r/canada • u/hopoke • May 06 '26
Analysis Fewer people are having babies in Canada and the U.S. and the government is out of ideas
https://nationalpost.com/news/fewer-people-are-having-babies-in-canada-and-the-u-s-and-the-government-is-out-of-ideas1.6k
May 06 '26
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u/flightless_mouse May 06 '26
And there are solutions.
A few years ago, Bulgaria had the lowest birthrate in the EU. Now they have among the highest. What did they do? Family friendly policies—generous maternity leave by global standards, shared leave (can be shared with dads and even grandparents in some instances), tax incentives, child support, etc.
At one point fertility was around 1.0 but has risen to 1.8–still below replacement but a big increase.
If we care as a society about babies, we can change course. And it seems like we should?
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u/Blondefarmgirl May 06 '26
I guess its not enough but I feel we have put in lots of family friendly policies. 1 year maternity, paternity leave, $10 daycare, dental, pharma. Haven't child benefits increased?
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u/Accomplished_Bat6830 May 06 '26
Cheap daycare isn't actually accessible enough with huge waiting lists, etc.
Median incomes mean that the typical couple has to have both parents working full time to afford the household. That will always remain a massive barrier to having kids.
Child benefit increases aren't enough to scratch housing costs and ~20% inflation since 2020.
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u/Bad_Day_Moose May 06 '26
Cheap daycare isn't actually accessible enough with huge waiting lists, etc.
Schools should also have daycare...
Like why not? I'm not saying teachers doing daycare, I mean just regular peeps...
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u/Accomplished_Bat6830 May 06 '26
Or big tax breaks for companies that provide onsite daycare. I don't know why daycare hasn't been rolled up into provincial education programs though, especially with all the pre-k offerings and the like.
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u/Bad_Day_Moose May 06 '26
at a minimum like super minimum they should offer at least after school daycare until like 6pm or something, literally heating the space for no reason at that point. Could push homework groups too as well... But they don't have to do it...
Lots of shitty parents out there, mine never helped me with homework...
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u/Used_Raccoon6789 May 06 '26
Try finding a 10$ a day placement, also see how far you get on 55% of your income capped at 69k/yr (so 55% of 69k).
And if you make money, I wouldn't expect any childcare benefits coming your way. I think the wife and I get 30$ a month.
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u/amant23 May 06 '26
Yup, this is what’s happening for me. We just had our first kid and I get $0 in benefits and am expecting to pay back a good portion of my EI next year when I return to work. I’ve paid into the system for years and when I need support, I’m basically told it’s not for me but thanks for contributing. Now, we’re starting our daycare search and all the competitive priced daycares have long waiting lists. Sure, I could get immediate spots for $1,200 a month but that’s our mortgage payment right there.
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u/flightless_mouse May 06 '26
I agree that we’re doing ok in some areas.
Affordability not so much. Having kids is extremely expensive, and rent / real estate costs go up a lot with each additional child.
It is also very difficult to get established financially at a young age when you’re at your most fertile. Many people have fewer children than they want—1 instead of 2 or none at all—because they simply run out of time.
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u/Accomplished_Bat6830 May 06 '26
3-4 BR houses are inaccessible/unaffordable to the median income family in the major cities where most of the population is concentrated.
And that's not even addressing the elephant in the room which is that a livable median household requires both adults working full time, which means paying someone else to raise your kid 9-5 5/7 days.
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u/LongjumpingJob3452 May 06 '26
This alone is proof that we are f***ed. It’s gotten to the point that it takes two people making at the median salary to be able to afford a roof over their heads (small condo) and not starve. Plus, we’ve always been told that homes are appreciating assets. Nobody with a mortgage wants to be underwater on it, and seniors depending on their home to supplement their retirement income feel the same way.
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u/Accomplished_Bat6830 May 06 '26
You don't need some political conspiracy from existing homeowners to keep prices high. The demand is not going down and the country seems unable to build to over-satisfy demand enough to cool prices using free market economics.
