Statistics Canada Reports II

[someone123]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Demographics is fairly predictable. Barring a catastrophe, most babies in 2025 will still be around at the turn of the century in most countries. Even if China (or another country) finds some miraculous way to reverse TFR, it will take decades for those changes to work their way into the workforce.

Fertility can change quickly and the self-reinforcing exponential demographics go both ways. A small increase in fertility can result in much smaller declines. Fertility went down by 0.8 during the past decade in China for example. If they reversed that in the next 10 years it would have a big impact on the outcome.

This isn't to say the current projected scenario won't happen. It is hard to predict.

[harls]

So we had the July 1, 2024 CMA estimates released in January of 2025. Is it safe to say they will do another announcement for the July 1, 2025 estimates in Jan of 2026?

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by someone123

Fertility can change quickly and the self-reinforcing exponential demographics go both ways. A small increase in fertility can result in much smaller declines. Fertility went down by 0.8 during the past decade in China for example. If they reversed that in the next 10 years it would have a big impact on the outcome.

This isn't to say the current projected scenario won't happen. It is hard to predict.

That’s like saying I can’t predict my retirement income because I might win a lottery in the next 10 years. Unless I have a plausible reason for thinking I would win the lottery in the next decade there is no reason to expect it to disrupt my calculations. Falling TFR is a global trend, there is no obvious reason to expect it to go way up in the next decade.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by acottawa

That’s like saying I can’t predict my retirement income because I might win a lottery in the next 10 years. Unless I have a plausible reason for thinking I would win the lottery in the next decade there is no reason to expect it to disrupt my calculations. Falling TFR is a global trend, there is no obvious reason to expect it to go way up in the next decade.

I don't think this is a good analogy. Lottery wins are rare but I'm talking about a partial reversal of a reversible trend that's only a decade old happening, say, 10 years from now vs. 70 years from now or not at all. Due to the compounding nature of the demographic changes and the long time horizons we are talking about, small upward changes to fertility could significantly moderate the trends (1.0 vs. drop to 0.6 vs. 1.4 has a large impact on population in 2100).

I think they tend to be somewhat self-correcting and demographers have usually been wrong in the long run as they cannot predict the underlying factors that affect how many children women will have. Back in the 60's, overpopulation was the concern. But if you have too many kids they become expensive and if there are too few people, finding space for more becomes easier. Part of our problem in Canada is high housing costs and those would resolve very quickly if we didn't have immigration.

It's true that predicting China's population is likely easier than Canada in that it's very hard to see how they'd start importing 3-4% of their population annually even if they wanted to. It's closer to being only about births and deaths.

[hipster duck]

^One thing to consider with China is that it has rural peasants that comprise ~25% of the total population. This group doesn't necessarily change the population dynamics of China, but it does change its labour dynamics.

Subsistence farmers don't participate in the modern Chinese economy, so from a labour perspective they might as well not exist. The best analogy I can think of in the US is that Chinese rural peasants are like Central Americans who want to move to the US but haven't made the trek north yet. The difference, of course, is that unlike Nicaraguans or Guatemalans, Chinese peasants are ethnically Chinese, live within the same border, and they speak a regional dialect where learning Mandarin Chinese would be like going from Jamaican Patois -> American English, rather than Latin American Spanish -> English. A rural peasant from Yunnan attempting to move to Shenzhen has less rights and ability to access services than a Michigander moving to Texas, but definitely more than an undocumented migrant from El Salvador. If the Chinese government faced an imminent labour shortage in its middle class coastal cities, it could easily, with the stroke of a pen, grant movement rights to tens of millions of rural peasants to fill jobs, while the US would never be able to do something like this with millions of Central American migrants.

Now the counter argument might be that the rural peasant population skews even older than the Chinese average, but I don't think that would stop the CCP from pilfering whatever young people live amongst the rural peasantry for its long term economic objectives. This is exploitive, and it risks collapsing rural peasant society as the old die away with all the adult children of childbearing age thousands of km away on the coast, but I don't think the CCP cares about that.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

^One thing to consider with China is that it has rural peasants that comprise ~25% of the total population. This group doesn't necessarily change the population dynamics of China, but it does change its labour dynamics.

