Many families cannot make ends meet unless someone else takes care of the kids and both parents work.

Many families cannot make ends meet unless someone else takes care of the kids and both parents work.
Photo Credit: Melanie Maxwell/Associated Press

Increasingly, both parents work

In the majority of Canadian families with children under 16 years old, both parents work, according to government statistics. Figures for 2014 indicate that both parents work in 69 per cent of the families with young children, up sharply from only 36 per cent in 1976.

The number of families with a stay-at-home parent declined most rapidly in the province of Quebec, from 59 per cent in 1976 to 13 per cent in 2014.

Staying home with kids a luxury

As the cost of living has increased, fewer families can afford to live on only one salary. Parents find it has almost become a luxury to stay at home to raise one’s own children. Couples instead send them to daycare or hire nannies to take care of them. There are only 500,000 families with only one wage-earner.

It is still most likely that the mother will be the stay-at-home parent, but more fathers are filling that role. In 1976 only two per cent of dads stayed home compared with about 11 per cent in 2014.

Dramatic changes to family life

There were almost 700,000 single parents with at least one child under 16 in 2014. That was more than double the 300,000 in 1976. About 69 per cent of lone mothers were employed and 82 per cent of lone fathers.

These trends have dramatically changed family life in Canada, making it challenging to juggle work and home responsibilities. For example, it is difficult to arrange care for a family member who is sick or old, or to just get a healthy and nutritious dinner on the table after a day at work and picking up the kids.

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