Statistics Canada released its 2016
Families, Households andMarital Status Results for the 2016 Census on August 2
nd and the
results show that proportionally fewer households are composed of a 'mom, dad
and kids' family and more people are either living alone, or as part of a
couple without children, or as part of a multi-generational family. However, the
other interesting result was that the proportion of adults aged 20 to 34 living
with parents was 34.7 percent and has been increasing since 2001 when it was
30.6 percent. It is both a northern and southern Ontario phenomenon.
For Ontario as a whole, 42.1 percent of young adults aged
20-34 are living with parents.
However, in
northern Ontario, the major centers are all below this proportion as Figure 1 illustrates.
They range from a low of 26.6 percent for Timmins to a high of 36 percent in
Kenora.
Figure 2 provides a
somewhat more detailed comparison by including a number of southern Ontario
centers. The proportion of young adults living at home in these centers ranges
from a low of 27.5 in Kingston to a high of 47.4 in Toronto.
Needless to say, the GTA centers of
Barrie and Hamilton also have high proportions though so does Windsor.
Given that
unemployment rates are quite low and employment
growth is occurring in Canada, it is inevitable that the cost of housing is
going to be singled out as one of the factors driving the tendency for young
adults to remain at home – even if they have jobs.
Figure 3 obtained Median Dwelling Values in 2016 from the 2016
BMA Municipal Study.
While we
often focus on the average sale price of a home, the median value is also
interesting as it is not as skewed by extreme values.
With the median, you know that 50 percent of homes are
valued above the median and 50 percent are below.
The median residential dwelling value in 2016 in Ontario was
$266,261 according to the BMA meaning half of dwellings in Ontario were value
at below this and half above.
In the northern Ontario cities, the range was from a low of $95,277 in
Elliot Lake to a high of $237,225 in Sudbury.
In the selected southern Ontario centers, the range was from
$139,469 in Windsor to a high of $447,253 in Toronto.
A quick look shows that median values in southern Ontario are
generally higher than in northern Ontario.
So, is there some relationship between higher housing costs
– as measured by median dwelling values – and the proportion of young adults
continuing to live at home? Figure
4 suggests the answer is yes.
Sure, it does not control for other factors such as employment
opportunities or perhaps social and cultural factors but there still is a
correlation. Moreover, the result
is driven largely by southern Ontario centers as a separate plot done for the
northern cities alone found a much weaker positive correlation.
So, what use can we make of this? Well, if you are parents in the GTA who are tired of the big city grind and having your adult children live at home, I guess you could sell your expensive house and move to Elliot Lake. There you could buy a nice house or yourself and separate ones for your children if they so desire and with the remaining money buy a nice annuity that would provide tidy incomes for you and your children for a very long time. Is that so bad?
