Marriages and Divorces by Conjugal Status

Question

A student has found the number of married people by opposite sex and same sex from the 2011 and 2006 Census and is wondering if the number is available annually and at the provincial level. She is also wondering if data on divorce of opposite sex and same sex is available.

It appears that Justice Canada took over Vital Statistics from StatsCan and at that point, all that lovely marriage and divorce data disappeared

Answer

Thank you for your question on the number of married people by opposite sex and same sex.

These numbers are not available annually. The census, every five years, is providing numbers on these topics, and the 2016 Census data on opposite-same sex married people will be disseminated on August 2nd, 2017. 

The census does provide some breakdowns at the provincial-territorial level as well as for census metropolitan areas, such as in this table produced with 2011 Census data: http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/tbt-tt/Rp-eng.cfm?TABID=2&LANG=E&A=R&APATH=3&DETAIL=0&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=0&GC=01&GL=-1&GID=1098904&GK=1&GRP=1&O=D&PID=102574&PRID=0&PTYPE=101955&S=0&SHOWALL=0&SUB=0&Temporal=2011&THEME=89&VID=0&VNAMEE=&VNAMEF=&D1=0&D2=0&D3=0&D4=0&D5=0&D6=0 

No data is available from Statistics Canada on divorces as this program was terminated back in 2008.

For the Vital Statistics question, I can confirm this with subject matter but from what I gather, it appears that Statistics Canada underwent a strategic review in 2008. As such, Statistics Canada made the decision to discontinue the collection and dissemination of national marriage and divorce data. 

The Department of Justice Canada is responsible for collecting the divorce data through the Central Registry of Divorce Proceedings and, as such, has the divorce data (www.justice.gc.ca). Data on marriages are still being collected by the provincial and territorial vital statistics registrars.

Divorce in Canada

Question

I've been asked for the most recent divorce rate statistics in Canada. Specifically, what the student needs is

"the number of divorces where a custody order was granted out of total cases involving custody orders, and determining if there are any upward trends in recent years."Divorce statistics seem to stop in 2005. According to the IMDB, the Vital Statistics - Divorce Database is still active, yet the latest data release was Nov 2008. The status of the publication Divorces in Canada (Catalogue no.: 84F0213XWE) is listed as "ongoing/available", yet it too has not been updated since Nov 2008. (How can a publication be listed as an annual and yet not publish for more than two years?) Is there someplace else I should be looking, or is 2005 data the best I can do?

Answer

You are right in indicating that the latest marriage and divorce data available are for 2005 and the publication and Cansim tables will be ready shortly. Afterwards, because of budget contraints, Health Statistics Division will stop producing this publication.

That being said, Health Statistics Division is now working on a project for a client on divorce data for the years 2006 to 2008. There will be a brief announcement in the Daily announcing the availability of these data, likely in April. In the mean time, we will pursue with the Division the possibility of having these tables available to the DLI. We will keep you posted.

For marriage data, you will probably have to go the Provincial Vital Statistics Offices. In doing so, keep in mind that all provinces don't report the same way. For example, for same sex marriage, some provinces will report Spouse 1 and Spouse 2 and will not report sex. It is impossible at this point to get uniform reporting.