Canada is increasingly a nation of 30-year-olds living in their parents' basement.
What happened: Canadians aged 25 to 39 — millennials, that means you — were twice as likely to live at home with their parents in 2021 compared to the same age group in 1991, according to a new report from Statistics Canada.
In 1991, 8.2% of Canadians in this age cohort lived with their parents, a share that grew to 16.3% by 2021.
The increase was most acute in the country’s priciest housing markets, Toronto and Vancouver, where the rate of millennials living with their parents was 26.1% and 19.3%, respectively.
Why it’s happening: Unaffordable housing is mostly to blame. Even after adjusting for inflation, home prices nationwide increased by 142% between 1991 and 2021.
Over that same period, the median household income for young adults grew by just 25%. No surprise, then, that the rate of home ownership for that group fell from 55.9% to 49.9% during that time.
Why it matters: In addition to being a potential source of intrafamily tension, young people crashing at home for longer is also connected to delays in their realization of traditional life milestones, like finding a partner and starting a family.
University of British Columbia researchers found that the biggest predictor of whether young adults would form their own households (rather than staying at home or getting roommates) is the cost of rent relative to income.
What’s next: It’s too soon to say for sure what housing fate awaits Gen Z, but so far they’re living at home at even higher rates than millennials.—TS
