Statistics Canada Reports II

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Also why didn't we focus more on trying to increase our birthrate to something at least near replacement?

Better day care programs, free IVF procedures, etc...

How's that working in Japan?

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by giallo

This one is really tough to pull off. It definitely wouldn't hurt to make it easier on potential parents as the financial burden has put off so many couples from starting a family, but I can't point to a country where offering these kinds of benefits has reverse course. I could be wrong though.

Hasn't Japan offered incredible benefits for families with extremely poor results? I have a friend living in Tokyo with two kids (he's Canadian, his wife is Taiwanese), and they get like $5 a day daycare, and all kinds of other great perks - despite not even being Japanese.

It's been noted that Canada's "desired fertility rate" (ie. what the fertility rate would be if every woman in Canada had the exact number of children she wants/wanted), is around 1.9-2.2, or right around the replacement level.

Plus.. we don't actually need a growing population. There's a lot of benefits associated with a slow growing or even slowly shrinking population. With the fourth industrial revolution about to take away a lot of jobs, there's probably value in having a smaller workforce relative to the total population, and letting the population age is a great way to do achieve that.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

It's been noted that Canada's "desired fertility rate" (ie. what the fertility rate would be if every woman in Canada had the exact number of children she wants/wanted), is around 1.9-2.2, or right around the replacement level.

Plus.. we don't actually need a growing population. There's a lot of benefits associated with a slow growing or even slowly shrinking population. With the fourth industrial revolution about to take away a lot of jobs, there's probably value in having a smaller workforce relative to the total population, and letting the population age is a great way to do achieve that.

Australia has a fertility raté of 1.7. Canada's is 1.6.

They are letting in fewer than 100 000 new permanent residents per year

We are letting in almost 5 times as many.

Is their math wrong or is ours?

If their math is wrong are they committing national suicide? Because people tell us that if Canada doesn't keep these high numbers this country is done for.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by Changing City

How's that working in Japan?

Well it really helped us, we got 2 children thanks to it!

My friend and his wife have their first child thanks to it, and plan yo have a second (the still have more eggs frozen).

Another friend and his wife tried it but it didn’t work sadly, but at least it have them the chance.

So in my little anecdotal window it has provided Japan with 3 more children here that otherwise would have been unaffordable.

Daycare here for our two kids (5 and 2) is currently free (except lunch fee, which is 70 bucks a month).

Without these programs I bet Japan’s birthrate would be even lower than it is now.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Australia has a fertility raté of 1.7. Canada's is 1.6.

They are letting in fewer than 100 000 new permanent residents per year

We are letting in almost 5 times as many.

Is their math wrong or is ours?

If their math is wrong are they committing national suicide? Because people tell us that if Canada doesn't keep these high numbers this country is done for.

Australia:
In 2022-23, the number of migrant arrivals increased to 737,000, up from 427,000 the year before. This equates to an annual increase of 73 per cent. In 2020-21, there was an annual decrease of 71 per cent, due to the travel restrictions during the pandemic.

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Well it really helped us, we got 2 children thanks to it!

My friend and his wife have their first child thanks to it, and plan yo have a second (the still have more eggs frozen).

Another friend and his wife tried it but it didn’t work sadly, but at least it have them the chance.

So in my little anecdotal window it has provided Japan with 3 more children here that otherwise would have been unaffordable.

Daycare here for our two kids (5 and 2) is currently free (except lunch fee, which is 70 bucks a month).

Without these programs I bet Japan’s birthrate would be even lower than it is now.

I guess you're right that without those programs, the fertility rate would be even lower. Here, as with most health questions, it's down to provinces whether they support IVF or childcare. Most offer some support, and BC just announced free IVF, starting next year, leaving Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, Nunavut & Yukon with no funding support.

On the childcare side, it's a similar issue of federal support for a service that falls under provincial jurisdiction. 'More than half of all provinces and territories have $10-a-day on average (or less!) regulated child care. All others have reduced parent fees by 50% or more for regulated child care.' There are plenty of complaints about federal spending - both being too much, and not enough, but the number of available places are increasing, and the costs have been falling. Whether that would continue with a government committed to reducing spending remains to be seen.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Australia has a fertility raté of 1.7. Canada's is 1.6.

They are letting in fewer than 100 000 new permanent residents per year

We are letting in almost 5 times as many.

Is their math wrong or is ours?

If their math is wrong are they committing national suicide? Because people tell us that if Canada doesn't keep these high numbers this country is done for.

This is kind of the crux.

