FIRST READING: Canada’s birth rate has dropped off a cliff (and it’s likely because nobody can afford housing)
nationalpost.com
More than a third of young people say they are foregoing children because they can't afford a proper home for them

Statistics Canada confirmed last week that 351,679 babies were born in 2022 — the lowest number of live births since 345,044 births were recorded in 2005.

The disparity is all the more notable given that Canada had just 32 million people in 2005, as compared to the 40 million it counted by the end of 2022. In 2005, it was already at historic lows for Canada to have a fertility rate of 1.57 births per woman. But given the 2022 figures, that fertility rate has now sunk to 1.33.

…

Of Canadians in their 20s, Statistics Canada found that 38 per cent of them “did not believe they could afford to have a child in the next three years” — with about that same number (32 per cent) saying they doubted they’d be able to find “suitable housing” in which to care for a baby.

…

A January survey by the Angus Reid Group asked women to list the ideal size of their family against its actual size, and concluded that the average Canadian woman reached the end of their childbearing years with 0.5 fewer children than they would have wanted

“In Canada, unlike many other countries, fertility rates and desires rise with income: richer Canadians have more children,” it read.

  • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.mlEnglish
    72·
    1 year ago

    QOL is not up overall. Well I guess it depends on your standards for QOL. Sure, entertainment options are plentiful and you can get well made products delivered to your door in 12 hours. But housing affordability is at an all-time low, cost of living near all-time highs, and we're hitting record high and low weather events every single freaking day. These are all fallouts from rapid population expansion and using old systems to maintain an ever changing reality. An influx of 1 million people into an area that only builds a few thousand houses per year is going to cause massive spikes in demand, which attracts the attention of investment bankers, who then fund real estate acquisition, further exacerbating the problem. The carbon footprint of 8 billion people is more than double the carbon footprint of 4 billion people. Sure, many issues still remain with a smaller population, but every issue is magnified by a larger one. There are some benefits to large populations, but I think we're beyond sustainable now.