All Canadians know how important immigration is to our future. Not only do we benefit from an influx of new ideas and new faces, we also benefit from the increase in population that is so important to maintaining our present high standard of living.
An article on cnews makes the case [Census: Immigration critical to Canada].
Canada saw its native-born populace climb by a modest 400,000 souls between 2001 and 2006. It was the addition of 1.2 million immigrants that helped push the country’s enumerated population total to 31.6 million.Canada's immigration rate is the highest in the industrialized world, higher by far than that of the United States, although the US has more immigrants in terms of total numbers (not counting Mexicans, I assume).
The 2006 census data, released Tuesday by Statistics Canada, shows overall population growth of 5.4 per cent — the highest among the Group of Eight industrialized nations. Canadian growth was up from four per cent in the previous five-year census period, which had been the slowest half-decade in modern Canadian history.
Thank immigration for Canada’s relatively robust growth. An average 240,000 newcomers per year more than compensated for the country’s flat fertility rate.
Canada’s net migration, per capita, is among the highest in the world. According to the OECD, Canada’s net migration of 6.5 migrants per 1,000 population between 2000-2004 put it at the head of the international pack. Australia, another immigration juggernaut, accepted 6.2 migrants per 1,000 population during the same period.I don't know why the US birth rate is so much higher than Canada's or Europe's. Does anyone have an answer?
Canada’s influx offsets a flacid national birthrate of about 1.5 kids per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1 and just below the OECD average.
The United States, by way of example, accepts only 4.4 immigrants per thousand but has a fertility rate 25 per cent higher than Canada.
14 comments :
I've heard several explanations for the higher birthrate in the U.S. comparative to Europe and Canada. One of them is the relatively higher prevailence of religious attitudes towards women, family hierarchy, etc. which leads to women spending more time as baby incubators and homemakers. While in Canada in Europe, women are relatively more likely to be more highly educated and career oriented.
I would go for religion too. Religious groups in Europe usually have a higher birthrate than is average as well.
The more educated you are, the less children you will have. Therefore...
The more educated you are, the less children you will have.
I think this is true, at least anecdotally. Myself and all of my friends are of above average intelligence. Amongst my closes circle of friends, every single one of us, male or female, religious or not, has stated that we don't want kids. Expand that out to a larger group of friends, still of above average intelligence, the majority who do want kids only want one, or at most two. When I look at the less educated parts of society around me, I see many people with many children: 3, 4, 5, or more.
I'm sure religion plays a factor, as I do live in a very religious area, but intelligence seems to override the religious mandates, even amongst the religious people I know.
Regarding the question of why USA has a higher birthrate, one thing came to mind:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
Just watch the trailer or the first 10 minutes of it to get the answer :)
Birthrates in the US, as well as the rest of the industrialized world, have been trending downward since the end of the Baby Boom. The drop in US birthrates lagged somewhat behind those of Europe and Canada. I'm not sure why they lagged, but they are converging with those rates from the rest of the industrialized world, so it's really just a matter of a different initial conditions.
I don't know why the US birth rate is so much higher than Canada's or Europe's. Does anyone have an answer?
I ascribe this to three factors:
1) religion, as already noted. We occasionally have wire-news stories about this or that couple who is on their fifth, eighth, tenth, fifteenth kid. Almost invariably, they're members of one or another fundamentalist Christian sect, doing their best to literally follow the commandment "be fruitful and multiply."
2) immigration. Demographic studies show that the population of "native" US citizens (that is, they're natural-born citizens and so were their parents and grandparents) has an average birthrate barely at replacement level. Immigrants and children of immigrants tend to have larger families.
3) socialism. Snicker if you like, but if you look around the West, you'll find a significant correlation between the birthrate and the degree of "nanny state" socialism in a culture. The more socialist a culture is, the lower the birthrate tends to be. Of all the Western nations, the US is the least socialist. I won't speculate as to why. I just point out that it seems to be true.
