What has, and hasn't, changed about owning a home in your 30s

Statistics Canada confirmed this hebdomad what has long been known – millennials today ar thomas more potential to unrecorded with their parents and less likely to own homes than baby boomers were at the same age.

The causes are complex, but it is likely that deteriorating housing affordability and delays in forming families play a role, the StatsCan researchers say. The report noted the substantial, inflation-adjusted increases in both housing prices and rents from 1991 to 2021.

But the data also offered new insights into what hasn't changed over the years: rates of home ownership among married millennials between the ages of 25 and 39 and married baby boomers at that same age are essentially unchanged.

Seventy-eight per cent of married baby boomers with children in that age group owned homes in 1991. Thirty years later, in 2021, 78 per cent of married millennials with children also owned homes.

The difference is that in 2021, far fewer millennials were married: just 35 per cent, compared with 58 per cent of baby boomers in 1991 and 44 per cent of Gen-Xers in 2006.

Alison Webb, 36, said it's a pattern she has noticed among her friends.

"I think a lot of people are madly in love and they're committed and they don't get married and they don't really believe in the institution of the religious marriage ceremony as much as maybe other generations did.

"More people are deciding to be single because there's freedom and happiness and adventure in being single as well."

Millennials are similarly less likely to have children, a trend that is especially pronounced in Metro Vancouver.

Webb, who lives alone in Vancouver, said that when she was a teenager, she would imagine her future self living in a modest house with two kids.

"I thought that was totally possible. And now I live in a one-bedroom apartment and I pay over $2,000 a month in rent and I have enough money to buy food.

"And I don't really even travel, and I make … decent money," said Webb, who is a registered massage therapist.

The data reflect the financial "vice grip" millennials and younger generations find themselves in, according to Paul Kershaw, a professor at the University of British Columbia's School of Population and Public Health and founder of the Generation Squeeze think tank.

"A millennial has … to go to post-secondary more than baby boomers had to in order to land jobs that, if you adjust for inflation, pay less than baby boomers earned back in the day on average. And they'll start with more student debt for the privilege because post-secondary is more costly today. And the jobs they land will not only pay less, but they'll have fewer extended benefits," he explained.

Because home prices are so much higher, millennials either rent or live with their parents for longer, he added.

The type of housing most typically owned by young adults has also shifted over the years, especially in Vancouver.

Just over a third – 36 per cent – of Metro Vancouver adults between the ages of 25 and 39 in 1991 owned single detached houses, which is the housing type most often associated with growing a family. By 2021, that figure had shrunk to 12 per cent.

Kershaw said one way Ottawa could make things easier for younger generations is to spend less on old age security for the wealthiest Canadians, and use some of that money to offer rent subsidies or subsidized child-care spaces.

As for Webb, even though things have turned out differently than she imagined, she's focused on living in the moment.

"There's a lot more poetry with my life than maybe there would be if I had two little kids running around. There's, you know, a lot more long walks. There's a lot of beauty to experience in this city.

"It's pretty amazing."

Senior Reporter

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