Homeownership over the life course of Canadians : Accession à la propriété pendant le cycle de vie des Canadiens : analyse fondée sur les données du Recensement de la population du Canada

The homeownership rate rises quickly with the age of household maintainers (i.e., the person(s) who pay(s) for shelter costs) in the period before the age of 40, and continues to climb thereafter at a slower pace until reaching the plateau near age 65, when about three quarters of Canadian households own their homes. [...] The trend in the general population is examined in section 6. There is a strong regularity in the age profile of homeownership over generations of Canadians.3 The trajectories of the various birth cohorts are tightly clustered together, particularly those of young adults and the prime-working-age groups, thus showing a consistent homeownership age profile. [...] The same study indicates that Canada has a larger decline in ownership over the 65-to- 80 age group than do the U. S. and the U. K. This finding for Canada is based on the experience of those born in the 1900s and 1910s.4 While consistent with the pattern reported here for the late-1910s cohort and early-1920s cohort, this finding is not consistent with subsequent cohorts, where there is less sign [...] For example, for the 1941-45 cohort, the projected increase from age 60-to-64 to age 65-to-69 is based on the slope for the 1936-40 cohort over the same age range, while the projected increase from age 65-to-69 to age 70-to-74 is based on the slope for the 1931-35 cohort over the same age range. [...] Although the number of baby boomers entering the housing market (i.e., the population share of the 25-to-34 age group) continued to rise until 1989, the pressure of their large numbers and share in the population on the rental housing market was to a large extent offset by the rising tendency of young adults to live with their parents.