A lot of a country’s economy is often just the internal support for other citizens of that economy. A lot of Australia’s wealth is resource wealth that is exported. That export wealth is produced by a relatively small proportion of its citizens. Resource wealth could continue despite declining population.

Managing other aspects - military strength notably - is harder in population decline. Or the large labour requirements of late era healthcare.

Japan’s rural areas are declining faster than its cities. The tough bit becomes how to manage infrastructure decline in those areas. Large Japanese companies - the engine of its economy - still export and repatriate their profits back home. They’re located in Japanese cities.

The hand wringing of requiring 1/2 million permanent residents comes back to the Excel tables of births and deaths. But that’s simplistic. The problem is less births minus deaths, but people leaving the workforce minus those entering the workforce. At this juncture, the large cohort leaving the workforce was born in the peak Baby Boom years. Even then, it’s not as if the Baby Boom was the be-all-and-end-all. They peaked at ~480,000 births/year in 1959, but there was still ~330-380k births per year in Canada in the past few decades.

The economic loss of a 90 year old resident’s death is small. The economic addition of a newborn is small too, at least initially. It is the potential of that newborn hitting their prime working years that pushes countries forward, or losing the experienced old hand to retirement that hurts. We’re hitting the retirement moment.

The proportion of citizens dedicated to value-add is declining in this country. It’s why employment by government has bloomed as compared to the private sector. It will likely grow as the demand for labour intensive government services rises. Is it possible to unwind this and still remain wealthy? Possibly. Will we blunder along and kick the can down the road until we can’t? Probably.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Australia:
In 2022-23, the number of migrant arrivals increased to 737,000, up from 427,000 the year before. This equates to an annual increase of 73 per cent. In 2020-21, there was an annual decrease of 71 per cent, due to the travel restrictions during the pandemic.

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release

That page says that permanent visas represented 80,000 arrivais. The rest were almost all temporary. As I said, the equivalent number for Canada is 400-500,000.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by giallo

What I don't understand is why there wasn't a plan to gradually increase immigration from 2010. We've known for decades that Canada has a super low birthrate, and that the Baby Boomers were going to retire en masse in the 2010s/early 2020s, so why not increase the immigration numbers by 12,000-15,000 people year over year? It's the only way to keep up with extremely important things like, y'know, housing and hospitals.

It feels like the federal government woke up one day, and was like "Oh shit. Right. We need immigrants. Gotta get on that."

Absolutely terrible leadership.

Because our immigration rate was higher than the level needed for boomer replacement in the workplace. The fact that there are specific shortages in specific sectors is not helped by general immigration (or fake foreign students).

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by giallo

This one is really tough to pull off. It definitely wouldn't hurt to make it easier on potential parents as the financial burden has put off so many couples from starting a family, but I can't point to a country where offering these kinds of benefits has reverse course. I could be wrong though.

Hasn't Japan offered incredible benefits for families with extremely poor results? I have a friend living in Tokyo with two kids (he's Canadian, his wife is Taiwanese), and they get like $5 a day daycare, and all kinds of other great perks - despite not even being Japanese.

Japan is kind of it's own thing though, and there are other social & cultural factors unique to it that aren't really at play here.

But even just within Canada, we have the example of Quebec - which has had long had more child-friendly policy and more affordable housing than the rest of the country - and subsequently has at least consistently posted a well-above-average fertility rate. Still not at replacement level of course (and that would probably be impossible to actually achieve through policy), but it's also dropped more slowly than other, less child-friendly provinces like BC & Ontario.

Originally Posted by Acajack

Australia has a fertility raté of 1.7. Canada's is 1.6.

Actually down to 1.33 now - it's dropped pretty sharply in recent years. I wonder why...

[savevp]

I wouldn't be surprised if the rate was closer to 1.0 in Toronto and Vancouver. Forget the costs of home ownership, which is becoming increasingly passé in Canada as in Europe. It's the appalling, stratospheric rise in rent prices that have made it literally impossible for many couples to find a viable family home without leaving these cities.

I know of a handful of young couples in Toronto who simply can't have kids because they can't rent a suitable unit anywhere in the GTA. It's not because they don't want to. Rent rises, more than the cost of buying, are directly related to the unchecked surge in foreign students and TFWs and this is the most nefarious outcome of the late mismanagement on the file.

Rents have soared just about everywhere, particularly where there are postsecondary institutions.

This is what happens when you have imbeciles on the levers.

[Dalreg]

Originally Posted by Acajack

That page says that permanent visas represented 80,000 arrivais. The rest were almost all temporary. As I said, the equivalent number for Canada is 400-500,000.

