Family transition summer 2010 • 9 Family transitions since birth for children aged 6-13 in 1996-97 Transitions for children born in a family in which Transitions for children born in a family in which parents were living together at the time of birth parents were living apart at the time of birth (legally married or common-law) (single-parent, divorced, separated or widowed and not living common-law) % of children who had no family transitions 78% 16% since birth % of children who had one family transition 8% 45% since birth % of children who had two family transitions 8% 18% since birth % of children who had three family transitions 5% 17% since birth % of children who had four or more one family 2% 4% transitions since birth Note: A transition occurs with a change in the marital status of the parent and can include marriage or remarriage, divorce, separation, break-up of a common-law relationship or the death of a parent. Source: Juby, et.al. (2004), Moving On: The expansion of the family network after parents separate. Department of Justice Canada, 2004-FCY-9E how stepfamilies and blended families family context impact long-term health they fill out the questionnaires and evolve and care for each other is an and well-being. because those who do not fit simply do important area of current research. not appear.”11 But family life is not neat. Given the pace of change in family Conclusion In evaluating family trends and survey relationships, it is difficult to talk about Clearly, understanding ‘family’ in all of data on Canadian families, Robert Brym “family structure” as this implies its diversity is essential for anybody makes a similar observation: “The permanence. The terms “family life involved in assessing the impact of family is not a crumbling institution. course” or “family life pathways” are family change at the individual and What is happening, however, is that more appropriate as they convey the collective level, and in developing people are freer than they once were to fluidity and diversity of family life. public policies that deal effectively with establish the kinds of family arrange- This more dynamic picture of family the evolving complexity of family life. ments that best suit them.”12 lives is an important step forward in Robert Glossop makes the point that “ understanding the impact of different [s]tatistics make family life neat because Happy Birthday, Canada! living arrangements on children and of the pre-packaged categories into their parents, and how changes in which people must fit themselves when

end notes 1 The Aboriginal identity population comprises those persons who 5 Ipsos-Reid (August 2007), Research on Family Policy Related Issues, Heather Juby, Céline Le Bourdais, Nicole Marcil-Gratton (2004). Moving reported identifying with at least one Aboriginal group, that is, First Na- Final report, Submitted to Human Resources and Social Development On: The expansion of the family network after parents separate. Report tions people, Métis or Inuit, and/or who reported being a Treaty Indian Canada as contract G9178-060005/002/CY. http://www.hrsdc. for Family, Child and Youth Section, Department of Justice Canada, or a Registered Indian, as defined by the Indian Act of Canada, and/or gc.ca/eng/publications_resources/por/subjects/general_senti- 2004-FCY-9E. http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/fcy-fea/lib-bib/rep- who reported being a member of an Indian Band or First Nation. ments/2007/10007/page01.shtml rap/2005/2004_9/pdf/2004_9.pdf

2 Several factors account for the growth of the Aboriginal population, in- 6 Mireille Vezina and Martin Turcotte (2010), “Caring for a parent who 10 Pascale Beaupré and Elisabeth Cloutier (2007), Navigating Family Transi- cluding demographic factors such as high birth rates. Between 1996 and lives far away: The consequences,” Canadian Social Trends, Statistics tions: Evidence from the General Social Survey, 2006, Statistics Canada, 2001, the fertility rate of Aboriginal women was 2.6 children, compared Canada, Catalogue no. 11-008-X. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11- Catalogue no. 89-625-XIE- No.2, p. 20. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/ to a rate of 1.5 among all Canadian women. As well, more individuals 008-x/2010001/article/11072-eng.pdf pub/89-625-x/89-625-x2007002-eng.pdf are identifying themselves as Aboriginal people and many more reserves are participating in the Census. 7 Reginald Bibby (2004), A Survey of Canadian Hopes and Dreams, Ot- 11 Robert Glossop (2007), A place in time - Families, family matters and tawa: The Vanier Institute of the Family. http://www.vifamily.ca/library/ why they matter, The Glossop Lawson Lecture Series, October 18, 2007. 3 Statistics Canada (2008), Educational Portrait of Canada, 2006 Census, publications/futured.html http://www.vifamily.ca/commentary/lecture10182007.pdf Catalogue no. 97-560-X. http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census06/ analysis/education/pdf/97-560-XIE2006001.pdf 8 Reginald Bibby (2009), The Emerging Millennials: How Canada’s Newest 12 Robert Brym, (2004), Society in Question: Sociological Readers for the Generation is responding to Change and Choice. Lethbridge: Project 21st Century. Fourth edition. Toronto: Thomas Nelson, p. 178. Cited in 4 Statistics Canada (2007), Family Portrait: Continuity and Change in Canada Books. Reginald Bibby (2004), A Survey of Canadian Hopes and Dreams, Ot- Canadian Families and Households in 2006, 2006 Census, Catalogue no. tawa: The Vanier Institute of the Family.http://www.vifamily.ca/library/ 97-553-XIE. http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/as- 9 Overall, almost one in five children aged 0 to 13 years in 1996-97 had publications/futured.html sa/97-553/pdf/97-553-XIE2006001.pdf at least one stepsibling or half-sibling in their new family network .

