Canada’s New Normal: Rising Precarity in 2025
After writing a column about retirement and ageing for more than a decade, one truth stands out to me more vividly each year: everything changes faster than we expect. When I began Retirement Matters, I had just stepped away from teaching journalism after 25 years. It was 2013, and the world felt steadier. Canadian politics, economic forecasts, and global relations all seemed more predictable. Who could have imagined that, only a decade later, Canada would be fighting for its economic life, or that the president of the United States would casually suggest that we become a vassal state?
Demographics and Generational Shifts Shaping Precarity
The demographic landscape has shifted too. Out of a population of 41.6 million, baby boomers—those born from 1946 to 1965—now number roughly nine million. We boomers lived through an extraordinary stretch of history: the rebellious sixties, second-wave feminism, humans landing on the moon, and astonishing advances in medicine, science and technology. We enjoyed more than 80 years without a large-scale world war and, broadly speaking, a flourishing economy. Many of us paid modest tuition, received government-sponsored student loans, and stepped into careers almost the minute we graduated.
It was the best of times. And our children, facing pressures we never imagined, often remind us of how easy we supposedly had it. Housing affordability, wages, climate uncertainty, and global instability weigh heavily on them in a way foreign to our own coming-of-age years.
What the Abacus Precarity Index Reveals About Canadians’ Anxiety
This sense of strain is not anecdotal. In a recent post by pollster David Coletto, Canada’s New Normal is Precarity and Leaders Need to Offer Anchors in People’s Lives, he argues that precarity has become the defining mindset of our era. When he built the Abacus Precarity Index, he expected that levels of anxiety would rise and fall with the economic tides. Instead, he found something far more troubling: precarity levels remain chronically elevated.
Coletto describes five groups that make up today’s emotional economy. A small segment of Canadians exists with low perceived precarity—they trust their ability to navigate turbulence. A somewhat larger group experiences mild precarity; they see the pressures around them but still feel capable of adapting. Then comes the middle, the true heart of the issue: 36 percent of Canadians who feel regular anxiety about the future, even if they have not entered crisis themselves. After them are the high-precarity group (31 percent) and, finally, the extreme group at 12 percent.
That last group is the one that keeps Coletto up at night. They fear that disruptions—economic, environmental, political—could upend their lives entirely. These risks are not abstract to them. They feel imminent.
Add those groups together and nearly half the country is living in high or extreme precarity as we close out the year. This isn’t a statistical blip; it is, as Coletto writes, “a redefinition of the national emotional baseline.”
Younger Canadians report the highest vulnerability. Women feel more strain than men. Lower-income households remain at the sharpest edge of stress. Yet even households earning more than $100,000 a year are reporting elevated anxiety. Precarity, in other words, is becoming democratic—nearly everyone is touched by it.
I feel it myself. I see it in our daily expenditures, in the conversations my friends and neighbours are having, and in the hesitation many of us feel about moving forward with plans made earlier in 2025 or before.
Coletto points out that our politics is no longer simply polarized; it is stratified along emotional and economic fault lines. If you want to understand how heavy the year has felt for many Canadians, look at the emotional data:
- Two-thirds say they are worn down by the effort required to keep up with the cost of living.
- More than half say they are nearing a financial tipping point; one in ten say they have already crossed it.
- Nearly half feel they are ending the year barely hanging on.
“These are not small numbers,” Coletto writes. “They define the emotional landscape of 2025.”
Practical Anchors for Older Adults and Retirees in Uncertain Times
Precarity may be widespread, but its emotional consequences are not inevitable. There are meaningful steps—grounded, realistic actions—that older adults and retirees can take to feel more secure and more at ease.
1. Build and maintain strong social connections.
This is the most reliable buffer against stress, loneliness, and fear. Schedule regular contact with a small circle of supportive friends. Join a walking group, a book club, or a community class. Even weekly rituals—coffee with a neighbour, a recurring family dinner—can create a stabilizing sense of continuity.
2. Review your financial picture with clarity, not fear.
Many retirees avoid revisiting their budgets because they worry the news will be bad. In truth, clarity almost always reduces anxiety. A yearly check-in with a financial advisor, or even a well-structured household budget review, can help you understand what is stable, what needs adjusting, and where small changes could create breathing room.
3. Make a “precarity plan.”
This is not a doomsday exercise; it is a confidence-building one. Identify what you would do in the event of a financial or health shock. Outline steps, resources, and supports. Knowing you have a plan reduces the emotional charge around uncertainty.
4. Stay useful and engaged.
Purpose—through volunteering, part-time work, caregiving, or creative projects—strengthens resilience. Engagement connects us to our communities and shifts our mental focus from fear to contribution.
5. Prioritize health routines that regulate the nervous system.
Gentle exercise, time outdoors, predictable sleep, meditation, or simply reducing media intake can dramatically lower perceived precarity. When the body feels safer, the mind follows.
6. Ask for help earlier than you think you need it.
Whether it’s family, neighbours, community groups, or health professionals, support is most effective when mobilized early. Reaching out is not a sign of weakness but a strategy for long-term independence.
Conclusion: Holding On to What Matters Most
Despite our anxious national moment, the core ingredients of personal wellbeing haven’t changed. Good friends. Close family ties. Staying busy with the people and activities we treasure. These remain powerful antidotes to the emotional weight of precarity.
We cannot control global economics or political rhetoric, but we can strengthen the anchor points in our own lives. And in doing so, we create not just stability for ourselves, but a calmer, more connected community for everyone around us.