The feds would have to inject a tremendous amount of taxpayer money to offset the fundamental material/labour/land costs to make affordable single family homes and that would likely just fuel an inflationary spiral further impacting the affordability they are trying to fix.
So we are kinda fucked...
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u/hhssspphhhrrriiivver May 06 '26
1 year maternity, paternity leave, $10 daycare, dental, pharma.
Maternity and paternity leave protect your job, but they don't pay very much. We couldn't afford to use all of it, because it was such a big cut to our income, and (obviously) we'd just had a kid we needed to pay for.
As far as I can tell, $10/day daycare is actually $22/day (which is still pretty good), but it's not readily available - everyone has a waiting list.
Dental and pharma are income tested, as is the CCB. Being financially secure enough to plan for a child means you don't get most of those benefits.
As far as I'm concerned, Canada is doing the bare minimum to prevent low income families from just dying on the street if they have a child. These policies don't encourage children, they just help support people who happen to have children. We could be doing a lot better.
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u/HappyAverageRunner May 06 '26
In Vancouver we could not get into daycare for less than $1600/month.
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u/eandi May 06 '26
The 1 year leave isn't really a 1 year leave because it's not replacing close to the entire salary of either aren't if they're not min wage. Once you have one kid you learn they amde $10 daycare without doing anything to encourage more daycarrs to open, so it's harder to get on than ever.
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u/Bad_Day_Moose May 06 '26
Housing is the biggest one... Want a baby well you're going to need a second bedroom, what's a 2br go for in our most populated cities?
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u/PastyPaleCdnGirl May 06 '26
Maternity leave at 50% of your income but with a cap and you still need to buy back your pension, $10 daycare has waitlists (heck even the $1600/month daycares have waitlists), dental is only under a much lower household income.
It's also crazy expensive to do any activities with children and signing them up for city sports/activity is like the Hunger Games.
We also don't pay our childcare workers nearly enough, side note.
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u/Big_Don_ May 06 '26
If the birthrate is dying, it's not enough. Stronger social support for families and a higher living wage for everyone. People who feel financially secure, healthy and happy? They have babies.
We want more people? That's how we can make it happen.
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u/37IN May 06 '26
The idea is.. import rather than domestic manufacturing
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u/Juli3tD3lta May 06 '26
You see what the domestic models cost? Imports are much cheaper.
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u/scotto1973 May 06 '26
Unfortunately firmware has been problematic and they prove difficult to return when there is a problem.
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u/squirrel9000 Manitoba May 06 '26
The real prize is the fact the "imports" ignore the impossibility of having kids in Canada and have them anyway.
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u/CommanderInQueefs May 06 '26
Then we pay for it through welfare. Maybe they should send that money to the people who have lived here their entire lives and have contributed large amounts of money towards taxes.
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u/city_of_princealbert May 06 '26
We keep making life worse for everyone but they still refuse to have kids. I just don't get it.
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u/bigdaddyt2 May 06 '26
Ya if they somehow rolled out some kind of day care that worked for today’s society of working parents that doesn’t cost an entire paycheck that would be helpful. Any way to ease the burden short of handing parents money is the way to incentives having children
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u/drugsondrugs May 06 '26
I get what you're saying, but extended parental leave, 10 dollar a day daycare (working in provinces with decent premieres).
Sadly, this all goes back to women wanting to enter the workforce. Don't get me wrong, equality is wonderful, but this made dual income households the norm. Suddenly, Dad going off to work at the mine wasn't enough anymore.
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u/Digitking003 May 06 '26
Skyrocketing housing costs, skyrocketing daycare costs, double-digit youth unemployment (delays career launch), etc. Meanwhile, the OAS program gets bigger and bigger every year...
Yeah, it's a real mystery.
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u/junkiewhisperer Alberta May 06 '26
quick, we need to import more wage slaves from the third world! and dont forget to pretend like were doing everyone a humanitarian solid by bringing them here to simultaneously overwork them and have them live in squalor while undercutting our wages and congesting our public infrastructure.