Subsistence farmers don't participate in the modern Chinese economy, so from a labour perspective they might as well not exist. The best analogy I can think of in the US is that Chinese rural peasants are like Central Americans who want to move to the US but haven't made the trek north yet. The difference, of course, is that unlike Nicaraguans or Guatemalans, Chinese peasants are ethnically Chinese, live within the same border, and they speak a regional dialect where learning Mandarin Chinese would be like going from Jamaican Patois -> American English, rather than Latin American Spanish -> English. A rural peasant from Yunnan attempting to move to Shenzhen has less rights and ability to access services than a Michigander moving to Texas, but definitely more than an undocumented migrant from El Salvador. If the Chinese government faced an imminent labour shortage in its middle class coastal cities, it could easily, with the stroke of a pen, grant movement rights to tens of millions of rural peasants to fill jobs, while the US would never be able to do something like this with millions of Central American migrants.

Now the counter argument might be that the rural peasant population skews even older than the Chinese average, but I don't think that would stop the CCP from pilfering whatever young people live amongst the rural peasantry for its long term economic objectives. This is exploitive, and it risks collapsing rural peasant society as the old die away with all the adult children of childbearing age thousands of km away on the coast, but I don't think the CCP cares about that.

This is a great point that I think a lot of people forget about modern China. It's coastal cities are wealthy and largely fully developed these days, but the country is still full of a lot of rural poverty. For every person in Shenzen earning western incomes and having large disposable incomes, there is another person in rural Hunan which primarily subsides on their own agriculture. Population loss is by nature going to be focused in these largely economically unproductive areas first before moving to the cities. Even as Shenzen loses population, the few youth in rural areas (which historically actually have higher fertility rates) will move to replace them, leaving the rural communities depopulating and mostly populated by seniors.

This is true in Japan as well - the rural areas are bearing the brunt of population decline while the largest cities continue to grow.

[someone123]

I'm not sure exactly what the limitations are under the Hukou system but I wonder if El Salvadorans can access more services for themselves and their families in some US cities. Maybe it'll change in the Trump era.

~25% for subsistence farmers could mean they'll eke out an extra ~5-10% more labour in the formal economy. China is also generally in a position to implement more overbearing policies to try to raise birth rates, though who knows how well that will work.

More reasons why the error bars around predictions of Chinese economic performance and demographics in 2100 should be considered very large.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

^One thing to consider with China is that it has rural peasants that comprise ~25% of the total population. This group doesn't necessarily change the population dynamics of China, but it does change its labour dynamics.

Subsistence farmers don't participate in the modern Chinese economy, so from a labour perspective they might as well not exist. The best analogy I can think of in the US is that Chinese rural peasants are like Central Americans who want to move to the US but haven't made the trek north yet. The difference, of course, is that unlike Nicaraguans or Guatemalans, Chinese peasants are ethnically Chinese, live within the same border, and they speak a regional dialect where learning Mandarin Chinese would be like going from Jamaican Patois -> American English, rather than Latin American Spanish -> English. A rural peasant from Yunnan attempting to move to Shenzhen has less rights and ability to access services than a Michigander moving to Texas, but definitely more than an undocumented migrant from El Salvador. If the Chinese government faced an imminent labour shortage in its middle class coastal cities, it could easily, with the stroke of a pen, grant movement rights to tens of millions of rural peasants to fill jobs, while the US would never be able to do something like this with millions of Central American migrants.

Now the counter argument might be that the rural peasant population skews even older than the Chinese average, but I don't think that would stop the CCP from pilfering whatever young people live amongst the rural peasantry for its long term economic objectives. This is exploitive, and it risks collapsing rural peasant society as the old die away with all the adult children of childbearing age thousands of km away on the coast, but I don't think the CCP cares about that.

The Chinese government would be highly unlikely to do that. Giving residence permission for cities would also entitle those undocumented people already there to all sorts of expensive social services.

But even if they did, the rural exodus has already largely happened. As you note, those still in the countryside are pension age or close to it.

Geographic restrictions have not prevented hundreds of millions of peasants from moving over the last 30 years.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by someone123

I don't think this is a good analogy. Lottery wins are rare but I'm talking about a partial reversal of a reversible trend that's only a decade old happening, say, 10 years from now vs. 70 years from now or not at all. Due to the compounding nature of the demographic changes and the long time horizons we are talking about, small upward changes to fertility could significantly moderate the trends (1.0 vs. drop to 0.6 vs. 1.4 has a large impact on population in 2100).

