Statistics Canada Reports II

[Innsertnamehere]

Lots of inventory is coming online at a time when the city is likely losing population.. it's leading to freefalling rents and sale prices which is making it very challenging to make buildings pencil.

Plus construction costs have just skyrocketed in Toronto over the last 10 years.

[Surrealplaces]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Lots of inventory is coming online at a time when the city is likely losing population.. it's leading to freefalling rents and sale prices which is making it very challenging to make buildings pencil.

Plus construction costs have just skyrocketed in Toronto over the last 10 years.

Same for Vancouver. Not quite as pronounced as Toronto, but it has slowed down there too, after a long run of raging housing starts.

The numbers that intrigue me are the Montreal and Ottawa numbers. They've been slow for a couple of years now, but have still had good population growth.

[svlt]

Originally Posted by Nite

Canada and Japan have the same birth rate; in about 10 years we will need 300,000 immigrants just to keep the population from falling.

We're in a course correction now and it's politically popular but there is no way Canada can sustain itself as a country with the immigration numbers now. This is a grinding halt and they will need to inevitably restart the engines.

[jc_yyc_ca]

I don't know what the solution is for getting the birthrate back up. I've know people who've said they would like to have more children, but it's too expensive, and too much work with both parents working. There's no easy fix.

[Bishop2047]

Originally Posted by jc_yyc_ca

I don't know what the solution is for getting the birthrate back up. I've know people who've said they would like to have more children, but it's too expensive, and too much work with both parents working. There's no easy fix.

It is tough. Hungary and South Korea have offered financial compensation and tax incentives, but jury is still out on the effectiveness of these measures.

I am in my early thirties and have multiple children. I was blessed to initially get into a trade and then do further education. This allowed me and my wife to have kids young (by todays standard), and she was able to be the stay-at-home mom that she always wanted to be, without major financial hardship. Degrees look nice on my wall, but the trade paid most of the bills.

Now, I am not sure that this would have been possible if we did not start our family in SK and move to NB. Both places had affordable housing, and this is a major barrier to many young families. I also would like to see us get as far away from the "you can always have kids later" narrative. It just becomes more difficult, costly, and complicated to have children later in life, and we need to support/promote young families.

[MolsonExport]

it would take a sea change in our culture to get the birthrate back up.

For starters, people would have to focus much less on acquiring material wealth. Raising children has also become an "arms race", in terms of spending on extra curriculars, etc., to give your kids the resources they often need to compete with others. We would have to shift spending from the older generations to the younger generations (sadly, the amount we spend, per child, is proportionately much lower nowadays than when boomers were children, so the costs are borne by parents). Men will have to step up, greatly, so that it isn't always the female partner that has to give up/postpone their career. The list goes on...

[hipster duck]

I'm not really qualified to talk about the psychology behind it, but I've observed that people who have 2 or more kids are usually friends with other people who have kids. And it's not as if they became friends when they already had children; it's more like people in their close friend network from their teens and twenties decided to have kids and the others jumped on the bandwagon.

My wife and I are like this. My wife's friend group from high school, who she's still very close with, consists of 5 women. The first one had two kids relatively early, in her late twenties. Then the floodgates opened, and then two more had kids, then we had two kids, and there was one holdout who I never thought would ever have children, since she and her partner lived artist lives in a one bedroom and were a bit more financially precarious than the rest of us. But, sure enough, she ended up having a child in her late thirties and they still make it work in their 1BR.

I'd say I even experienced this as a man. I have two separate friend groups of men that I made at different times in my life, where each member is a friend with somebody else in the group. In the first group, everyone is a father except one person, and in the other, nobody is a father except me and another person. Not gonna lie, belonging to the "father" friend group may have influenced my decision to want to have children somewhat, as I was one of the last of that group to have kids.

I don't know what governments can do except to make having children not only easy through financial supports, but to also zone and legislate an environment that attracts families that may want to have many children. Make restaurants friendly to large families (tables that accommodate more than 4, doors that can fit a stroller, etc.), make hotels kid friendly (rooms that can accommodate more than 4). Some of those can be legislated at the local level, and others you have to wait for the market to intervene, but anything helps.

