Canadians ‘decidedly lukewarm’ on marriage
New poll finds attitudes differ from U.S.
Fewer than half of Canadians think it is important for couples who plan to spend their lives together to be married, according to a new poll.
That is just one of the findings from a survey on Canadians’ attitudes to marriage, and their experiences of it, that paints a picture of a country that is “decidedly lukewarm” on the ancient domestic institution.
“While wedding planners have fashioned an entire industry centred on that ‘special day,’ Canadians themselves appear unconvinced that the day — or the institution it represents — is all that special anymore,” says the report from the Angus Reid Institute, based on an online survey of more than 1,500 people.
There are two age ranges in which the pattern is reversed. Both 18- to 24-yearolds and those over 65 buck the national trend, with clear majorities saying marriage is either “very important” or “somewhat important” for lifelong romantic partnerships.
Gender has less of an influence on the question. All women, regardless of age, are more likely to say marriage is unimportant, as are most men. The only exception is men older than 55.
Even when unmarried couples have a child together, a majority of Canadians says it is either “not that important” or “not important at all” for them to legally marry. That split is widest among people aged 35-44 and is reversed only in the age range above 65, where a majority say it is important.
Being part of a visible minority had a strong effect on the numbers, making a person far more likely to regard marriage as important.
But the overall trend is clear. Marriage is losing its cultural clout in a country where more than one-fifth of all couples are common law, according to Statistics Canada. That is more than three times higher than the rate in 1981. One-person households became the most common type of households for the first time in 2016, surpassing couples with children. And the percentage of 18- to 34-year-olds who were married declined from 56 per cent in 1971 to a low of 21 per cent in 2011, ticking back up to 22 per cent in 2016.
“You see really significant numbers of people across those age demographics who are not convinced of the importance of marriage, whether it is civil or religious; who are not convinced of its relevance; and who are not convinced of its necessity or relevance even when there’s a child involved,” said Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute, which did the survey.
“The flattening of that across age demographics — where you only really see people in the 65-plus age group likely to say that it is important across all those questions — really stands out,” she said. “We’re now of an age where you see Baby Boomers or Gen-Xers telling their children or their nieces and nephews, ‘It’s not that important.’ ”
One key theme in the results is the difference between Canadian and American attitudes, which the poll was able to measure by repeating questions previously asked by Pew Research in the U.S.
Those U.S. results showed a much stronger sense of marriage’s importance to couples planning to spend their lives together, with more than two-thirds saying it was important, and nearly half saying it was “very” important.
Likewise, fully two thirds of Canadians think society is just as well off if people have priorities other than marriage and children, while only half of Americans shared that view in 2014.
The survey of 1,520 Canadian adults was conducted in January. They were all part of the Angus Reid Forum, an online community, but were not aware of the poll’s subject or questions before participating. Because they were not randomly selected, a true margin of error cannot be calculated, but a randomized poll of similar size would have a margin of 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
(SIGNIFICANT NUMBER) NOT CONVINCED ... EVEN WHEN THERE’S A CHILD INVOLVED.