The new rules: housing shortage as an explanation for family and household change across large metro areas in Canada, 1981–2021

We examine whether housing shortages can usefully explain household and family change. We contextualize our investigation within the cultural history of emerging normative rules guiding both household formation and municipal regulatory practices within North America across the early Twentieth Century. We argue that encoding the new rules into bylaws has contributed to housing shortages since the late Twentieth Century. The uptake of new rules as cultural norms links housing shortages to household change. As a guideline, the new rules promote households broadly similar to Ermisch and Overton’s (1984) concept of minimal household units. To measure the relationship between housing shortage and household change, we gather data on rents and minimal household unit status across nine major metropolitan areas within Canada. We are able to establish a long timeline for rents from 1921–2021, but available census data limit our investigation into household change to the period from 1981–2021. Conceptualizing household change as being driven by a variety of factors we establish a robust relationship whereby lower rents sort more young adults (age 20–44) into minimal household units over this time period. The rising multiculturalism of Canada’s big cities complicates our interpretation of cultural rules, but the effects of housing shortages on assortment into minimal household units offers a robust explanation for recent historical change in families and households.