Where did everyone go?
A Review of Canadian and World Demographics (October 2024)
Here’s a piece of news that's not news to most people. The population of Canada is getting older each year. But is this a problem?
We all know it's due to the darn baby boomers, being so numerous and so old these days. Most have transitioned into their retirement years. However, the generations that followed not only were fewer but, except for a short “echo” period, continued to get fewer and fewer with each subsequent generation. There are numerous reasons for this: creation of pension funds and retirement homes; increasing urbanization resulting in more people living in condos and apartments; shortage of time due to two working parents; stagnating wages compared to the cost of living; fewer pressures from church and family to have children, to name just some.
Some countries are experiencing this trend more severely than others. Fertility rates for every country are easily obtainable from multiple sources. A fertility rate is the number of children that will be born to a woman in her lifetime. To make this statistic informative, you need to compare it to the replacement fertility rate, defined as “. . . the total fertility rate at which women give birth to enough babies to sustain population levels, assuming that mortality rates remain constant and net migration is zero. The replacement fertility rate is 2.1 births per female for most developed countries1.”
The United Nations Population Fund provided 2024 fertility rates for 204 countries1. Around half of them currently have a fertility rate below the replacement rate for developed countries. Notable ones near the bottom are South Korea (0.9), Singapore (1.1), China (1.2) and Japan (1.3). A review of some of the world’s largest economies, not included above, reveals: Italy (1.3), Germany (1.5), Great Britain (1.6), Brazil (1.6), United States (1.7) and France (1.8). Canada’s fertility rate is 1.5.
Economists and geopolitical pundits are watching China the closest. A combination of low fertility, reduction of several age cohorts due to the one-child policy (1980 to 2016), excess of men over women, and not being an attractive destination for immigrants will mean they may have to face the depopulation hurdle first. South Korea will soon be there too, and will be a valuable case-study for how a democratic & capitalistic society handles it.
Now, I can hear some economists say “No western country is producing sufficient numbers of TVs to replace the ones they disposed of. Are we going to have a shortage of them too?” Good point actually. If we just get our babies from the big baby factories (i.e., the countries exceeding the replacement fertility rate) we will be fine (aka, immigration). Heck, making babies this way should be much more efficient (whatever that means). The problem here is that our TVs come from countries with large work-forces, primarily China. One half of the world’s population live in just seven countries. The only ones in this group above the replacement fertility rate are Nigeria at 5.0 and Pakistan at 3.3 (representing only 5.8% of the world’s population). In fact, most of the countries rating above 2.1 are less wealthy African countries. It’s estimated that the replacement fertility rate in such countries can be as high as 3.5 due to higher mortality rates.
Yet, this analysis does show that immigration will be a stop-gap solution for many western countries which remain open and attractive to immigrants. From a world perspective, it's just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. However, for you and me it could be just what we need to stem off the worst of it. Keep this in mind when you see news reports with people saying we need to limit immigration because ‘they are taking our jobs.’
And, to be clear, there are no obvious reasons why world-wide fertility rates will increase in the foreseeable future because the root-causes mentioned above are not likely to change. There is a strong argument that the rates will go even lower. Immigration at some point will become a trickle.
As these trends continue, the world is going to face something it has never seen. Sometime in the middle of this century the population of the world will begin to decline, and this decline will be prolonged. That sounds like great news on the surface, considering factors such as the state of the environment, availability of food, poor living conditions due to overcrowding, etc.
However, there are also serious concerns. Just two are the welfare of the economy and of the nonworking elderly. All the economic systems developed over the long history of business and trade, significantly predating biblical times, depend on continued growth as a linchpin to economic success. There have been ups and downs for sure, but sustained decreases in population have never been seen. All things economic will have to change, but how is not known. (Perpetual recession or depression?) As for the elderly, there are going to be fewer and fewer young people to pay the taxes and provide the workforce to make their senior years livable. Expect retirement ages to increase, both for government benefits and private sector retirement plans. And let’s hope robots are available to physically care for seniors come that day.
Back to Canada. In 1971 the median age in Canada was 262. In 2023 it came in at 41. To be expected, this increase was very steady with no rapid spurts along the way. There was only 7.9% of the population over 65 years old in 1971, compared to 18.8% in 2023. Today, the cohort with the greatest number of people is the 60 to 65 years old. The next couple of decades are going to create more retirees than the country has ever seen. For example, if trends persist, just ten years from now a quarter of the Canadian population will be over 65 years old.
Another factor that will impact the size of the post-65 cohorts is improving mortality rates. In 1980, a 65 year-old had an estimated life expectancy of another 16.8 years3. The estimate in 2020 was another 20.8 years. This represents a 24% improvement over 40 years. Scientific discoveries and ecological remediation will likely extend it further.
On average, the baby boomers are a wealthy group and a majority of them believe they have the pensions and investments needed for a comfortable retirement. Yet, there still needs to be sufficient workers to make such a life possible. And the pension plans need to hold out if the economy turns ugly. Due to the inevitability of the forces of supply and demand, annual expenses for baby boomers stemming from increased labour-costs may be more than they anticipated during their retirement planning.
And there likely will be even fewer assisted living and nursing home spots available. Developers and governments will likely be hesitant to build or otherwise expand capacity when there will be an inevitable decrease in demand after the bulge of the baby boomers pass. Let’s hope seniors' 1.5 children are up to the task of caring for them.
How will this affect the Church? If all the religious trends we examined in the various articles I have written hold out, church congregations will get older but, in theory, larger as the baby boomer bulge impacts the Church. However, that is just one positive factor battling against many negative ones decreasing church congregation sizes. And, when the bulge passes on, the lower production of old folks may exacerbate the factors that are eating away at the size of the Church in Canada.
According to trends, baby boomers will likely continue to contribute more and more funds to the church than younger folk due to their greater numbers and higher wealth. Unless of course they strictly tithe because their transition from wages to pension benefits will represent a drop in their annual incomes.
What happens to the Church in Canada after the baby boomers leave is anyone’s guess.
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1. Wikipedia, List of countries by total fertility rate, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fertility_rate
2. Statistics Canada, Population estimates on July 1, by age and gender, February 21, 2024, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000501
3. Statistics Canada, Life expectancy and other elements of the complete life table, three-year estimates, Canada, all provinces except Prince Edward Island, Release date: 2023-11-27, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310011401&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=3.1&pickMembers%5B2%5D=4.8&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=1980+%2F+1982&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2020+%2F+2022&referencePeriods=19800101%2C20200101