I don't accept the premise that "the increase in population...is so important to maintaining our present high standard of living".
I think that endless exponential growth is absolutely unsustainable in the long run, and will destroy our standard of living if we don't figure out how to stabilize or reduce our population.
This 1% annual growth might seem harmless, but it means the number of Canadians will keep doubling every 70 years, exceeding the current US population in 2220, and exceeding the current world population in 2513.
At what point will it make sense to stop trying to maintain "our present high standard of living" by adding more people? I say the sooner the better. Or should we just exploit this prosperity bubble while it lasts and let the next generation deal with the consequences?
fred wrote: I don't accept the premise that "the increase in population...is so important to maintaining our present high standard of living".
You're right. It's not. The problem is that any economy has to maintain a high ratio of producers to consumers. Right now, the industrialized nations aren't doing that. As the Baby Boom generation heads toward retirement, the ratio of producers to consumers is falling steadily. Eventually there will be only two choices: cut social benefits (in the US this means Social Security and Medicare; I'm not sure of the Canadian equivalent), thus cutting the standard of living for retirees; or sharply increase taxes, thus cutting the standard of living for the working class.
All of the western nations could work around this by finding ways to keep their retirees as net producers, not net consumers. But that's politically unpopular. Extremely unpopular. Allowing mass immigration is an easier choice. Most immigrants (not all by any means, but most) become producers. So immigration props up the rotten economic structure for a few more years.
If "any economy has to maintain a high ratio of producers to consumers" then we should encourage adults to have fewer babies. Children may be cute, but they're essentially parasites on society for the first 20 or more years.
Personally, I wouldn't mind continuing to work past the traditional retirement age. Still, I may be able to retire early since I don't have any children to raise or put through university.
If "any economy has to maintain a high ratio of producers to consumers" then we should encourage adults to have fewer babies.
But then, twenty or thirty years down the road, where will society's replacement workers come from?
"where will society's replacement workers come from?"
I'm not convinced that we need to keep replacing them. Given the opposite extremes of exponential growth to the point of collapse on the one hand and dwindling away to nothing on the other hand, I much prefer the option of dwindling away. Far less suffering and destruction that way.
Any growth rate higher than 0% inevitably leads to overpopulation and is completely unsustainable in the long run. Do the math yourself.
I don't expect everyone to stop breeding immediately, although even in that most extreme case we'd have decades to prepare for the drop in the workforce, and an enormous amount of resources that could be redirected away from childcare, education, children's healthcare, etc. as the demand for those services disappeared.
At a minimum we should be designing an economy that can maintain a reasonable standard of living with a stable (zero growth) population, and given our excessive ecological footprint it would be much better to work toward reducing our population.
What's the alternative? Close our eyes to reality and hope for the rapture?
Come on - immigrants critical to Canadas future? Do you Canadians have any idea how ridiculously slow CIC is working. I'm Danish but worked as a postdoc in Nova Scotia from 2002 to 2005 and moved to the UK to start another postdoc when my contract in NS ended. Upon arrival in the UK I realized that Canada is better - a lot better - to live in than the UK, so I decided to apply for permanent residentship in Canada. It took about 3 months to get all the paperwork collected and then I submitted it to the high commission in the UK. Got a letter back stating that I shouldn't expect to hear from them for at least 36 months, due to a large number of applications... I don't expect the door to be wide open, but there is just no way that anybody can claim that immigration is vital to Canada when it takes 36 months or more to process an application for permanent residence from a Western European with a science PhD - probably one of the least likely immigrant types to become a burden to Canada.
An American colleague of mine had been working in Canada for 12+ years and then wished to become a Canadian citizen, in order to be able to vote. Despite the fact that he and his family had lived and worked in Canada for that long it still took CIC almost 3 years to process the case...
I don't know why the US birth rate is so much higher than Canada's or Europe's. Does anyone have an answer?
Three words: Abstinence Only Education
It works, it really does!
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