What is ‘life-stretching?’ Millennials living with parents longer than boomers

According to a report called "Millennials in the housing market" by Statistics Canada, homeownership rates have been declining for 15 years.

The proportion of millennials aged 25 to 39 living with their parents in 2021 was twice that of baby boomers in 1991 – 16.3 per cent compared to 8.2 per cent - according to a new analysis by Statistics Canada.

The agency found 49.9 per cent of millennials owned a home, compared to 56.2 per cent of Gen-Xers and 55.9 per cent of Baby Boomers, when they were in the same 25-39 age bracket.

While housing affordability for millennials is an evergreen issue, one of the study’s authors says the data showed the cost of home ownership is only one of the factors that drove multigenerational changes.

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“We think this is quite a broad change across the generations, and it’s not explicitly down to just one factor,” said Michael Mirdamadi.

One of the factors is something called “life-stretching.”

“That’s the kind of general trend across generations where young people are spending more time in education. They’re moving out of the parental home a bit later. They’re settling into a location or full-time employment later and forming families later.

“So, all of these decisions get pushed back a little bit, and that could be having an effect as well on the overall homeownership rate,” Mirdamadi told CTV News.

‘Cultural outcomes’

Tied to “life-stretching,” StatCan also found fewer millennials were married with children in 2021 than their older counterparts when they were in the same age bracket. About 27 per cent of millennials compared to Gen-Xers (34.5 per cent) and Baby Boomers (46.6 per cent).

Mirdamadi’s research also found younger populations became more diverse over the generations, which shifted the “cultural outcomes” for housing.

For example, in 2021, 14 per cent of white, non-racialized Canadians lived with their parents. Whereas for racialized population groups, the number was two to three times higher.

Statistics Canada used census data from 1991, 2006 and 2021, and did some special calculations to account for those still living with their parents.

The agency found the trend of living with parents has increased slowly over time.

Mirdamadi says today’s report is one of the first times in Canada an intergenerational lens as been applied to housing data. He is planning more research that specifically looks at affordability challenges going forward.