The clear message in the United States’ shifting demographics

As difficult as it might be for some recalcitrant Americans to believe or embrace — Trumpsters, listen up, this column is especially for you — the United States is in the midst of a profound and irreversible demographic shift.

Two dramatic changes in the nation’s population are occurring simultaneously: we’re getting older, and more racially diverse, according to a U.S. Census Bureau tip sheet released last week. Census figures show that fewer than 17 percent of U.S. counties reported a decrease in median age from April 2010 to July 2017, with the majority of those counties clustered in the Midwest. Nationally, the median age rose to 38.0 years in 2017, up from 37.2 years in 2000.

Canadian demographics may not favour the Conservatives

There are two ways to become a former Conservative in Canada these days.

You can get tossed out, like senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau.

Or you can leave the party of your own volition, as voters in Labrador did earlier this month when they elected Liberal MP Yvonne Jones, handing Conservative Peter Penashue a resounding defeat in the federal byelection.

Canada not doomed to demographic crisis

In four years, Canada will undergo a demographic revolution – a change also known as the “crossover”: the day when there are more seniors than children. The impact on the country’s economic growth, productivity, innovation, pensions, not to mention health care, will be monumental.

This transformation has been under way for several decades, as women became more educated and then chose to delay or avoid child-bearing. The trend then replicates itself and becomes harder to reverse: with fewer children today, there will be fewer women of childbearing age in 20 years.

Research shows, however, that effective policies can counter falling birth rates. If the government and private sector embrace strategies that improve work-family balance and gender equality, they can remove artificial barriers to having and raising children.

How census figures cement Harper’s grip on power

The 2011 census confirms what the ballot box has already told us: Aspiring Canada votes Conservative.

If the NDP or Liberals are ever to win government, they must break the bond between these aspirational voters and Stephen Harper.

The latest tranche of data released Tuesday morning by Statistics Canada paints a picture of a country that is about to get old. The population of seniors is growing; for the first time, those who are getting ready to leave the labour force (age 55 to 64) exceed those getting ready to enter it (aged 15 to 24).

But the country is not aging uniformly. Younger, working-age Canadians are moving West, to where the jobs are. And within the big cities, the downtowns are aging differently than the suburbs.

Canada’s demographic ‘golden age’ coming to an end

Canada is at a demographic peak, but the descent will be swift and steep.

A greater proportion of people are working now than ever before. The largest chunk of the population, the baby boomers, are in their highest earning years and only a tiny sliver of that cohort has slipped into retirement. Their relatively fatter salaries are filling tax coffers and funding social programs. And years of low birth rates have meant significantly fewer dependent children to support than in decades past.

“This is the golden age,” according to McMaster University economist Arthur Sweetman.

But the release of new 2011 census numbers this week will show that the period of “peak people” is about to end. Canada’s demographics are at an inflection point, as the number of people of retirement age begins to grow at a faster rate than any other group in the next few years.

Economics drive demographics

The population west of Ontario now exceeds the population east of Ontario, according to new 2011 census data. This was what made headlines when Canadian population growth of 5.9 per cent from 2006 to 2011 (upwards of one per cent per year) was announced recently by Statistics Canada. It led commentators to forecast a continued shift in political power west.

Conservative legislation (prepared before the release of 2006-11 population data) enlarges the House of Commons by adding 15 seats in Ontario, six each in Alberta and B.C., and three in Quebec. But the impact of demographic changes on Canadian electoral politics can be easily overstated. What is more important are the shifts in economic power that underlie the changes in population.

The driving force in population relocation is economic opportunity. Alberta and Saskatchewan grew through arrivals from elsewhere in Canada, and newcomers from abroad. Sustained by high commodity prices for oil and potash, the two Prairie provinces attracted workers. Migrants had to balance low unemployment rates against steep housing costs, but many made the costly decision to relocate (increased reliance on temporary foreign workers is not covered by the census data).

At 5.7 per cent overall, the population of Ontario has grown slightly more slowly than the rest of the country over the past five years. This is new. Economic reversals associated with past recessions of 1981-82 and 1990-92 returned in force in 2007, so people were less likely to come to Ontario for work. Where once Ontario took 60 per cent of new arrivals from abroad, it attracted only 40 per cent in the last five years.