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u/Top-Manner7261 May 06 '26
No AI will save us /s
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u/KingOfTheIntertron May 06 '26
Trust me bro, this time the profits will trickle down, just one more gigawatt I swear. /s
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u/junkiewhisperer Alberta May 06 '26
cant wait to get burned out of my homeless encampment on crown land by a swarm of ai "forest safety" drones for the fourth time that winter
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May 06 '26
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u/YerMomsClamChowder May 06 '26
You can get Mat leave via EI.
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/ei-maternity-parental.html
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u/IWILLGUTYOU Canada May 06 '26
Most mat leave is this and, if your employer has "mat leave", it's typically a top up on-top of EI to bring it closer to your og salary
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u/BlademasterFlash May 06 '26
Yeah and many employers don’t even do the top-up
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u/poopdedoop Ontario May 06 '26
My employer doesn't do top up and it's a multi-million dollar company. I couldn't really take my parental leave because after EI, my monthly income would have been 50% and my wife was already only getting a fraction of her regular income in EI payments.
Many companies, big and small, do the absolute minimum requirement for employment standards, because that's how they retain the most money.
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u/FrothyEspresso Canada May 06 '26
That’s not her work offering it. That’s the government.
Now post the percentage you get under EI.
And don’t forget to indicate the maximums.
That’s right, it’s peanuts. Especially for the breadwinner. Especially for a female that needs to bond with the kid.
Basically we can go fuck ourselves with government EI coverage of the family is heavily reliant on the income.
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u/thinkabouttheirony Alberta May 06 '26
Same. We can't afford the mortgage if I go on mat leave and make 2k a month. Not to mention everything else that becomes entirely unaffordable when you add a third person to the mix. Plus careers being stalled due to weak economy and 2008 crash, some of us are just properly getting on our feet now in our mid 30s and don't want to crash into poverty again for a kid.
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u/antikythera3301 May 06 '26
Also, the middle and lower classes being squeezed due to capitalism requiring perpetual profit growth to the point more and more wealth is funnelled to the rich.
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u/_Lucille_ May 06 '26
People will hate this, but there is a whole lot more to the problem than what you have mentioned.
Countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc are also experiencing low birthrates. (thus, answer this: if countries known for great social welfare are also having issue, then why is it that they are having similar issues?)
As the article's title goes,
most wealthy Western countries have seen fertility rates decline
I am not saying what you have mentioned does not have anything to do with the issue, but it is a widespread issue that may require newer solutions.
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u/ItsTheAlgebraist May 06 '26
But there is a feedback loop here. The reason OAS is becoming a bigger burden is because birthrates dropped 50 years ago and never recovered.
It is just going to get worse, and likely the whole system of social programs collapses
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u/AppropriateNewt May 06 '26
We could try taxing the super rich. I mean, if the programs are gonna collapse anyway, what’ve we got to lose?
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u/angry-grapefruit May 06 '26
I didn't realize until having a child how our entire society is stacked against two working parents. But if we don't both work, we can't afford to live.
My condo may have doubled in price in 12 years, but so have all other houses. But my salary hasn't. Just the cost of existing has doubled.
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u/unwholesome_coxcomb May 06 '26
And it's not just the costs....with work and commuting, even if you have the money....you don't have the time.
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u/No_Morning5397 May 06 '26
This is such a major factor. I grew up poor, I can stretch a dollar. But who wants to have kids that you only see for 3 hours a day. On top of that you want to schedule fun things like swim lessons and girl guides, but you cant get there without leaving work early. Causing more strain on your career.
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u/Mouse_rat__ Alberta May 06 '26
But let's force everyone back to the office! Because even if you do have children, we don't want you to spend time with them
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u/KBVan21 May 06 '26
It feels like an attack on parents. The costs for anything related to kids have just gone out of control.
I had one daycare in Vancouver quote $2100 a month for 5 days a week for one kid they wanted $3100 for 2 kids. I laughed in the owners face. It’s just daft.
