Traditional Marriage Still Important in Canada
While fewer Canadians are getting married, the institution of marriage remains the single most common foundation on which Canadians build a family, notes Anne Milan, senior analyst with Statistics Canada's demography division.
The fact that married-couple families with children is still the largest group certainly indicates that marriage is an important component of family life, as maintained by Milan. According to 2006 census data released Wednesday, there is a married couple living in nearly 70 percent of all families.
Even so, the traditional family structure is giving way to alternatives over time. Common law and same-sex couples are on the rise, with the number of same-sex couples growing by 32.6% since 2001, five times the pace of opposite-sex couples.
