Canada’s birth rate has dropped off a cliff (and it’s likely because nobody can afford housing)
Canada’s birth rate has dropped off a cliff (and it’s likely because nobody can afford housing)
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.
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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.
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Oh hey! It's literally describing my current situation.
Got engaged, got a promotion, have solid long term housing ("renting" from family)
Still can't keep more than 1.5k in savings month over month. No way in hell in having a baby in these conditions... and i feel like I'm better off than most
Still can’t keep more than 1.5k in savings month over month
That you can keep even 1.5k in savings is why you don't need children. Historically, families would be deep in the red if they didn't have children to help with the work. Before all the fancy automation and stuff that we have gained (and still in poor countries which continue to lack access to that), life was plain too much for one or two people to take on. Now, an average person can live a pretty good life all by themselves.
Children have gone the same way as the horse. Some may keep one for enjoyment, but their usefulness has been supplanted by modern technology, so there is no imperative for everyone to have one.
Ah yes, children are only good for manual labor and nothing else
When they said TikTok has destroyed attention spans I was skeptical, but when you see they can't even make it to the second paragraph... Yikes.
What do you think you wrote in the second paragraph? Because I'm seeing "gone the way of the horse" and "usefulness supplanted by modern technology"
Are you are under the impression that horses no longer exist now that we no longer need them for manual labour?
I am afraid you are not making yourself clear.
I'm pointing out that your second paragraph continues to make the point that the main purpose of having children is for them to perform work
To be fair, you did include some people "keeping a child around for enjoyment" which is still pretty dehumanizing
Well, that is the main purpose for why people had children historically, and remains the main purpose in poor countries where such work is still needed.
That is not the only purpose, but the remaining purposes do not benefit from having as many children around. And so, like horses, we have seen a reduction in the number of children born. We have not eliminated them because there are still a lot of good reasons to have children (and horses), but times have changed. The reasons are different, and so the numbers are different.
If that's dehumanizing, so what? We're only talking about the state of the world, not anyone's feelings towards it. The latter would be in bad faith and of interest to nobody.