Family Structure, 1996 - Lone-parent Families

Lone parents are not a new phenomenon in Canada, however an increase of 33% has been observed between 1986 and 1996. Today there are approximately 1 138 000 lone-parent families, and families headed by women continue to outnumber those headed by men by four to one, or 83% of all lone-parent families. Lone parent families make up 22% o all families with children.