Fertility rates in North America have reached record lows, with Canada's national statistics agency announcing its 2023 birth data on Wednesday afternoon. This adds to a 3 percent decrease in fertility rates seen in the United States between 2022 and 2024—a milestone that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) described as a "historic low."
Canada has now joined the group of "lowest-low" fertility countries—which includes South Korea, Spain, Italy and Japan—with 1.3 children per women or fewer. By comparison, fertility rates in the U.S. were 1.62 per woman in 2023.
"Broadly speaking, I would propose that there are two things that are reducing the fertility rate," Roderic Beaujot, professor emeritus of sociology at Western University in Canada, told Newsweek. "Affordability questions, especially the cost of housing and thus the need to have two incomes to establish a middle-class standard of living; secondly, the greater normative acceptability of not having children or having one child."
Mark Rosenberg, a professor in the department of geography and planning at Queen's University in Canada, told Newsweek that these low fertility rates were partially a result of changing priorities and values across the country.
"People in their childbearing years now only want a small number of children—1 or 2—or no children at all because they do not see the need for children to support them in the future. They want a particular lifestyle that does not include children, the costs associated with having children or some combination of these perspectives," Rosenberg said.
Statistics Canada found that the absolute birth rate for 2023 was not dissimilar to that in 2022, but the number of women of childbearing age had increased, thus reducing the overall number of children per woman.
So, should we be concerned about these statistics?
"I am not particularly concerned about these numbers," Beaujot said. "The human population is very large on this planet, and we are absorbing much of its resources. We are not about to disappear, and population decline can be a good thing."
Rosenberg added: "We should only be concerned with these numbers if we are not prepared to develop fair and equitable immigration policies that will bring working-age people to Canada who seek a future in Canada and can contribute to those parts of the economy where they are needed.
"What should be the priorities of countries like Canada are fair and equitable policies related to immigration and planning for a slow-growth population."
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