10 • transition Summer 2010 The Vanier Institute of the Family The Vanier Institute of the Family is pleased to present Families Count, an up-to-date, comprehensive and reliable source of statistical information on families in Canada - in all of their diversity. With scores of charts and tables, hundreds of interesting statistics, and compelling analysis, Families Count is an indispensible reference for students and teachers, researchers, journalists, public officials, health and social professionals, employers, and governments at all levels.

Available in both official languages, Families Count has been redesigned to improve ease of use and accessibility. Each section of the book also offers thoughtful commentary on the implications of current trends for families and for policy and programs.

Families Count will also be available online. www.familiescount.ca Available: Fall 2010

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July 15-17, 2010, Edmonton, AB. early 2010. The survey indicates that household certain segments of the Canadian population, Cultivating Connections: Global Perspectives & debt in Canada reached a new high of $1.41 homelessness is either a real or near threat. Practices in Family Literacy. This conference is an trillion in December 2009, ranking Canada first Approximately one in nine Canadian adults, or opportunity for national and international family in terms of debt-to-financial assets ratio among close to 3 million people, reported that they literacy experts and practitioners to come together 20 OECD countries. have either experienced or come close to and share knowledge, resources, perspectives experiencing homelessness. and experiences. Gauging the Path of Private Canadian http://salvationarmy.ca/documents/ www.CultivatingConnectionsConference.ca Pensions: 2010 Update on the State of PovertyReport2010.pdf Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution July 16–20, 2010, Vancouver, BC. Pension Plans (May, 2010) reports on the state Toward Recovery and Well-Being – a Brain Development and Learning: Making Sense of of the Canadian pension system. The report Framework for a mental health Strategy the Science. An Interdisciplinary conference devoted underlines the extent to which the ability of for Canada (2009). Released in November to improving children’s lives by making cutting edge Canadians to maintain a financially comfortable 2009 by the Mental Health Commission of research in neuroscience, child psychology and and healthy lifestyle after retirement has Canada, this report presents findings from a medicine understandable and applicable to those become one of the nation’s most vexing series of national public consultations held with who work with children on a daily basis. challenges. For a copy of both papers: stakeholders across the country and offers a www.interprofessional.ubc.cs/bdl.html http://www.cga-canada.org/canada/debt vision for a Canada in which all people have July 18-23, 2010, Sutton, ON. the opportunity to achieve and maintain the 9th annual CANGRANDS KINSHIP Conference and Poverty shouldn’t be a life sentence - A best possible mental health and well-being. Camp. CANGRANDS is a national internet support According to Michael Kirby, Chair of the Mental report on the perceptions of homelessness group for kinship families raising ‘other people’s and poverty in Canada (2010). Published by Health Commission, “This is a key step in children’. the Salvation Army, this report presents the developing a mental health system that puts www.cangrands.com findings from a public opinion poll conducted people living with mental illness at its centre in late 2009 whereby a national sample of 1,000 and has a clear focus on their ability to recover”. September 27-28, 2010, Halifax, NS. Canadians, ages 18 and over, were asked several http://www.mentalhealthcommission.ca/english/ CCSMH 4th National Conference: Connecting questions regarding homelessness, poverty and pages/default.aspx Research & Education to Care in Seniors’ Mental charitable giving. The report shows that for Health. An interdisciplinary two-day event for health care providers, seniors, caregivers, and administrators. www.ccsmhevents.ca

October 14-16, 2010, Vancouver, BC. Family Medicine Forum. FMF is the premier family medicine conference attended by over 2000 family physicians, family medicine teachers, researchers, The Vanier Institute of the Family residents, medical students, nurses, nurse practitioners Telephone: 613-228-8500 Fax: 613-228-8007 and many other health care professionals every year. 94 Centerpointe Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2G 6B1 www.fmf.cfpc.ca/English/index.html www.vifamily.ca October 21-24, 2010, Toronto, ON. Transition Editor Clarence Lochhead ext. 214 Jenni Tipper ext 218 Executive Director Mothers and the Economy: The Economics of Mothering. [email protected] [email protected] www.yorku.ca/arm/conference.html

VIF Staff Sara MacNaull ext. 213 October 22-24, 2010, Whistler, BC. Executive Assistant Jennifer Brownrigg ext 217 [email protected] Families, A Journey of Generations Moving Mountains. Webmaster For persons with a disability, family members, [email protected] Katherine Scott ext. 219 caregiver, service provider, advocate, friend or Director of Programs professional. This conference will provide new Lucie Legault ext.211 [email protected] Accounts Receivable information ideas and opportunities to strengthen Membership, Publications Paula Theetge ext. 215 this community as a family movement. & Mailing Clerk Accounting www.familyfocusconference.com [email protected] [email protected]

14 • transition Summer 2010 The Vanier Institute of the Family