Birthrates and religion

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This article was published 13/01/2024 (678 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canada is aging — and fast.

According to Doug Norris, chief demographer at Environics Analytics, Canadians aged 65 and older are part of the fastest-growing age group in Canada today.

Today, there are about 7.6 million people aged 65 and older in Canada. That number is expected to rise to over 11 million people by 2043.

At the same time the number of seniors is growing, the birth rate is falling. Research by Statistics Canada shows Canada is a low-fertility country, or below the population replacement level of 2.1 children per woman.

Fertility rates have been steadily declining since 2009, Statistics Canada said, with the trend intensifying since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, hitting a record low of 1.4 children per woman in 2020.

If the country’s fertility continues to decline in the coming years, Canada could join the countries with the “lowest-low” fertility rates of 1.3 or less children per woman, Statistics Canada says.

There is an exception to this trend, however. Religious Canadian women have more children than non-religious women. That’s the finding of a new study by Cardus, a faith-based Canadian think tank.

The study, titled Religion and Fertility in Canada, surveyed 2,700 women. It found that women who are religious have 1.8 children on average, compared to 1.3 children today for non-religious women.

“That’s a pretty big gap,” said study author Lyman Stone, who is a PhD student at McGill University and director of research at the population consulting firm Demographic Intelligence.

One reason for the difference is that religious women tend to marry more and earlier than non-religious women, Stone said, adding this “marriage advantage” means they may start feeling more stable in their lives earlier than non-religious women and have children earlier.

“This difference is not caused simply by differences in socioeconomic factors,” he noted, adding religious women face the same economic uncertainties as everyone else in the country.

The difference is how religious women feel about those economic pressures. They report “much lower incidence of worries and concerns than do nonreligious women,” he said.

Due to those economic pressures, non-religious women tend to put off marriage and children until after they have finished university and established themselves in careers, Stone said. Only then do they feel stable and secure enough to start a family.

As to why religious women have more children, and earlier, Stone has several theories.

One is the sense of belonging and support religious women feel by being part of a worshipping community. “There is a sense of being connected to a community of shared practice,” he said, noting places of worship can offer support to families that may not be available to non-religious women.

There is also the larger transcendental sense of meaning and purpose that comes from being religious, he said. For religious women, having children may be “seen as a transcendent good,” a way of carrying on the faith and being faithful to God.

At the same time, Stone found that religious women consistently indicated they were less worried about life than non-religious women — something that may make them more willing to bring children into the world.

As for why religious women feel less anxious, it could be because they feel supported by their faith communities, Stone said, along with believing that God is in control or has a plan for their lives and for the world at large.

“Religion supplies a set of moral and philosophical logics that help people deal with difficulties in life, a sense of meaning to overcome challenges, and a community to support you in difficult times,” he said. “It’s an important buffer, a way of dealing with the sometimes incomprehensible and inscrutable pains and difficulties of life.”

This also translates into economics. During this time of worry about inflation and rising prices, “non-religious women were more likely to say they had more worries about finances,” he said.

That’s all fine and good, but what if religious women have more babies because they are forced by their religion to stay out of the workforce and stay home to have children?

According to Stone, that’s not the case. His study found that religious women have the same employment rates as non-religious women, although it did not explore whether there were differences within employment types or about pay, hours worked or required educational level.

And then there is the issue of contraceptives and whether that’s the reason some religious women have more children—that they aren’t permitted by religious authorities. Again, Stone said that wasn’t a reason; religious and non-religious women alike have the same rate of contraceptive usage, he said.

Overall, he stated, “we just don’t find any difference between religious and non-religious women” from an employment or bodily empowerment perspective.

What does this mean for Canada? As the country becomes more secular, perhaps it means a continued reduction in birth rates. Then again, since immigrants to Canada tend to be more religious — another Cardus study found that 50 per cent of immigrants reported being religiously committed or privately faithful versus 32 per cent of Canadian-born respondents — maybe they will help counteract the falling birth rate a bit.

Stone’s research rings true for Sam Reimer, who teaches sociology at Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick.

At the same time, he noted that religious and non-religious women alike “are not having enough children to replace themselves. That is why immigration is, and will be, our dominant means of population growth,” he said, and a main source of new members for places of worship.

For churches, having larger families is a positive thing, he said. But it will only make a difference if all the children “are being retained,” he said — which is not the case in Canada, “nowhere close.”

Without immigration, he said, churches are shrinking, “and that is true across all Christian traditions.”

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