The Decibel - Why single parents are struggling in Canada

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

The number of single parents in Canada has been steadily growing since the 1970s. Today, one in five children grow up in single-parent homes. However, the increasing cost of living and lack of sufficient financial support is pushing many of these families towards poverty.Dave McGinn, a reporter for the Globe and Mail, dives into the additional struggles that single parents face and explains how Canada’s policies to help families fall short.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Today, there are more single-parent households in Canada than ever before. One in five kids are now raised by a single parent. But despite the increasing numbers, a lot of these families are falling behind financially. And part of the problem comes from the fact that certain policies were designed for nuclear, two-parent families. The Globe's Dave McGinn has been looking into this. He's here to talk about how some of Canada's policies leave single parents behind, and what changes could help them and help our economy. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail.

Dave, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. Let's start with the nuclear family. When did they become the norm in North America? The nuclear family really begins to emerge en masse around the end of World War II and peaks in the 1960s. So in 1961 in Canada, 91% of census families featured a married couple. And then after the 60s, it slowly begins to decline. And then we kind of see the rise of single parents. I guess when did that family structure start to become more common? is in the 1970s, there are big changes to divorce laws, starting around kind of like late 1960s through the 80s, and that it becomes a lot easier for couples to divorce. So today,

the percentage of census families who are held by single parents has more than doubled since 1961. And the number of two-parent non-step families has been cut in about half. So that's a huge, huge change. Today, about one-fifth of all kids in Canada are being raised by a single parent. I think the number I saw was like 1.15 million in 2021. Yeah, so nearly 1.15 million as of 2021. And you compare that to 289,000 in 1976. I guess we maybe should just establish who we're talking about when we talk about single parents.

When we talk about statistics in Canada, who is actually counted as a single parent? It is a pretty big range. Single parents are everyone from a mother who has sole custody of her kid to a divorced couple that shares custody 50-50. So those are still counted as single parent households? Those are still counted as single parents, yes. There is a very, very wide range of what we call single parents, right? There are the people who set out to become single parents. There are people on one income basically to sustain the family, which of course could be really challenging. So Dave, what do we know about the financial circumstance?

So the median household income for a dual earner coupled household is $130,000 a year, and that's with two kids. And that compares to about a third of that for single-parent households. I guess if we take this a step further, do we know about poverty rates if we're looking at the bottom end of things, how that compares? The poverty rate for single parents is shocking in Canada. According to a recent UNICEF Canada report, 44% of children in Canada being raised by single parents live in poverty compared to 8% of kids being raised in coupled households. That is a huge discrepancy. Yeah, that's approaching like almost half of kids in single parent households. It is a huge discrepancy. Yeah. That's approaching like almost half of kids in single parent households. It's a giant number. Do we see a difference, I guess, then, like keeping that in mind, do we see a difference then in outcomes for kids who grow up with a single parent? What's interesting is that there have been studies that have shown that when you take poverty out of the equation

and look at family types of similar incomes, children being raised by single parents do just as well as kids being raised by couples. So it shows that there's nothing inherently wrong about being raised by a single parent. What determines your outcomes in large part is your family's financial resources. You said something interesting there, though, that there's nothing inherently wrong. I think this might get into maybe some of the stigma or the social perceptions of how we view different kinds of families. Yeah, Dave, how are single parents viewed in today's society? Even though they're becoming more and more common, what do we see

there? There is still a very widespread stigma around single parents. And I think it's in large part because many people still think of the nuclear family as being the norm. One single father I talked to even said, you know, sometimes you feel like a failure because you're not raising your kids with a spouse in a house with a white picket fence in the suburbs, which is the sort of classic idea of the nuclear family. in America, but surveys conducted by the Pew Center have shown that large numbers of people still say it is wrong for a woman to raise a child by herself. Really? Wow. So this is, I guess these are American numbers, but we can understand there would be similar things here? Even one sociologist I spoke to had said, when speaking about why there isn't more robust policy directed at single parents said that the stigma could be one reason to explain that lack, right? Because we still think of single parents as quite often not the deserving poor. I think a lot of people still seem to see single parenthood