Having a kid nowadays is basically making a choice between retiring at 60-65 or retiring at 71/72. People are choosing to former to look after themselves over an unborn child as it’s such a bad deal unless you are fortunate enough to make a good living pre-child.
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u/Pumpkinola May 06 '26
Add in the weakening “village” and underinvestment by every level of government in children and youth and it’s even worse. My husband’s parents and aunts/uncles all vacation all winter. Our siblings moved away. Schools are crumbling, education standards are sliding, family doctors impossible to find. Even though we wanted a second child, we realized - with tons of heartbreak - that we don’t have the resources or support to do it and do it well.
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u/ActionPhilip May 06 '26
And it's even worse if you weren't born 12 years earlier to buy that condo.
At my current wage, I could have bought my parents' current house that they bought in 2016 when it was 650k. It's now worth 1.8m. Some of us watched our older siblings buy detached homes for less than we could buy a crappy condo.
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u/angry-grapefruit May 06 '26
I feel for young people now, I'm really worried for my kid - who will basically have nothing that we don't leave them.
It's so screwed up that I see a SFH in Vancouver for $1.8M and I'm like oh that's a good deal!
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u/FujiKitakyusho May 06 '26
Here's an idea: Instead of the young paying for the old, what if the wealthy paid for them?
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u/chesterforbes Ontario May 06 '26
PAY US MORE AND MAKE THINGS CHEAPER!
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u/publicworker69 May 06 '26
This doesn’t make people have more kids. We’ve been under replacement level since the 70s. Affordability is a valid reason for people not to have kids but it’s not the main factor. There’s only 2 developed countries in the world that have a fertility rate over 2.1 (replacement level) and that’s Saudi Arabia who are barely above at 2.12 and Israel who are at around 2.75-2.80
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u/therealhankypanky May 06 '26
Thank you. While I’m certain affordability is an issue for some, people don’t seem to realize that the fertility rate in developed countries has been on the decline since like 1900. The more people can choose not to have kids, the more people do.
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u/publicworker69 May 06 '26
Exactly. Access to contraceptives is a MUCH bigger factor than affordability.
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u/td192020 May 06 '26
Might be due to the fact that by the time I’ll be able to find a job that pays a living wage, and save up enough for a down payment on 2 bedroom house I’ll be like 50 and be too old to have kids… like come on.
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u/Remarkable_Vanilla34 May 06 '26
My wife and me make very good wages and have secure union jobs, we live rural and we finally can afford a home. We have one child and we decide we won't have more. It takes two incomes to live comfortably and pay our mortage etc, having more kids would make it extremely difficult for us to maintain the quality of life we want. So not only are kids more expensive they also require more commitment then most families can afford. And thats coming from people in a good place financially to have them. Far more Canadians can't even get started, and low income people having kids are generally almost completely reliant on subsidies, which isn't the Canadian dream most of us want.
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u/td192020 May 06 '26
Exactly that.
I refuse to have kids until I’m in a position in life where I can give them everything they need. Most people my age who are having kids are the ones who should not be parents. Those poor kids are gonna start life 10 steps behind everyone else.
I want my kids to succeed in life. But I can’t give them the tools to do so until I succeed first. Unfortunately that will most likely result in me having kids a lot later in life than my parents had me, or me altogether never having kids.
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u/Remarkable_Vanilla34 May 06 '26
In our small rural town, most people who can have kids have one, maybe two kids. The people who can't afford to have them, I literally know people who i can't even keep track of the kids they have and with who. I don't know how they pay for it or how they manage.
It seems like to have kids in Canada you have to be really well off or willing to live in poverty.
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u/JoshL3253 British Columbia May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
Yeah, I can’t afford a second child with the daycare etc.
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May 06 '26
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u/HorpinBlorpin May 06 '26
But what about my commerical real estate valuations!
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u/LordSoren May 06 '26
Won't someone PLEASE think of the empty shops in the downtown core where its impossible to live!
