Gary Balcom knew when he got divorced eight years ago that he didn't want his three children to grow up without a dad, like he did.
So Mr. Balcom, like an increasing number of men, fought for custody of his children and now shares his Camrose, Alta., home with his 13-year-old son. He shares custody of his two younger daughters with his ex-wife.
According to 2005 census data released today, the number of single fathers like Mr. Balcom has doubled since 1980 in Canada, with nearly a quarter of a million men raising families on their own. The numbers also show that for the first time, the number of Canadian families headed by single mothers has surpassed one million.
While income for single-mother households rose by 26 per cent to $36,765 between 1980 and 2005, income for single-father households actually decreased slightly by four per cent, to a median income of $51,974.
Mr. Balcom, an auto body technician, pegs his annual income somewhere around $30,000 but says that if he were a mechanic, he would make four times as much. He tried his hand at re-training to become a paramedic but didn't have the money to complete the course and was told he couldn't get funding without selling his car or his home first. A stint in Alberta's oil fields ended after he tired of weeks away from his family, so he returned to his auto body shop.
“There's two things that I know I'm good at, and that's my job and being a dad,” Mr. Balcom said.
Now Mr. Balcom works close to home, in between shuttling his son to school and doctor's appointments.
“I live within my means,” he said of his tight budget in an area where home prices have doubled since the mid-1990s.
“Nothing is brand new. The newest thing I bought was bicycles for the kids last year.”
In some ways, Mr. Balcom, 41, is up against a perfect storm of economics. While the cost of living in Canada has risen, the average pay for men across the country has decreased over the past 25 years. In 1980, just before Mr. Balcom joined the workforce, his peers were on average earning $43,767 in 2005 wages.
By 2005, that number fell to $37,680.
A recent Statistics Canada study attributed the rise in income for single-mother households to a demographic shift in single moms since 1980 as educated and older women make up a greater proportion of single parents.
While the number of families with two working parents has climbed - putting two-parent families at the top rung of the income ladder - the number of children living in poverty remains mostly unchanged. According to census data, in 1980, 18.7 per cent of school-aged children lived in low-income families. By 2005, that number fell slightly to 17 per cent.
Ann Decter is the national co-ordinator for Campaign 2000, an anti-poverty organization. She's also the director of the Family Service Association of Toronto.
She said a higher rate of separated families and a lack of a poverty strategy in many provinces has left single parents in the lurch.
“We're really seeing that parents are stuck,” Ms. Decter said.
She said neither wages for low-income workers nor social assistance have kept up with inflation, driving down income for Canada's poorest.
“We're not seeing any big improvement over a period when it was good economic times,” she said.
“This is really quite frightening.”