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release

Closer to 200,000 in Australia when you include Australian citizens and NZ citizens moving to Australia.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by savevp

I wouldn't be surprised if the rate was closer to 1.0 in Toronto and Vancouver. Forget the costs of home ownership, which is becoming increasingly passé in Canada as in Europe. It's the appalling, stratospheric rise in rent prices that have made it literally impossible for many couples to find a viable family home without leaving these cities.

I know of a handful of young couples in Toronto who simply can't have kids because they can't rent a suitable unit anywhere in the GTA. It's not because they don't want to. Rent rises, more than the cost of buying, are directly related to the unchecked surge in foreign students and TFWs and this is the most nefarious outcome of the late mismanagement on the file.

Rents have soared just about everywhere, particularly where there are postsecondary institutions.

This is what happens when you have imbeciles on the levers.

The urban area of Seoul has dropped to 0.38… the lowest in the world. That is a frightening population crash that will put all social systems and institutions in collapse.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by savevp

I wouldn't be surprised if the rate was closer to 1.0 in Toronto and Vancouver. Forget the costs of home ownership, which is becoming increasingly passé in Canada as in Europe. It's the appalling, stratospheric rise in rent prices that have made it literally impossible for many couples to find a viable family home without leaving these cities.

I know of a handful of young couples in Toronto who simply can't have kids because they can't rent a suitable unit anywhere in the GTA. It's not because they don't want to. Rent rises, more than the cost of buying, are directly related to the unchecked surge in foreign students and TFWs and this is the most nefarious outcome of the late mismanagement on the file.

Rents have soared just about everywhere, particularly where there are postsecondary institutions.

This is what happens when you have imbeciles on the levers.

It's not just about housing costs. Victoria in BC had a 2020 total fertility rate of 0.95, below Vancouver's 1.09. It has higher median, and average wages, and lower home prices, and median rents. Nanaimo, with significantly less expensive homes had a 2020 fertility rate of 1.08.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Changing City

It's not just about housing costs. Victoria in BC had a 2020 total fertility rate of 0.95, below Vancouver's 1.09. It has higher median, and average wages, and lower home prices, and median rents. Nanaimo, with significantly less expensive homes had a 2020 fertility rate of 1.08.

Probably because Victoria has different demographics in terms of ethnicity, also a bit more left wing politically. Right wingers tend to be more religious, so they have more children.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Dalreg

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release

Closer to 200,000 in Australia when you include Australian citizens and NZ citizens moving to Australia.

Should they be counted as new blood, though?

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by isaidso

This is a time for calm heads, recognizing that 2022-2025 will very likely be an aberration, but also an acknowledgment of how Canada has benefited from a higher population. Canada is immeasurably better at 41 million than we were at 31 million. I could write 20 pages on the many ways Canada is better but that's beyond the scope of this thread.

.

Who cares about 31 million? Can you write 20 pages about how we're better at 41 than we were at 37?

[Architype]

Originally Posted by jonny24

Who cares about 31 million? Can you write 20 pages about how we're better at 41 than we were at 37?

Bigger is better, but richer and with more productivity is what we actually want; growth is good for a country as sparsely populated as we are. Speaking optimistically, I like to think we are experiencing growing pains, and it will all even out eventually.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Architype

Bigger is better, but richer and with more productivity is what we actually want; growth is good for a country as sparsely populated as we are. Speaking optimistically, I like to think we are experiencing growing pains, and it will all even out eventually.

Increasing population doesn't help the sparse population in a context where the government has no mechanism to compel people to spread out.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Architype

Perhaps, but does that mean all other Anglo places in NA don't have any distinct culture; is NYC the same as Boston, or even Philadelphia, is Maine the same as South Carolina? (When I say Quebec Anglo, it is naturally centered on Montreal of course.) By the same token, you would expect any older Canadian cities of any size to have generated their own cultures. St. John's is not the same as Halifax, largely because they each have a long history; it's the same with Montreal, regardless of Anglos being a minority or not.

Sure, but the level of deviation from the continental standard can vary. A predominantly anglo Montreal would make the people growing up there a lot more similar to other English-speaking North Americans. Not necessarily a bad thing, though they would be more indistinguishable from Ottawans, Torontonians or even Calgarians.

Note that the most fertile era culturally for Anglo-Montreal (the 60s and 70s) coincided with the rise of Québécois nationalism and separatism, and one can assume the resulting anxiety in the anglo community led to a sense of living on the edge that was a net positive for creativity.