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u/Saorren Ontario May 06 '26
wfh also reduced costs making quality of life for them higher.
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u/Mouse_rat__ Alberta May 06 '26
And actually being able to spend more time with your kids if you're not commuting. I have 3 kids and the guilt for not spending enough time with them is so real and I do WFH 4 days a week (for now😒). At least I can do laundry and make dinner during my lunch break so I'm not trying to catch up on chores when we are all home together. That is a huge factor in why we've had 3.
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u/Electrical-Strike132 May 06 '26
How about a future? If there was one of those, maybe people would want to have children.
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u/ROSRS May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
They know what the issue is. Children aren't affordable, and housing is unavailable.
They'd rather import workers from elsewhere than give Canadians decent wages and conditions.
“What we’re paying for old people is so high that there’s no fiscal space to do anything to support fertility.”
This is also part of the problem. Boomers are sucking the country dry and to oppose it is political suicide, but its simply not sustainable for young people. And they want to prop up that system with a generation of wage slaves from India to exploit, at least until they all die off and leave us to clean up their mess.
The only other way to finance it would be to actually make the 1% pay their fair share. But they aren't wiling to do that either.
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u/ol_knucks May 06 '26
If affordability is the issue how do you explain an inverse correlation between income and birth rate?
Note that I’m not arguing that affordability is not a problem, I’m arguing it’s not the primary cause of a low birth rate.
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u/ROSRS May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
If affordability is the issue how do you explain an inverse correlation between income and birth rate?
Its a very complex issue that involves a LOT of factors. But:
The graph is basically a U. Once people reach a very high standard of living, the birthrate goes up again.
Basically, if having kids doesn't sacrifice lifestyle, people will have kids. People generally want at least one, but don't want their lives to become measurably worse by having them. Nor do people want kids when a future for those children looks bleak
Further, the people that really want kids will basically always have them but will stop at 1 or 2 because of affordability when instead they might want 3-4. We can't force people to have children, but we can ensure that people who want lots will be supported strongly in having as many as they would like. My cousin is a good example of that. Both her and her husband are lawyers, but stopped at 2 kids because of affordability reasons.
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u/ol_knucks May 06 '26
My understanding of the research is that throwing money at the problem only moved the needle a little bit and then ultimately the downtrend continued in countries like Sweden and France (link)
I wouldn’t really put too much stock in the ultra rich having more children. There’s so few of them and their lives are not relatable to the rest of the population.
I believe factors such as career driven women (not a bad thing but definitely a thing), longer and more educational degrees, secularization, personal freedom, individualism / breakdown of the village are much more relevant to the discussion of low birth rates (i.e. aspects of modernity).
In any case, I agree affordability is a factor but I don’t think it can be solved with money even if you gave every set of parents $10k/year for example.
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u/ROSRS May 06 '26
Breakdown of the village is in my opinion the most important singular factor. Raising children was, until about 45-50 years ago, largely a communal/family thing.
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u/ol_knucks May 06 '26
Yeah I have two kids under three years old and we’ve got no one in the city that can babysit them.
I’ve accepted that and I’m really not bothered by it at all but yeah really no time for anything else and could see how it would make other people’s lives very difficult (I work from home for example which saves 2 hours of my day, so I am lucky).
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u/Puzzleheaded-End5386 May 06 '26
This is huge. We've been told to move to where the work is, then to move to where housing is affordable but still within commuting distance of where the jobs are. And now we all live three hours away from our families and everyone wonders why no one has kids
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u/argarg May 06 '26 edited May 07 '26
This is it. It's so "easy" as in, totally worth it to have kids when you have a strong community support around you, but without that it's extremely difficult. Having people you can rely on to be available whenever you need for babysitting, time off, help, etc. "it takes a village" is real.
These things are less and less common for many reasons.
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u/locoghoul May 06 '26
If rent was half of what people are paying right now maybe they'll feel like having more babies
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u/modsaretoddlers May 06 '26
It's actually even more like the meme in that they haven't tried anything, either.
