Number of adults living with parents has doubled since 1995

Almost two million people in Canada were living with one or more of their parents in 2017, according to new data released by Statistics Canada — that’s nine per cent of the adult population.

That number has doubled since 1995 when only 900,000 people or five per cent of the adult population shared a residence with at least one parent.

“I think it’s just the cost of living has gone up,” said Langford Mayor Stew Young. “And taxes are through the roof.”

Young calls this a “historic” level of taxation at the provincial and federal level.

“When you’re starting to look at the regulations in the cities and the taxation levels at the federal and provincial level — it does not surprise me that it’s nine per cent,” said Young.

According to the new statistics, men, especially at younger ages, were more likely to be living in a parental home with 56 per cent of men aged 25 to 34 living at home compared to 44 per cent of women in the same age group.

Between the ages of 25 to 64, 12 per cent of adults living with their parents attended school versus five per cent of those who did not live with their parents.

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Young said excess government regulation coupled with the housing crisis in B.C. has left young people needing to rely on their parents.

“Small businesses get overtaxed, they won’t hire as many people, so now they’re going to be living with their parents a lot longer — you just can’t afford it,” he said.

The majority of those surveyed, 74 per cent, living with parents had paid employment but were less likely to have worked in full-time permanent jobs in the year prior to the survey when compared with other adults.

The same survey shows that most adults living with their parents were single at 70 per cent of participants reporting they were not currently married or in a common-law relationship and that they had never been married.

“If you want to make that number lower from nine per cent down back to five, the government has to get rid of the bureaucracy. It has to get rid of these new fangled taxes,” Young said.