DINKs for now, and kids later
Couple’s debt means ‘there’s no way we can get married or start our lives’
Hayley Chazan, 25, and Richard Clark, 24, are considered DINKs, a dual-income couple with no kids — aside from their 11-year-old adopted dog, Hope.
They’re part of a demographic cohort that’s slowly overtaking the number of households where couples have children, according to Statistics Canada. The year 2006 was the first recorded time Canadian couples without children overtook the number of couples who opted to have them.
Since getting together three years ago, Chazan and Clark have focused on their careers and finished school — a bachelor’s degree in political science for him and a master’s in journalism for her, both from Carleton University.
After just under a year of living together, they’re choosing commonlaw status over marriage, at least for now. Chazan says she’ll take the plunge only when they’ve both paid off their combined student debt, which sits at about $50,000.
“There’s no way we can get married or start our lives before we pay off all our school debt,” says Chazan. “It’s always weighing on you.”
Getting started in life is hard when you’ve got a debt burden right out of school, something millennials face more than any other generation before them, says David Foot, a retired economics professor from the University of Toronto, with a specialization in demographics. It’s the main reason, he says, that many are waiting longer to take steps such as buying a houses, car and other luxury items afforded to the baby boomers.
It’s not that they’re not going to have those things, he says; it’s just that they’re waiting longer than their parents to get them.
As a graduate, Chazan works as an intern for a communications agency, FleishmanHillard, and her boyfriend Clark works as the digital director for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs — together the couple makes about $90,000 a year.
The pair plan to aggressively pay down their debt, so that they can save money and, eventually, one day become homeowners.
“I don’t know if we’ll own a house anytime soon,” says Chazan. Adds Clark: “I don’t think we feel the same pressure to buy the traditional home that’s ‘good for the family,’ like our parents did.
“We want flexibility early in our career,” Clark says. “So, right now, even if we were in a position to buy — I don’t know if we would.
“If anything, we’d buy a condo downtown,” Clark says. “Or when we’re ready, we’d probably buy in a more rural place like Gatineau Park.”
While the millennials and baby boomers might seem at odds in their views on home ownership, the two generations do have something in common — wanting a family and children. A 2012 study by Abacus Data Inc. found that having a successful marriage or relationship was ranked as their No. 1 priority.
The proportion of married couples rose 19.7 per cent over the 30year period between 1981 and 2011, and the number of common-law couples more than quadrupled, according to Statistics Canada. And while millennials couples are shedding the idea of marriage as a sign of commitment, it’s surprising to note that they’re more comfortable considering a larger family than their gen-Xer counterparts, according to the BabyCenter’s most recent Canadian Millennial Mom Report.
“It would be nice to have a kid in my early 30s,” Chazan says. “That way we can have more if we want.”
The average Canadian mother has her first child by age 28½, according to the BabyCenter’s 2015 report on the state of modern motherhood. In five years or so, when Chazan is 30, she hopes she’ll have enough occupational and financial security to stay at home and raise their child, for at least a couple years — a plan that, she says, just is taking a bit longer than she expected.
“I always wanted to start early, but I’m only 25 and I’m just starting my career,” she says, “So, it just doesn’t seem realistic to move things up the way I thought I would.”
The pair plan to keep climbing their way up the career ladder and even have an entrepreneurial venture in sight.
“My dream,” says Chazan, “is to have a family and live comfortably and take vacations.”