as a kind of moral failing. But of course, this kind of stigma, I mean, must have an impact on single parents. Do we know what kind of mental, I guess, even physical effects? Yeah, no, I think that stigma plays into part of the explanation for the mental and physical health of single parents. I think there are obviously many, many stresses or potential stresses to the lives of single parents. But studies have shown that single mothers have reported rates of depression and anxiety about twice as high as married or coupled mothers. And there was one study conducted by researchers in Toronto in 2018 that found mortality rates for single fathers are three times as high as married or coupled fathers. And Dave, I know that you spoke to a number of single parents

about what things are like for them. What did people tell you about their experiences? It's a whole range. I mean, it can obviously be hard. It can obviously be challenging, especially when you don't have family nearby. One mother I spoke to in Edmonton named Imran Farhan, who is raising two small boys, she works nights because that way she can drive her kids to're in daycare is because one of her children has a speech delay and the child's therapist has said it's good for his socialization and his progress to be in daycare, and then after that either goes home to get a few hours of shut-eye or two days a week goes and babysits for another family so that she can help pay for daycare and the other expenses of her life.

I mean, this is someone who is working so hard for her family. And what else could we ask her to do? And it's hard. It's challenging. But it's also hugely rewarding. I mean, she obviously loves her kids. I think like every single parent, she would be happy to have a bit more support. But she is doing everything she can to raise her kids right and provide for them.

And you also spoke to a single father. Can you tell me about his experience too? Yes. I spoke to a single father here in Toronto named Ugo Ohana, and he is divorced. He has shared custody of his kids. And it's interesting when we spoke earlier about the diversity of single parents is when we spoke, he said he wasn't even sure if he was a single parent, because in his mind, often a single parent is someone doing it all by themselves all the time. And because he has shared custody, he wasn't really sure where that put him, but has a great relationship with his children and spoke to me about how sometimes he does feel like a failure, right? That success was, you know, you go to school, you get a career, you get married, you have children, you raise them in a house with a white picket fence. And he said

he realizes now in retrospect how silly that is, but it still sometimes weighs on him that this idea that he's somehow failed or is lesser than because he is not raising his children within that sort of classical model of the nuclear family. We'll be right back. All right, Dave, I think we should talk about maybe some of the policy decisions that surround this. We know it's expensive to have kids, obviously more expensive if you only have one income. What programs and supports are available for parents in Canada?

One of the biggest policy success stories in Canada is the Canada Child Benefit, which came into effect in 2016 and since then has helped lift something like 430,000 children out of poverty. So that is a massive one. Another one that is certainly worth highlighting is the $10 a day childcare program. We're still a long way from getting to $10 a day childcare. We're still a long way from providing spots to every family that needs one, but low cost, high quality childcare is a huge policy for all families in this country raising young children. So we've got the Canada Child Benefit, the CCB that you spoke about, and the $10 a day childcare. So do we know how some of these policies work for single parents versus for nuclear families? When you look at single parents, it's hard to say how those programs work for all single parents. But when we look at how those programs work for people living in low-income situations, which we said earlier, when you look at that 44% statistic, there are a lot of single

parents who do find themselves living in low-income situations. Those policies can be inadequate. I mean, let's say you are working for minimum wage and you have a child in daycare, even if it is $10 a day, that's $200 a month, roughly. Or let's say you have two kids in care, that's $400 a month. And so as many of the experts have pointed out to me, $10 a day childcare might sound great to a lot of people, but for single parents who are in low income situations, it's simply untenable. It's still too much money for them. And then when it comes to the Canada Child Benefit, there have been studies that have said we should alter it. So the UNICEF Canada's recent report recommended implementing a low-income

supplement to the CCB. The Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives has proposed creating a supplement that would add about $8,500 to each year to families with an earned income of less than $19,000. And doing that would cut child poverty in nearly half, which is obviously, it would be a massive accomplishment. But even on a smaller scale, there was one recent study that said adding just $60 more a month in CCB payments to low-income Canadians would reduce food insecurity by about three percentage points, while cutting that likelihood among lone parent families by almost 6%. Just $60 a month, okay.

