Reversing Canada’s Declining Birth Rate: Analyst Weighs In

A six-week-old baby girl drinks from a nursing bottle in North Vancouver, in a file photo. The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward

While cost-of-living issues and U.S. trade tensions have dominated discussions during the federal election campaign, a long-simmering issue is drawing concern among some experts who say the potential consequences warrant greater federal attention: Canada’s declining fertility rate and its long-term implications for population growth.

Canada’s birth rate has for decades been below the level needed to replace the population, with an even steeper decline in recent years, according to a recent report published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute titled “Baby Steps: How to reverse Canada’s falling fertility rates.”

While declining fertility is a global trend seen in other developed countries like the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, Canada now lags behind many of its peers in fertility.

“We don’t have a population of young people being raised up, which was one of the expectations behind our social welfare system—that we will always have young people coming into the workforce to pay the bills for all the older people receiving benefits,” Ross McKitrick, an economics professor at the University of Guelph and author of the report, told The Epoch Times in an interview.

Meanwhile, surveys suggest a growing gap between the number of children Canadian women want and the number they have, with studies indicating that half of them were falling short of their fertility goals in 2022. The economic and cultural factors behind the disparity were the focus of McKitrick’s analysis.

“There seem to be obstacles in the way of people achieving a very important life goal, namely, having a family and having children,” he said.

McKitrick says most of the academic literature on the subject of fertility in recent decades has focused on how to reduce fertility in poor countries, not on how to increase it in wealthy ones.

“There has been a great deal of effort directed at preventing unwanted pregnancies,” he wrote in the report. “But there has been very little attention paid to preventing the other unwanted outcome: reaching the end of one’s fertility without having had as many children as one had hoped for.”

Canada’s fertility rate reached a new record low in 2023, at 1.26 children per woman, according to the most recent available Statistics Canada data. With this, Canada joined the group of “lowest-low” fertility countries, along with South Korea, Spain, Italy, and Japan, where the average fertility rate was 1.3 children per woman or less.

A country needs an average of 2.1 live births per woman, known as the replacement rate, to maintain its population size.

Federal Election Conversation

Family formation and women’s fertility have not been major topics in the federal election campaign, though they were briefly referenced in a Conservative comment that drew criticism from the Liberals and the NDP.

While addressing the housing crisis, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre suggested the high cost of home ownership is causing some couples to delay having children or reconsider the decision entirely.

“We will not forget that 36-year-old couple whose biological clock is running out faster than they can afford to buy a home and have kids,” Poilievre said at a press conference in Saint John, N.B., on March 31.

Poilievre has previously raised the issue of young Canadians being unable to afford a home during women’s peak reproductive years, including in a January interview with Jordan Peterson.

Liberal candidate Yvan Baker argued the Conservative leader was using “misogynistic” rhetoric for political purposes.

“It’s appalling to hear the Conservative leader use such outdated and harmful rhetoric,” Baker wrote in a March 31 social media post. “Using a woman’s fertility as a punchline in a political attack is not only disrespectful - it’s downright misogynistic.”

On the issue of parenthood, the Liberals, led by Mark Carney, have pledged to establish a new in-vitro fertilization program to “make it more affordable for Canadians who want to become parents.” They have also said they would make the Sexual and Reproductive Health Fund Program permanent so that there will “always be funding for abortion care in Canada.”

The Conservatives have previously said they will not ban abortion but will promote adoption. The NDP, for its part, has long advocated for expanded access to abortion, criticizing “anti-choice” movements.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh also disagreed with Poilievre’s March 31 comments referencing women’s fertility.

“I don’t think any woman wants to hear Pierre Poilievre talking about their body. Period,” Singh told reporters in Edmonton on April 1.

McKitrick says the reaction to Poilievre’s remarks highlights why Canada’s declining fertility rate remains largely overlooked in public debate.

“The fact [that the comments] would be controversial or that a political leader shouldn’t talk about those things, I think is an indication of why some of these discussions are difficult to have, because people seem to be reluctant to talk about some of the reality here, especially the reality of the biological clock,” he said.

Causes and Potential Solutions

Economic uncertainty and weak income growth are among the factors academics cite as contributing to declining birth rates in advanced economies.

Social shifts, such as delayed marriage, changing family norms, and growing career opportunities and expectations for women, also play a significant role, says the report.

McKitrick’s analysis suggests the overall rise in living costs is linked to lower birth rates. Although housing costs do have an effect, he says they are not statistically significant when compared to the broader impact of general living expenses.

Income growth has a strong, positive impact on fertility for almost all income groups, McKitrick notes, adding that the number of housing completions seems to have no apparent effect on birth rates.

The author outlines five strategies to increase domestic fertility. On the fiscal and economic front, he suggests adopting policies to reduce the cost of living, especially in relation to housing and transportation expenses. He also advises lowering marginal income tax rates, improving per-child benefits, and allowing more income-sharing.

“To increase Canadian fertility rates we should focus [on] economic policies that reduce the overall cost of living, increase real incomes, and increase the availability of housing, especially low-cost entry-level housing,” the report reads.

To help better align personal and career goals, particularly for women, McKitrick recommends improving the employment insurance rate for those taking parental leave and expanding access to child care, including support for parents who choose to care for their children at home.

“If the government is going to take action to boost supply it should first widen the definition of caregivers as broadly as possible, starting with parents themselves,” the report reads. “It may sometimes be cheaper simply to provide income support to a parent who takes time out of the workforce to care for children rather than going to work and needing daycare.”

McKitrick says that beyond fiscal measures, the government can take steps to “promote a family-friendly and pro-child society.”

Cultural Shift

McKitrick noted that the decline in fertility rates is not uniform across society, with some groups maintaining consistent birth rates.

“They tend to be religious communities and certain ethnic groups, and that indicates that when social norms are maintained that promote family formation and having children, it still happens that people still have babies and raise children,” he told The Epoch Times.

He also said communities that foster marriage and fidelity while discouraging divorce tend to be more supportive of parenting.

McKitrick says one way to shift public attitudes toward parenthood is through better media representation of marriage and family life.

While he emphasizes that governments should not regulate private entertainment or communication, he says presenting these aspects of life more positively could encourage young Canadians to pursue them if that aligns with their goals.

He notes that given the “accelerating decline” in Canada’s birth rates, “there is a need to move quickly on these challenges.”

“The countries that have a bright future are the ones that will figure this out,” he said.