There's a town in Japan that did this with a TFR of 2.8 and where almost half of all households have at least 3 children. This is a huge outlier in a country famously known for its low birthrate.

We may end up being a society where there are "breeding islands" like this - communities that are very kid friendly that attract people that want to have many children and prop up the birthrate for the whole country. Whatever works.

[Innsertnamehere]

Canada is too focused on shifting housing production to 1-bed apartments to improve it's TFR.

A big reason the US continues to enjoy higher fertility rates than the rest of the world, IMO, is that it continues to affordably deliver large housing units which give people the space, plus it's continued higher rates of religion which better build communities where children are frequently seen in individuals lives.

As others have said, culturally it needs to shift too. But as it stands right now many Young Canadians are squeezing into the city in little apartments with nobody in their social network having kids and no space to raise them. No wonder they aren't choosing to have kids - nobody around them has them, they can't afford the space to raise them, and there is little in the way of infrastructure to support raising them.

A big part is social media's impact on life expectations as well, I think. This is a wider overarching issue where people's "minimum expectation" of life has inflated massively over the last 20 years to the point where people think they can't afford kids unless they are clearing 200k a year in household income. It's just not true.

Honestly more than anything it needs to be a cultural shift. Kids need to become "cool", because right now I feel a lot of millennials and Gen Zs are still basing their lives off of the "Friends" and "Sex in the City" model where you don't have kids until you are 35, if at all.

[Nouvellecosse]

It will be hard to transition to a lower population globally but the planet does not need over 8 billion people given the quantity of resources each person needs to consume to feel they have a good standard of living. The global population literally doubled in just the last 50 years and had only reached 2 billion by 1927. Meanwhile, for much of human history it was estimated to be well under a billion. A dropping population is perfectly fine and we need to focus on handling the decline and better distributing population to places where there are more resources through migration. A dropping global population is a challenge, but not a problem.

The frustrating part in terms of Canada is that while it's true that the government hasn't handled immigration well over the last decade or so and that has created problems, so many people just call for immigration to be stopped rather than for the necessary infrastructure and housing to be created. Yes the rates shouldn't exceed a level we can sustain, but clearly we can sustain more than none given that we've been welcoming immigrants for most of the country's history. And of course people also forget that any type of population growth including through reproduction requires additional housing and infrastructure, etc.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

It will be hard to transition to a lower population globally but the planet does not need over 8 billion people given the quantity of resources each person needs to consume to feel they have a good standard of living. The global population literally doubled in just the last 50 years and had only reached 2 billion by 1927. Meanwhile, for much of human history it was estimated to be well under a billion. A dropping population is perfectly fine and we need to focus on handling the decline and better distributing population to places where there are more resources through migration. A dropping global population is a challenge, but not a problem.

The frustrating part in terms of Canada is that while it's true that the government hasn't handled immigration well over the last decade or so and that has created problems. But so many people just call for immigration to be stopped rather than for the necessary infrastructure and housing to be created. Yes the rates shouldn't exceed a level we can sustain, but clearly we can sustain more than none given that we've been welcoming immigrants for most of the country's history. And of course people also forget that any type of population growth including through reproduction requires additional housing and infrastructure, etc.

Demographics and the Economy will force Canada's hand to increase immigration going foward, just as it's forcing Japan and Italy (both places known for their anti-immigration) to increase immigration now.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Honestly more than anything it needs to be a cultural shift. Kids need to become "cool", because right now I feel a lot of millennials and Gen Zs are still basing their lives off of the "Friends" and "Sex in the City" model where you don't have kids until you are 35, if at all.

