Canada’s total fertility rate dropped to its lowest point in more than a century of data-keeping in 2022, hitting just 1.33 children per woman, Statistics Canada said Wednesday.
The 7.4 per cent decline in the rate from 2021 to 2022, the agency said, was the steepest drop since the 7.6 per cent decline from 1971 to 1972, which took place at the height of the baby bust following the 1946-1965 baby boom.
The 1971-1972 decline also took place three years after Parliament passed legislation that legalized birth control pills and therapeutic abortions.
The trend of decreasing fertility rates affected all provinces to varying degrees. Fertility rates were highest in Saskatchewan (1.69), Quebec (1.49), and Alberta (1.45) and lowest in B.C (1.11), Nova Scotia (1.18), and Newfoundland and Labrador and P.E.I., both of which recorded a rate of 1.22.
StatsCan said the pattern of decline from 2020 to 2022 — an initial drop, then an increase, followed by a second drop — is similar to what many other countries experienced, “suggesting the COVID-19 pandemic may have temporarily disrupted fertility behaviours” around the world.
While every G7 country apart from the United States posted a decline in fertility in 2022 (the U.S. rate actually rose slightly to 1.67), Canada’s “decrease was one of the largest among high-income countries,” Statistics Canada said.
Despite that decline, Canada’s fertility rate was still higher in 2022 than the rates in South Korea (0.78), Spain (1.16), Italy (1.24) and Japan (1.26).
Comparable countries with higher fertility rates include France (1.8), the United Kingdom (1.52) and Germany (1.46).
COVID-19’s impact
Canada’s fertility rate has been sliding since 2009.
Statistics Canada said that Canada’s five lowest annual total fertility rates were recorded over the last five years: 2022 (1.33), 2020 (1.41), 2021 (1.44), 2019 (1.47) and 2018 (1.51).
The average age of mothers at childbirth also changed significantly between 1976 (when it was 26.7) and 2022, when it hit an average of 31.6.
“Given the COVID-19 pandemic initiated a period of public health crisis, as well as economic and societal shocks, it is possible that a segment of the population responded to this period of widespread uncertainty via their childbearing choices,” Statistic Canada said Wednesday.
At the start of the pandemic, women of childbearing age delayed or dropped plans to have children due to illness, while couples who lived apart may have had more difficulty planning to conceive, the agency said.