I think they tend to be somewhat self-correcting and demographers have usually been wrong in the long run as they cannot predict the underlying factors that affect how many children women will have. Back in the 60's, overpopulation was the concern. But if you have too many kids they become expensive and if there are too few people, finding space for more becomes easier. Part of our problem in Canada is high housing costs and those would resolve very quickly if we didn't have immigration.

Declining fertility isn’t some new trend, it has been going on nearly worldwide since the Industrial Revolution. Chinese TFR has been falling steadily since 1968 (even before one child). Even if they the accelerated COVID-era acceleration of the decline is partially reversed, significant population declines are still likely.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Declining fertility isn’t some new trend, it has been going on nearly worldwide since the Industrial Revolution. Chinese TFR has been falling steadily since 1968 (even before one child). Even if they the accelerated COVID-era acceleration of the decline is partially reversed, significant population declines are still likely.

Well, it was steady from around 1992-2017 at ~1.8, then dropped enormously to 1.0 in 2023, according to Google. I'm saying it could as easily go up to 1.4 in 2035, or go down to 0.6, and we don't really know. The quality of the current data is probably poor as well. The demographic consequences of that kind of shift, if it holds to 2100 (which we know almost nothing about), are enormous. Hence the error bars on demographic predictions are very large. So large we don't even know with certainty what the broad qualitative outcome will be.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Declining fertility isn’t some new trend, it has been going on nearly worldwide since the Industrial Revolution. Chinese TFR has been falling steadily since 1968 (even before one child). Even if they the accelerated COVID-era acceleration of the decline is partially reversed, significant population declines are still likely.

Fertility rates dropped rapidly in the 60s with the legalization of contraception and abortion (and women entering the workforce, etc), but have largely held in the 1.5-1.8 range since the 70s. It's really only in the last few years that they've started dropping lower:



It'll remain to be seen whether this is a momentary blip or the start of a longer term trend.

[Innsertnamehere]

yes. pretty much flat from 1980 to 2015 or so.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

The block was demolished in 2010 - it's not quite that recent. The new building is a YMCA. Only about 1/3 of the former block has actually been redeveloped - the remaining 2/3 is still a vacant lot. the City went out with an RFP for it's development a few years ago but I haven't heard anything about it for a while.. This is what the remainder was supposed to be developed with:



To give an idea of the severity of the demolition - this is the same location in 2009 and 2022:

2009:



2022:

Man, that’s gut wrenching!!

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The problem is it won't be a gradual decline, it will be a collapse in most places, with the collapse in working age population coming before the collapse in the total population. China will lose 700 million people this century, for example. That is 10 WW2s.

The problem with a declining population is it creates a deflationary pressure. People defer purchases (because you know it will be cheaper in the future), both the public and private sector have limited incentive to invest (because they know demand will be lower in the future). If nobody is investing and prices are declining it is hard to create jobs. For a while (as we see in Japan and Korea) there will still be inflationary pressure in the dominant cities even if the population is declining, but eventually you run out of urbanization.

Thanks for the reply. I’m not sure I can buy into the collapse scenario, as I think it doesn’t take the human factor into consideration enough. People typically are not that economically disciplined these days (in comparison to, say, the depression years of the 1930s and the war years of the 1940s). IMHO there is much more data and awareness of mortality and life “stages”, and people will buy what they want when they can afford to (or even not, in many cases), regardless of whether it will decrease in value in coming years. Financial institutions would adjust their business model to take this into consideration - banks will always find a way to make money.

Similarly, technology improvements will lead to greater productivity per person, softening the blow of a shrinking workforce. Supply/demand will lower cost of living as well.

Regardless, there will be tough times that should balance out after demographic imbalances balance out through natural attrition. And, the end result should also be easier on the environment (theoretically at least).

So maybe not a gradual easy decline, but perhaps not a collapse either (IMHO).

[MolsonExport]

Calgary is racing to 2 million people. Will next council prepare for it?

One July day in 2006, a few ticks after midnight, Dashiell Waite made his historic entry into the world, weighing in at nine pounds, eight ounces at Rockyview Hospital. While his weight put him in the 96th percentile for boys, that's not the figure that made Dashiell newsworthy. At birth, he was honoured as the one-millionth Calgarian. It was a milestone for a city that had boomed and busted several times, and came 122 years after it was first incorporated as a town.

