Statistics Canada confirmed last week that 351,679 babies were born in 2022 — the lowest number of live births since 345,044 births were recorded in 2005.
The disparity is all the more notable given that Canada had just 32 million people in 2005, as compared to the 40 million it counted by the end of 2022. In 2005, it was already at historic lows for Canada to have a fertility rate of 1.57 births per woman. But given the 2022 figures, that fertility rate has now sunk to 1.33.
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Of Canadians in their 20s, Statistics Canada found that 38 per cent of them “did not believe they could afford to have a child in the next three years” — with about that same number (32 per cent) saying they doubted they’d be able to find “suitable housing” in which to care for a baby.
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A January survey by the Angus Reid Group asked women to list the ideal size of their family against its actual size, and concluded that the average Canadian woman reached the end of their childbearing years with 0.5 fewer children than they would have wanted
“In Canada, unlike many other countries, fertility rates and desires rise with income: richer Canadians have more children,” it read.
I have long speculated that the reason why birthrate goes down in societies with a higher standard of living is because a higher standard of living effectively reduces the “carrying capacity” of the environment for humans. Which is not a bad thing, IMO, it’s just the underlying explanatory reason for why we see this pattern. Access to family planning and such is just part of the mechanism this operates by.
A common pattern in population dynamics is the S-curve, where population initially grows in an exponential-like pattern and then flattens back out again as it approaches the environment’s carrying capacity. I think we’ll see that with the human population too, and we are in the unique position as a species of being able to somewhat control where that carrying capacity will be. In this specific case here, we could boost our capacity for population growth by making housing more affordable.
Unless something happens - like, say, running out of manufactured fertilizers - that reduces the carrying capacity. Then we’ll have a bell curve.
Education … the more educated and informed a population becomes, the fewer children they have. It doesn’t mean that the population is very highly educated overall … even just a small uptick of an education lowers the birthrate. It just means that with a bit of knowledge, experience and education people become less likely to want to have children.
Is it directly the education or is it because more education leads to making more money?
It also means, espically in women, they can work outside the home
Education has not shown to lead to making more money. Incomes have held stagnant.
But the hallmark of an educated society is having time. Education becomes possible when you are not stuck toiling in the fields day in, day out. Which also means you don’t need little hands to help you in the field.
Education is expensive, which makes having children more expensive. A society that “requires” more education would have to reduce its birthrate to afford it, all else being equal.
It’s access to contraception combined with material conditions. It’s much easier for people to make the choice of whether they want to have children these days, and a lot of people are looking around and saying, “nah.”
I agree with you in the general sense. In this case it’s more of speculators exploiting the market and destroying the future for many of the provinces across this country.