For recent graduate Bianca Chan, it was a no-brainer that she would live with one of her parents when she returned from university.
“I always just assumed that I would be moving back home until I found a place,” said the 22-year-old who graduated from Ottawa’s Carleton University this past spring.
“Coming out of school, I didn’t have nearly enough money to rent my own place and have enough to cover the costs of living in Vancouver,” she said. “That was definitely part of the decision, if you could call it that. It’s better described as a decision made out of necessity.”
Chan’s story is becoming increasingly common in Vancouver and across the country. According to 2016 census data released Wednesday, more than one-third (34.7 per cent) of young adults aged 20 to 34 in Canada are living with at least one of their parents.
In Vancouver, the number is higher. Here 38.6 per cent of young adults are either still living at home or have had to move back in with their parents. Provincially, B.C. comes in just under the national average at 33.9 per cent.
Ontario had the highest percentage of young adults, 42.1 per cent, living at home. And in Toronto and Oshawa that number hit almost half — there 47.4 per cent and 47.2 per cent of people in the 20-to-34 age range live at home.
Nathan Lauster, associate professor of sociology at UBC, said that in Vancouver and Toronto in particular, there are two distinct reasons why an increasing number of young adults are living at home.
“Both have tight housing markets where it’s difficult for young people to get out and find a good place to live,” he told the Courier, adding that, especially in Vancouver, rental accommodations are hard to find.
In those cases, some young adults stay at home longer, or return home, in order to save money for a down payment to purchase their first home, while others are waiting to find rental accommodations.
Conversely, both cities have quite diverse populations and in some cultures it is more common, sometimes expected, that children will continue to live at home longer, he said, often until they get married.
Another factor is adult children either staying at home, or returning home, to help care for or support an aging parent. However, Lauster said, it’s been found that it’s mostly the parents who are supporting their adult children.
Chan said that while a large part of why she returned to her parents’ house was financial, another reason was that she simply missed the comfort of living at home.
“Being away for four years at university really left me missing those home-cooked meals, the great food in the fridge and pantry, bumping into my mom or dad in the mornings,” she said.
There is some embarrassment at having to tell people she is living at home again. But she is not alone.
“I’d say the vast majority of my friends live at home or moved back home after graduating university,” she said. “It made it easier because it’s become normal, expected almost.”
And for Chan, the arrangement is temporary. She has plans to move into a place with her boyfriend soon.
Lauster said that as it has become increasingly common, and with the growing diversity of the population, continuing to live at home as a young adult has become more socially acceptable.
And while the number of young adults living at home has been on the rise — nationally it increased from 30.6 per cent in 2001 to 34.7 per cent in 2016 – it remains to be seen if that trend will continue.
Lauster said changes in the housing market, such as more purpose-built rental housing in Vancouver, could see an increasing number of young adults striking out on their own. As well, he said, it depends on whether the cultural practice of having adult children continue living at home until marriage remains across generations.
The situation is not unique to Canada. According to Statistics Canada, the proportion of young adults living at home in this country is similar to what’s being seen in other countries. In the U.S., 34.1 per cent of young adults still live with at least one parent. In Australia, that number was 30 per cent in 2011. And in the European Union, in 2012 approximately 48 per cent of adults aged 18 to 29 lived at home.
@JessicaEKerr
