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

New data reveals more Canadians are living with parents into their 30s and 40s, underscoring growing affordability challenges. Abigail Bimman explains.

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, analyst for the Centre for Housing and Income Statistics, at Statistics Canada.

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.

University of British Columbia professor and founder of Generation Squeeze Paul Kershaw offered a blunt assessment of the Millennial and Gen Z path.

“They’re having to go to post-secondary more, they pay more for the privilege, to then land jobs that actually pay less than Baby Boomers earned after adjusting for inflation, to then face way higher housing prices. And as home ownership is increasingly out of reach for so many, the consolation prize is lousy – it’s rising rents,” he told CTV News from Vancouver.

Kershaw is calling for a renewed and improved national housing strategy and more action at all levels of government.

“We need that intergenerational love at the family table in our homes to take root at the cabinet table in our provincial and federal governments, so that we have our finance minister, our housing minister, premiers and our prime ministers really actively right now, cultivating a conversation about how a younger demographic is protecting the wealth and financial security of those who’ve come before.”

Eric Rodrigue isn’t living with his parents, but the millennial feels the affordability crunch as he tries to buy a home. He is currently renting a place for himself and his two children, after a separation in 2020 caused him to sell his first home.

“It’s been kind of difficult to envision getting back in the market with the price of homes these days and with the interest rates being this high,” the iron worker told CTV News after he wrapped up work at an Ottawa job site.

“There used to be a time and an age in this country where working hard and making a good wage would get you ahead and would get you a house, and you’d be able to go on all these trips on the weekends with the kids. But now it just seems that we’re working harder than ever, and we’re just basically keeping our head above water and not saving too much for the future.”

‘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.

Finance professor Andrey Pavlov calls the findings “infuriating.”

“How have we managed to screw things up so badly that despite all the correct ingredients in Canada, we have managed to make housing less achievable for younger people,” he told CTV News.

Simon Fraser University Beedie School of Business professor Andrey Pavlov defines some of those ingredients as improved technologies, including building materials, as well as ample land and resources in Canada. He blames government policy for putting housing out of reach.

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

Since 2021, “the affordability picture has worsened,” said TD Economist Rishi Sondhi.

“The conclusions from the affordability perspective from the paper have probably only been magnified,” he told CTV News.

Although most recently, his housing forecast for TD sharply lowered the 2026 forecast for both home sales and prices. Sondhi notes the flip side of lower prices is improved affordability.

“Eventually, the affordability story has to sort of turn from something that’s, you know, a consistent drag, to something that’s more of a modest support… And that’s one of the reasons that we’re forecasting a better year for housing markets, particularly in B.C. and Ontario in 2027,” he told CTV News.

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