The kids are all right — there just aren’t enough of them

I had a great Friday recently. First, I learned that one of my granddaughters was accepted as a full-time teacher at a local private school. This is a plum position and a great way to start a career.

A second granddaughter graduated from architecture and presented her graduation project alongside all her colleagues. It was extraordinary to see the energy and the excitement as the students showed off their plans and models, looking forward to the next steps in their careers.

A distant relative, a young woman, presented a graduation project with a colleague that was an evaluation plan for the Winnipeg Police Service. It was professional and well-executed work.

Finally, not to suggest the boys are left out, I encountered three young Marxists sitting at a table profuse with literature all about the international struggle of the workers of the world. As I engaged in a conversation with them, they reminded me of my youth, when I lived in communes and argued vehemently late into the night about the virtues of democratic centralism and Marxist-Leninism, and about how we were going to take down the international capitalist order.

What impressed me about these young men was their earnestness and their reading. They had thought deeply about problems and came up with solutions, although ones I no longer espouse. After all, as Churchill is alleged to have quipped, “Those who are not socialists at the age of 20 have no heart; those who are still socialists at 30 have no head.” The important thing is that they were engaged in the world, unlike many other young men sitting in the university’s common areas, slack-jawed and vacant, playing video games or wagering on sports.

I came away with my faith in the younger generation renewed. The kids are alright; there are just not enough of them.

Increasing numbers of demographers warn that the world is heading into an era of population decline as birth rates crater. This is uncharted territory for the world, because aside from the era of the Black Death, world population has always expanded, even if very slowly, for long stretches.

Canada’s population declined last year for the first time since Confederation, primarily due to reversals in immigration policies that have reduced the number of permanent residents. Note, a permanent resident is a recent immigrant on track to receive citizenship.

Aside from immigration policy, a core driver for slow population growth is that women are having fewer children. Lower fertility rates usually accompany economic growth, which expands career choices and encourages women to delay their first child until they have completed their education and started a career. The theoretical replacement rate for human populations is 2.1 births per woman. However women who have their first child after 30 tend to have fewer children, often just one.

Falling birthrates are attributable to several interrelated factors. The financial cost of raising children has increased. Although inflation in Canada remains modest, the costs of housing, education and so-called extras, such as sports and enrichment programs, have all raised the income bar for parents wishing to have children.

Adults also start full-time work later, with increasing time needed for credentials. Long gone are the days when high school was sufficient. Now, if one were to choose the trade school route, becoming a Red Seal tradesperson can require up to five years, more than an undergraduate degree. Undergraduates now routinely expect to pursue a professional degree (law or business) and move to a master’s degree after a couple of years of work.

It is easy to see why young people would defer having children until their 30s.

Parenting expectations have also changed. Assuming homework was complete, my parents simply released me out the back door with the instruction to “be home when the streetlights go on.” I roamed the neighbourhood in a feral pack. Now, parents raise perfect Montessori children, with tightly structured playtime, chauffeuring their offspring to and from school and all over the city for playdates, dance, taekwondo and “ultimate.”

To place this in perspective, my sports and extracurricular activities, such as theatre, all revolved around the school. Teachers were expected to supervise after school as part of their contracts. That certainly still exists, but the burden may have shifted to parents and the community, raising the “costs” of parenthood.

Governments have tried a range of policies to mitigate the costs of parenting, such as the Canada Child Benefit and $10-a-day child care. Research on the Canada Child Benefit shows that it alleviates poverty and is widely understood to support parenting, but its role in increasing birth rates remains unclear. As for the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, it has not met targets for the number of daycare spaces in any province and has crowded out many private operators. It appears not to have been the “home run” for working families that everyone had expected.

Economists have drawn increasing attention to the shortfall in business investment. They note that many investors seem to think that Canada is not a good place or time to start a business.

Could it also be that young Canadians think Canada is not a good place or time to start a family?

Gregory Mason is an associate professor of economics at the University of Manitoba.