Canada Projected to Have More Seniors Than Children This Year for the First Time: Chief Actuary

Senior citizens make their way down a street in Peterborough, Ont., May 7, 2012. The Canadian Press/Frank Gunn

Canada’s chief actuary is projecting the country will have more seniors than children this year—the first time in history the nation has reached that population age ratio.

In 2023, Canada is projected to have 7,471,000 children, defined as individuals 0 through 17 years old, and around 7,663,000 seniors, or individuals aged 65 years and older, according to Chief Actuary Assia Billig. Children were projected to account for 19.2 percent of the population and seniors 19.7 percent.

Billig wrote the projections in her “Actuarial Report On The Old Age Security Program“ published in 2020, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.

New population estimates released by Statistics Canada (StatCan) on Jan. 11 show that seniors accounted for 18.8 percent of Canada’s population as of July 2022, while children aged 0 to 14 years old accounted for 15.6 percent.

The total numbers from each age group equalled around 7.3 million seniors and 6 million children under 15 years old. StatCan did not provide population estimates for children aged 0 to 17 years old in the report.

Although seniors accounted for just 18.8 percent of Canada’s population as of last July, StatCan is projecting individuals aged 65 and over will make up 25 percent of the population by 2068.

The agency also predicts that the percentage of Canadians aged 85 and older will grow by three times in about 40 years.

“While less evident in some projection scenarios that favour higher immigration, lower life expectancy and (above all) higher fertility, the aging of the population very much remains a reality, and thus seems to be unavoidable over the next 50 years,” StatCan wrote in its 2022 report “Population Projections for Canada, Provinces and Territories, 2021 to 2068.”

Aging Population

The agency also said last April that the number of seniors in Canada is growing six times faster than the number of children.

“From 2016 to 2021, the number of persons aged 65 and older rose 18.3% to 7.0 million. This is the second largest increase in 75 years,” StatCan wrote in a report on April 27, 2022.

The agency also said that a record retirement wave is looming for Canada as a large portion of the nation’s working-age population—individuals aged 15 through 64 years old—is over 55 years old.

“The working-age population ... has reached a turning point. Never before has the number of people nearing retirement been so high,” the report said, adding that 21.8 percent of the age group was between 55 and 64 years old.

“This is an all-time high in the history of Canadian censuses and one of the factors behind the labour shortages facing some industries across the country. The aging of many baby boom cohorts—the youngest of whom are between 56 and 64 years today—is accelerating population aging in general.”