OTTAWA, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- The number of Canadians living alone rose to record 28.2 percent of all households in Canada in 2016 from 25.7 percent in 2011, according to the 2016 Census issued by Statistics Canada Wednesday.
It means that 13.9 percent of the Canadian adult population now lives alone, a surge from 1.8 percent in 1951.
However, the number of multi-generational households shot up 37.5 percent since 2001, a greater increase than households in general, because of the greater frequency of multi-generational households among Indigenous and immigrant communities, which are two growing sectors of the country's population.
Canada's 35.15 million people are getting older; there are now more seniors than children under the age of 14. Immigration contributed two-thirds of the country's population growth between 2011 and 2016, and that diversity has also added complexity to the Canadian family portrait.
The census shows that the growth rate of couples living without children since 2011 stood at 7.2 percent, much more than 2.3 percent couples living with children.
Women are more likely than men to be living alone due to their longer life expectancy. But the share of senior women living alone has decreased.
The number of childless couples grew faster over the last five years than couples with at least one child, leaving the latter group at 51.1 percent of the population, the lowest level ever recorded in the country's history
"This is the result of an aging population," said Johanne Denis, a director general at Statistics Canada. "We're also seeing higher rates of separation and divorce, delayed couple formation among younger Canadians and more women in the labour force. These are trends that other countries are also experiencing."
The census also said that 69.7 percent of all children under the age of 15 live with both their biological parents while 6.1 percent live with two parents, one of them a step-parent.
Meanwhile, almost one-fifth of Canadian children live in single-parent households and four-fifths of them with a single mother. However, the rate of single-father households has increased significantly since 2001.
The number of same-sex couples in the country has also jumped, up 60.7 percent from 2006 while the rate of growth among all couples has been just 9.6 percent over the time.
The census counts 72,880 same-sex couples in Canada, representing 0.9 percent of all couples.
Roughly 12 percent of same-sex couples live with children, well below the 51.4 percent of opposite-sex couples that do. About four-fifths of same-sex couples with children are female.
Among Canadians between the ages of 20-34, about 34.7 percent still live with their parents, up from 30.6 percent in the 2001 census.
The number of young adults living both outside of their parents' homes and with families of their own has dropped to 41.9 percent in 2016 from 49.1 percent in 2001.
"Economic conditions and the higher cost of housing, particularly in the Greater Toronto Area, are behind this increase in children living with their parents for a longer time," said Denis.
