Fifty years of families in Canada, 1961 to 2011 : Cinquante ans de familles au Canada, 1961 à 2011 : familles, ménages et état matrimonial, Recensement de la population de 2011

By the end of the 1960s, events such as the legalization of the birth control pill, the introduction of 'no fault' divorce, as well as the growing participation of women in higher education and in the paid labour force may have contributed to delayed family formation, smaller family size and an increased diversity of family structures. [...] A3B lso in 2001, the census family concept is broadened to include: • Bc4 hildren in census family who were previously married • B5skip-generation families (grandparents and grandchildren in the same dwelling and without the presence of a middle-generation parent) • 6aB. [...] Over time, the share of married-couple families has decreased The number of census families in Canada—married couples, common-law couples and lone-parent families—more than doubled between 1961 and 2011, from 4.1 million families in 1961 to 9.4 million families in 2011. [...] In fact, for the first time in 2011, the number of common-law couple families in the country surpassed the number of lone-parent families (1,567,910 compared to 1,527,840). [...] The ratio of female lone-parent families to male lone-parent families has been fairly constant over the past 50 years at about 4 to 1. While the sex distribution of lone-parent families changed little between 1961 and 2011, the legal marital status of lone parents evolved considerably during this time (Figure 2).