Just $60 a month, which is a pretty significant result and proof that we could be changing these policies even slightly in ways that would benefit low-income Canadians so much more than we currently do. Yeah, because it sounds like experts are saying, because basically we've got these policies that kind of go across the board if you have kids in Canada, but it sounds like what the experts you talked to were saying is that we need maybe more targeted supports at the lower end of the spectrum there to really help out those families who maybe need it more.

Definitely. There are right now approximately a million children in Canada who live in poverty. And so poverty advocates and family researchers and sociologists would ask, is that acceptable? And what could we do to address that statistic? And obviously, I think more targeted social policy is one of the biggest answers to changing that statistic and helping low-income Canadians. Okay, so we've been talking about policies that are specifically geared towards children. But Dave, I wonder, more broadly speaking, are there other policies in our society that really favor the family structure

of having two parents? Yes, and you see it most prominently when it comes to taxes. If you are married or common law, there are tax advantages that single parents do not get to enjoy. Spousal tax credits or pension income splitting or pooled medical expenses or the ability to transfer tax credits from one spouse to another are all things that single parents, by definition, are excluded from. And things that can really have a huge impact on the household finances of a couple. And I think that would yeah, why haven't we as a society or our politicians, why haven't we prioritized single parents or other family structures when making policy?

I think when we consider policy geared to single parents, there are two considerations at hand. One is a sort of moral consideration, and one is just a straight-up economic consideration. When it comes to the moral consideration, we think of the bias and stigma that has always attached to single parents. And there's some people out there who will say, well, you did this to yourself, right? You're on your own. You made this choice. But we don't say to a drowning person, hey, buddy, you're the one who decided to go swimming for one. Two, I don't think it's true that we can say of most single parents

that they did choose this, right? But again, let's say they all did choose this. I think we have a moral obligation to help people who are struggling, whether it was through their choices or not. Just think in terms of sheer economic pragmatism. to Canada's tax coffers are greater than our initial investment in them, then certainly that provides a strong case for more financially robust family policy to help them. Yeah. I mean, that economic argument makes sense too, right? It makes sense that we want to lift people out of poverty and they end up contributing back to the country, right?

Of course. I mean, look at the $10 a day child care program. That is not motivated to simply be good to parents. A huge part of that motivation is to help women enter the workforce so that they can pay taxes. Let's come back to the $10 a day child care because, as you pointed out, that can still be a lot for someone who is dealing with a smaller amount of income. What could we maybe do better there, according to experts? So several experts have proposed that fees should be on a sliding scale down to zero, depending on a parent's income. Are there any places in the world that do that?

Could we look to anywhere as an example of how this works? Canada is only one of about 10 countries out of 38 wealthy nations examined in a recent UNICEF Canada report where the poverty rate for for single parent households is above 40%. When you look at countries that have child poverty rates of 10% or less, such as Denmark, Finland, Slovenia, what you find is very robust family policies. And that includes very cheap daycare. So for example, in Denmark, 75% at minimum of childcare fees are publicly subsidized. So there are examples of policies that Canada could adopt or that we already have that could be strengthened that would help low income Canadians tremendously. We've obviously been talking about a lot of the difficulties

and the challenges of single parenting, but you touched on the fact that there's a lot of positives as well. So I guess what did people tell you about some of the good things, some of the wonderful things of single parent households? Yes, it is important to point out that it's not all struggle and hardship. It can be hard. It can be frustrating, but it can also be incredibly joyful and incredibly rewarding. with their kids. And some also spoke to me about how much they enjoy being able to make all the decisions for their kids without having to compromise or butt heads with someone else or with another parent. I think we do have an idea of single parents as a constant struggle. And while it is challenging for many single parents, quite often, they will tell you that it is just as joyful and rewarding as any other type of parenthood. Dave, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. Thank you for having me.

That's it for today. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms. Our intern is Manjot Singh. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrienne Chung is our senior producer,

and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.