Incomes From Owner Occupied Housing For Working Age And Retirement Age Canadians 1969 To 2006

Using data from the Survey of Household Spending and from its predecessor, the Survey of Family Expenditures, this paper investigates the relative incomes of retirement-age and working-age Canadians from 1969 to 2006, taking into account both explicit household income and the implicit income generated by owner-occupied housing. Over this 37-year period, the explicit incomes of retirement-age households increased at a more rapid pace than those of working-age households. Implicit income from owner-occupied housing also increased rapidly during this time, matching the rate at which the explicit income of retirement-age households increased. On average, this implicit source of earnings raised the incomes of retirement-age households (aged 70 and over) by 16%. Taking both forms of income into account, the incomes of retirement-age households (aged 70 and over), relative to the incomes of working-age households (aged 40 to 49), increased from 45% in 1969 to 59% in 2006. During this period, Canadians invested in housing assets that provided additional income upon retirement.