Achi news desk-
Quebec saw a 3% drop in the number of births between 2022 and 2023, according to data released Wednesday by the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ).
This brings births to the lowest level since 2005.
The ISQ estimates that 77,950 babies will be born in Quebec in 2023. The decline in the number of births has continued since 2013, when Quebec recorded 88,900 births.
The rest of the Canadian provinces have yet to release their figures on births that took place last year, but ISQ demographer Frédéric Fleury-Fiore expects them to see a decline as well.
“It’s important to put this in an international context, where we’re seeing a decline almost everywhere on Earth,” Fleury-Pierre said.
There are many reasons for the decline in births. Fleury-Payeur pointed to the cost of living and the difficulty in accessing properties. Quite simply, accessing housing, for example, to upgrade from a 4 1/2 to a 5 1/2, is difficult in today’s housing market.
The demographer added that the desire to have children is decreasing, and this may be related to environmental concerns in particular.
The difficulty of forming stable unions is also an area of ​​increasing research in an attempt to understand the effect this may have on the desire to reproduce.
The total fertility rate has fallen again, to 1.38 children per woman in 2023, one of the lowest fertility rates in Quebec history: “This is the second lowest level ever recorded in Quebec, after 1.36 in 1987,” Fleury-Fiore said. .
On a Canadian scale, Quebec’s fertility rate is higher than that of most other provinces.
In recent years, a record of 1.73 children per woman was reached in 2008 and 2009, but since then the trend has been going down, except for the increase in 2021. According to this unusual figure, this unusual figure in 2021 can be explained. The fact that some Quebecers have decided to postpone having a child due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Among the highlights of the demographic review, he noted that 37% of babies born in Quebec in the last year have at least one parent born in another country. This rate tends to increase over the years. It was 21 percent in 2000, then it reached 33 percent in 2019.
Furthermore, the babies born in 2023 continued the seasonal pattern seen in Quebec for many years. According to Trend Quebec, more children are born in the summer than in any other season, with winter being the slowest time. In 2023, September was still the month with the highest number of daily births, with 227 per day.
The Canadian Press’ health content is funded through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. The Canadian Press is solely responsible for editorial choices.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 8, 2024.
