this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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[–] Sami 24 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Canada's fertility rate hasn't been above the replacement rate in over 50 years and that is with immigration. It's currently at 1.4 (child per woman/family)

Nearly four-fifths of the 1.8 million population increase from 2016 to 2021 was attributable to new arrivals to Canada either as permanent or temporary immigrants

If you want to lower immigration rates, you're gonna need to increase birth rates unless you want to become the next Japan where the population is expected to halve within our lifetimes.

The issue is the supply of affordable housing, plain and simple, and there is no solution that does not involve the government intervening in the housing market in some form.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you want to lower immigration rates, you’re gonna need to increase birth rates

The opposite is also true: if you want to see higher birth rates then housing needs to be affordable. Most Canadians require some financial stability before they start a family, and that is difficult today with the sky high housing costs.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

if you want to see higher birth rates then housing needs to be affordable.

Canada's birth rate has held stagnant for the last 50 years. No time in the last 50 years has housing been affordable? Hell, Toronto had a housing crash in the 1990s. And it still wasn't affordable right after that?

If your answer is no, it is likely that it is fundamentally impossible to make housing affordable. It ultimately uses up a lot of labour and resources, while removing food growing capability and damaging the climate, for no productive benefit. Good for the individual, but a terrible strain on society as a whole. The cost reflects that.

and that is difficult today

And for the last 50 years, it seems. Even if we can wave a magic wand at housing, how can we be sure that doesn't end up "I can't have kids, food is too expensive!" and then "I can't have kids, internet service is too expensive!"?

The reality is that life has never been affordable. The only thing that changed 50-some-odd years ago was the invention of the birth control pill. And the harsh reality is that life can never be affordable. There is not enough time in the day.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The number one reason young people tell me they do not want kids these days is because they cannot afford it. Perhaps if housing was more affordable and wages weren't stagnated it wouldn't be a privledge to raise a family these days.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

While I agree the answer to the issue is the solution. As I noted it doesn't seems like people agree on the issue.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So what is wrong with a declining population, anyway?

[–] Sami 1 points 1 year ago

An increasingly aging population. Less money from taxation to fund services, decreasing standards of living, more people dependent on a decreasing number of income earners, being in a nursing home without anyone available to care for you etc

A death spiral unless we can somehow manage to grow economically to compensate but even then the social outcomes arent great either.