...
If it keeps growing the way it has, Calgary could welcome its two-millionth resident by the middle of next decade. Before not-so-little-anymore Dashiell reaches his 30th birthday.


...
By Farkas's reckoning, the next council could welcome baby number 2,000,000 before the term ends in 2029. He's even suggested on his website that Calgary will grow to three million in the next decade.

...

[ssiguy]

Calgary has traditionally been a boom/bust city but that has changed greatly over the last decade. The City has greatly diversified it's economy and most of the blood letting of the oil crash took place between 2015 to 2020 yet people continue to flock to her. Today, Calgary is a very different city than it was even a decade ago and this means that Calgary will continue to be Canada's growth leader for decades to come.

Traditionally, Calgary was the city you HAD to move to in order to get a good paying job with a cost of living you could live with. Now, Calgary is the city people WANT to move to offering a quality of live, affordable housing costs, and a cosmopolitan city that offers the urban delights that it never had. Calgary has become a destination city and it's reputation as a great one is now known across the country.

Being an attractive, vibrant, affordable, and high quality of city isn't just good for the current residents but also for business. Calgary's future is no where but up.

[jc_yyc_ca]

Interesting. Calgary's future growth is anyone's guess. I suspect it'll be roughly in the middle of the highest and lowest predictions as its growth is probably slowing like the rest of the country now that immigration is slowing.

My own predication is Calgary will hit 2 Million either 2030 or 2031. If for some reason Foothills MD is added in the next census, it might be 2028.

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Calgary is racing to 2 million people. Will next council prepare for it?

...

[jc_yyc_ca]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Calgary has traditionally been a boom/bust city but that has changed greatly over the last decade. The City has greatly diversified it's economy and most of the blood letting of the oil crash took place between 2015 to 2020 yet people continue to flock to her. Today, Calgary is a very different city than it was even a decade ago and this means that Calgary will continue to be Canada's growth leader for decades to come.

Traditionally, Calgary was the city you HAD to move to in order to get a good paying job with a cost of living you could live with. Now, Calgary is the city people WANT to move to offering a quality of live, affordable housing costs, and a cosmopolitan city that offers the urban delights that it never had. Calgary has become a destination city and it's reputation as a great one is now known across the country.

Being an attractive, vibrant, affordable, and high quality of city isn't just good for the current residents but also for business. Calgary's future is no where but up.

I don't if Calgary will be Canada's growth leader, but it'll be solid growth for a while. It kind of checks a lot of boxes and has some strong points. The big three will still be the growth heavy cities, but Calgary will keep chugging away I think.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Calgary has traditionally been a boom/bust city but that has changed greatly over the last decade. The City has greatly diversified it's economy and most of the blood letting of the oil crash took place between 2015 to 2020 yet people continue to flock to her. Today, Calgary is a very different city than it was even a decade ago and this means that Calgary will continue to be Canada's growth leader for decades to come.

Traditionally, Calgary was the city you HAD to move to in order to get a good paying job with a cost of living you could live with. Now, Calgary is the city people WANT to move to offering a quality of live, affordable housing costs, and a cosmopolitan city that offers the urban delights that it never had. Calgary has become a destination city and it's reputation as a great one is now known across the country.

Being an attractive, vibrant, affordable, and high quality of city isn't just good for the current residents but also for business. Calgary's future is no where but up.

I'm sure Calgary will be fine, but it's economy hasn't diversified as much as what people like to think. Downtown Calgary still has an office vacancy rate of 27%, so clearly the decline of oil has left a large hole in thecity. And now Imperial Oil just announced it is scaling back operations, which will mean more job losses in Calgary.

The oil and gas industry employs over 200 000 people in Calgary. There are still huge amount of people who will potentially out of a job in the next 10 years, as demand for oil will continue to decline.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by logan5

I'm sure Calgary will be fine, but it's economy hasn't diversified as much as what people like to think. Downtown Calgary still has an office vacancy rate of 27%, so clearly the decline of oil has left a large hole in thecity. And now Imperial Oil just announced it is scaling back operations, which will mean more job losses in Calgary.

The oil and gas industry employs over 200 000 people in Calgary. There are still huge amount of people who will potentially out of a job in the next 10 years, as demand for oil will continue to decline.

Oil production and exports have been increasing steadily since COVID. Any employment rebound should be in full effect. The truth is that there is much more automation. The jobs are gone permanently.

Crude Oil Exports 2020-25