OTTAWA —More than one out of every six families in the Fort Frances region is headed by just one parent, according to new census information that shows the continued decline of the so-called nuclear family across Canada.
The latest data from the 2006 census, released yesterday by Statistics Canada, indicates that lone parents account for 18.2 percent of all families, which includes those without children, in the metropolitan area of Fort Frances.
When lone-parent families are measured only against other families with children, the percentage climbs to 29.7 percent.
When it comes to who heads up families with just one parent, women by far outnumber the men. Among the lone-parent families in the Fort Frances region, 80.9 percent are headed by females.
The proportion of lone-parent families in the Fort Frances region has increased since the 2001 census, when they represented 17.1 percent of all families and 27.3 percent of families with children.
Statistics Canada defines a lone-parent family as a family headed by an adult who is single, separated, divorced, or widowed. It also could be a grandparent who is raising a grandchild when the child’s parent isn’t in the home for whatever reason.
Lone-parent families made up less than 10 percent of the Canadian family structure during the early years of the baby boom in the 1950s and ’60s.
But that trend has been going the other way over the last 40 years to the point now that there are more families with just one parent than ever before.
Nationally, lone-parent families make up 15.9 percent of all Canadian families and 25.8 percent of those families with children. Alberta has the lowest percentage of lone-family parents among all the provinces (14.4 percent) while Nunavut has the highest (27.6 percent).
The traditional “nuclear” family—married couples with children—make up 37.9 percent of all families in the Fort Frances region. That’s a decrease from the 2001 census, when it was 41.5 percent.
Common-law couples with children have increased over the last five years, from 4.7 percent to 5.2 percent.
Across Canada, beyond the lone-parent families, the rest of the family units break down like this: married with children (38.7 percent); common-law with children (6.9 percent).
In Ontario, the census shows that 44.5 percent of families were married couples with children while 4.1 percent were common-law couples with children.
The census also breaks out same-sex couples—and the 2006 census was the first to measure same-sex married couples. In Canada, there were 7,465 same sex married couples and 37,885 same-sex common law couples.
In the Fort Frances region, the census indicated there were 15 same-sex married couples and 120 common-law couples of the same sex.
Divorced people make up 7.5 percent of the population in Fort Frances while 32.5 percent have never married.
For the last 25 years, there has been a steady increase in the number of Canadians who have never married. Nationally, 34.9 percent of the population has never been married and 8.0 percent are divorced.
The census is conducted every five years by Statistics Canada and is based on information filled out by Canadians on May 16, 2006.
The data released yesterday on families follows information released earlier this year on overall population growth, as well as a look at the age and sex breakdowns of the population.
Future census information to be released by Statistics Canada over the coming months will give demographic breakdowns of a variety of topics, including language, immigration, labour force activity, and education.
Census metropolitan areas do not conform to established municipal boundaries.
Statistics Canada determines its own geographic definition of a metropolitan area with a population of at least 100,000, but it also includes surrounding urban and rural communities based on analysis of commuting patterns and other factors.
Looking at metropolitan areas this way takes in to account the growing impact of suburban areas on Canada’s largest cities.
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