I agree with hipster duck's point about the importance of peer groups in influencing behaviour, but I am skeptical that "cultural influence" explains much on its own. How do you know these cultures aren't a response to the hand the generation was dealt? The cost of living and raising children is objectively higher for young people today than it was 10, 30, or 50 years ago, and I would argue the fabric of society is weaker in a few different ways. For younger people, it's a less stable environment with fewer supports and social gathering places on average. In my experience they want careers, homes, cars, and often kids, but affording all of that is difficult. These are things that were easier to come by in 1980. The Starbucks, iPhone, and avocado toast type arguments muddy the waters. People are not spending the thousands per month they'd need for 2005 style housing on those things.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Nite

Demographics and the Economy will force Canada's hand to increase immigration going foward, just as it's forcing Japan and Italy (both places known for their anti-immigration) to increase immigration now.

Oh I hadn't heard about Japan loosening their immigration policies. Last i heard was that they were doubling down and just letting the place dwindle. But it's great if they made some changes assuming their plan is well thought out and implemented.

[ssiguy]

The cost of living certainly has a lot to do with our fertility rate. It's no coincidence that BC has the nation's lowest birthrate. It is, however, much more than just cost of living but also our falling standard of living. Decades ago a person could get a unionized factory job and enjoy a middle-class income but now to make the equivalent amount, they have to have at LEAST a 4 year degree or years of technical college training.

When young people invest that much time, effort, and money into their education they don't want to just turn around and have some kids if for no other reason than they are saddled with huge student debt. This means they are naturally going to be having kids {assuming they even want any} into their early 30s and by that time 2 would be the very most they will have.

I was born into a classic upper middle class family in the 60s and was the youngest of 4 kids. Now I am nearly 61 and of the 4 of us there is only one child. He is now 31, isn't dating and said that at this point he probably won't have any kids and if so it would be just 1.He has no cousins and no siblings but he said a lot of his friends are in similar situations.............not having kids has become normalized. Conversely, women who stay at home to raise their children face a negative stereotype that they are not independent to the point of being viewed as a traditional subservient women who's goal in life is to be barefoot and pregnant.

There will always be slight fluctuations in fertility rates but overall they are going no where but down and as S.Korea, Japan, and several European countries have found out, no amount of tax cuts or rebates is going to change that.

[isaidso]

Higher US TFR is due to the dearth of sexual education in public school, religiosity, poor access to birth control, and their aggressive anti-abortion lobby.

[Wigs]

For those with knowledge of Calgary, American forumer/moderator (soon to be dual citizen) James Bond 007 made a thread about his Calgary impressions in the city discussions sub. If you feel like adding any input.

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=262708

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Wigs

For those with knowledge of Calgary, American forumer/moderator (soon to be dual citizen) James Bond 007 made a thread about his Calgary impressions in the city discussions sub. If you feel like adding any input.

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=262708

Dual citizen? I thought he was just on vacation.

[jc_yyc_ca]

Originally Posted by Wigs

For those with knowledge of Calgary, American forumer/moderator (soon to be dual citizen) James Bond 007 made a thread about his Calgary impressions in the city discussions sub. If you feel like adding any input.

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=262708

Always interested to see American's impressions when visiting Calgary/Canada.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Nite

Demographics and the Economy will force Canada's hand to increase immigration going foward, just as it's forcing Japan and Italy (both places known for their anti-immigration) to increase immigration now.

The population crash is nearly global (except sun-Saharan Africa). I don’t expect there will be immigrants available in a decade or two).

[jc_yyc_ca]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The population crash is nearly global (except sun-Saharan Africa). I don’t expect there will be immigrants available in a decade or two).

Exactly. Most countries around the world other than parts of Africa are either below replacement rate, or nearing it. Even India a country that had huge birth rates not long ago is heading in that direction. This is something the globe will need to sort out.
Is it possible for the world to survive without a constant population growth? On the surface it seems like it should be something mankind should be able to adjust to.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Dual citizen? I thought he was just on vacation.

His Dad was born in Canada. Mister Bond decided to take advantage of that in these Trumpian MAGAfascist times
https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?p=10471588#post10471588

It sounds like he's been exploring the country while going through the process of citizenship and now in process of obtaining a Canadian passport. First Winnipeg, now Calgary, and then in winter he said he wants to head to Montreal and Mont Tremblant.