Canada's fertility rates

Planning ahead

Today a journalist called to talk about population growth and its many moving parts, so I pulled together the total fertility rates from a couple of Statistics Canada sources for a handy chart. So, here it is.

Some people like to refer to the huge change since 1960, but really the big changes were short-lived. Things started to settle in the 1970s, so that by 1980 the total fertility rate was 1.68 (children per female). Since then it’s fluctuated, getting up to 1.72 in 1991, and down to 1.51 in 2000. In 2019, it fell below 1.5 for the first time, down to 1.41 in 2020.

In a recent Statistics Canada survey, people aged 25-34 reported they wanted to have (on average) 1.51 kids. Younger people (15-24) reported 1.35. (find that here: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2023006-eng.htm )

My take: I’m not convinced any of this represents a problem that needs fixing. I think women having control over their fertility is a good thing. I am not in the business of convincing women to have more children for reasons that aren’t in their own best interest. Should policy makers think hard about this when planning for the future? Certainly. But that’s just something to plan for, it doesn’t have to be framed as a problem.