Families and households

Release no. 3: September 12, 2007

• The number of common-law-couple families increased between 2001 and 2006, more than five times the gain observed for married-couple families and more than double the growth of lone-parent families.
• The 2006 Census enumerated same-sex married couples for the first time. Of the 45,345 same-sex couples counted, 7,465 were married couples.
• Households have been declining in size over the past century. In 2006, there were more than three times as many one-person households as those consisting of five or more people.