Quebec had been marked since the 1960s by an upward trend in the separation of parents. New data suggests that not only has the trend plateaued, but it may even be reversing.
This is revealed in a recent publication by the Ministère de la Famille du Québec. Among parents who had their first child between 1990 and 2009, 21% were separated five years after birth. This separation rate fell to 13% among parents who had a first child in the 2010s.
“Since the beginning of the 21ste century, however, the trend seems to be stabilizing or even slowing down”, note the authors of the bulletin What a family ?.
However, these findings must be qualified, as they come from 2017 data. The effect of the pandemic was therefore not taken into account. They are however very interesting and will be significant if they are confirmed, believes Marie-Christine Saint-Jacques, full professor at the University of Montreal and director of the research partnership Parental separation, family recomposition.
This idea of stabilization, I had always understood it as a hypothesis. Here, I find it interesting to see it demonstrated. We thought for a long time that we were going to reach a ceiling. It seems to be the case and the next few years will tell us.
Marie-Christine Saint-Jacques, Director of Parental Separation, Family Recomposition
These figures actually show that the rate of parents separating three or five years after a first child was similar in the 2010s to that of the 1980s.
The Ministry of the Family notes “that it is too early to speak of a reversal of the trend”. The Ministry recalls that the pandemic was not taken into account. However, it has induced episodes of acute stress, overload in the parents or marital and family conflicts.
Conversely, studies “have reported that a significant portion of parents reported an increase in quality time spent with family” during the pandemic, notes a spokesperson for the Ministry, Esther Chouinard.
“Other analyzes will therefore have to be carried out over the next few years in order to highlight the possible repercussions of the health crisis on the dynamics of parental separations,” she writes.
Common-law parents separate more
It remains that the parental separation has of course exploded during the XXe century in Quebec. Among Generation Y – born between 1976 and 1988 – 21% of parents separated before their child’s fifth birthday. This rate was 2% among the generation of parents born between 1937 and 1945.
The bulletin What a family ? further notes that common-law parents separate more than those who are married. Among married parents born between 1966 and 1988, 27% were separated on the 15the birthday of their first child, compared to 58% for those in common-law unions.
Another observation: the more educated parents from generations X and Y separate less than the others, a correlation that was reversed in the older generations, where the less educated separated less.