Canada is among countries with an ‘ultra-low fertility’ rate. What is behind the drop?

A doctor performs an ultrasound scan on a pregnant woman at a hospital in Chicago, Aug. 7, 2018. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford, File)

Canada’s fertility rate hit a record low in 2024 as family trajectories continued to evolve, according to Statistics Canada, which released new survey data examining the complex factors that determine whether or not women decide to have children.

Based on StatCan’s “2024 Survey on Family Transitions,” the government agency said in a release Monday that Canada’s overall fertility rate decline, which began around 2009, can be attributed to a number of socioeconomic and cultural changes in recent decades.

“Increased educational levels, greater participation in the labour market, changing social norms and the widespread use of contraception have contributed to diversifying life paths, notably in terms of childbearing,” said StatCan.

Canada’s record-low total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.25 children per woman in 2024 put it in the “ultra-low fertility” category, often used to describe countries with a TFR below 1.30 children per woman.

Others in the group based on 2024 data include Switzerland (1.29), Luxembourg (1.25), Finland (1.25), Italy (1.18), Japan (1.15), Singapore (0.97) and South Korea (0.75), according to StatCan.

“This strong decline in fertility is due not only to a decreased birth rate, but also to an increase in the number of women who do not have children either by choice, by circumstance or because they are delaying motherhood,” the agency said.

“In fact, the average age of mothers at the birth of their first child has been increasing in Canada for decades.”

In 2024, that number reached an all-time high of 31.8 years. Although women are, on average, having their first child later in life compared to previous generations, StatCan’s data suggest that most women of childbearing age in Canada want to have children eventually.

Among women surveyed by StatCan who are between the ages of 20 and 49 and don’t already have children, 51.7 per cent said they want to have at least one child at some point, but that proportion decreases with age, the agency found.

Two in three women in their 20s without children told StatCan they would like to have them, but only four in 10 women in their 30s said the same, while that number was one in 10 for women in their 40s.

Across all age groups, women without children who want to become mothers would like to have 2.2 children on average, StatCan found.

Education, work, religion all factors

Education and work were also determining factors for women of childbearing age, said the agency, as there is generally “a higher proportion of women without any children among university graduates or employed women.”

Meanwhile, motherhood is more common amongst married women and women who practise religion, StatCan said. Landed immigrant women were also more likely to be mothers in Canada compared to Canadian-born women in 2024, it found.

“In 2024, more than half of Canadian-born women aged 20 to 49 years had no children, compared with 44.6 per cent of landed immigrant women. This result reflects the increasing contribution of foreign-born mothers to Canadian births,” StatCan said.

StatCan noted that women who are “part of certain racialized groups” may be associated with differing childbearing trajectories, suggesting that there are cultural considerations at play.

For example, about six in 10 West Asian and Chinese women in Canada had no children, while the same was true for only about 40 per cent of Latin American and Arab women, according to StatCan.

“These results show that fertility does not depend solely on individual preferences, it also reflects complex socioeconomic and cultural factors, particularly for women under the age of 40 years,” the agency said.

“They also show the importance of policies that encourage balancing career and parenthood.”

Methodology

The data used in this release are from the 2024 Survey on Family Transitions (SFT), which is part of the General Social Statistics Program, formerly the General Social Survey. This is the seventh edition of the family survey, which was conducted from April 22 to Sept. 20, 2024.

Data were collected from individuals aged 20 to 79 years living in the Canadian provinces. The survey excludes residents of the territories and First Nations reserves, as well as full-time residents of institutions. The sample consists of 23,941 respondents and is cross-sectional.