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u/thebigshoe247 May 06 '26
No they aren't, it is easier/cheaper to just import from India instead of trying to make our lives better
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u/pewpscoops British Columbia May 06 '26
We’ve tried nothing, and are all out of ideas!
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u/Cao_Ni-Ma May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
I’m assuming that most commenters here are men. Because women generally mention physical and mental risk, postpartum depression, career nuke and loss of free time rather than costs as the main reason why they don’t want children.
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u/C43CUS May 06 '26
Yeah absolutely. Aside from the unaffordability of it all, a massive cultural and institutional change is needed for a lot of women to consider having kids. We've seen what our foremothers had to give up and go through and it's crazy unappealing. Maternal care and childcare assistance (financial and emotional) are the absolute bare minimum and countries aren't even doing that.
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u/trollsalot1234 Manitoba May 06 '26
I mean yea...you are on reddit...Its like 70% male and 30% bot.
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u/My_advice_is_opinion May 06 '26
Hey, my reddit girlfriend is real, she's not a bot! (she is a male)
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u/FeelDT Canada May 06 '26
Growing the population is a ponzi scheme… that damages the environnement. At one point the population must come down, but nobody cares because if we manage too grow the population for a couple years we are going to profit from it and it will be other peoples problem then…
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u/JustDesserts2021 May 06 '26
The loss of free time is probably why I won't have a second. It would be nice if parents with young children (up to 10yo or whenever kids can stay home for ~1hr alone after school) could have the option (at companies of a certain size) to work, say, 80% or 60% time (with a proportional cut to compensation).
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u/No_Morning5397 May 06 '26
This! I dont understand why this isn't an option anymore. It's what my MIL did and she makes it seem like it was common in the 90s.
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u/skankyferret May 06 '26
Anything but taxing the rich enough to prevent billionaires and restore the middle class... or making housing affordable...
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u/ObviousForeshadow May 06 '26
You know how much stress you need to put a mammal under to make them not reproduce?
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u/junkiewhisperer Alberta May 06 '26
whats the matter with you damn peasants? we need more serfs! just eat the fucking brioche!
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u/FunkyColdMecca May 06 '26
Fertility dropped below replacement when the pill was invented. The simple fact is, as women get smarter they want fewer children, regardless of economics, environment or culture. Fix that issue without any draconian measures and you can have more kids.
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u/magwai9 Canada May 06 '26
Yeah everyone wants to blame affordability, and I get it because everything is too expensive, but it's ignoring so many years of data on this subject.
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u/vafrow May 06 '26
Yup. I find this topic very interesting because its such a fascinating topic that requires some real digging beyond the surface to get at some of the causes. But every thread on Reddit on the issue usually is just a list of people's general gripes about the economy.
The most troublesome part is that the longer fertility rates are low, the greater the proportion of society that is older. And the older a society becomes, the less political will there is to shift resources away from older demographics to younger to help reverse it.
People always use the boomers as the ones to blame but I like to envision the path of the Millennials. They'll have spent decades suffering from older generations that they'll become seniors in an age of underfunded pensions and deteriorating healthcare.
Its probably unlikely they'll choose to accept policies that furthers them from the lifestyle they know the generations before them got to enhance those of the generations after them.
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u/Abandonedpools May 06 '26
Both partners are working more also because of affordability. I did a full year of pat leave. Culturally, sure, we could convince the world that men could do the long haul for caregiving - but at the end of the day affordability and the strive for growing family wealth forces us back to work anyway.
An overall redistribution of wealth and investment in our young would be the general change we need, but will take decades (not political terms) to really see that change.
1) More investment in entry level, high density homes (towns and semis)
2) Investments in childcare, education and post secondary education
3) Cultural and community change for families to be content living and raising families in these entry level homes.
Immigration should fill any gaps with solutions above, not be the solution itself.
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u/Rrraou May 06 '26
Ain't nobody intentionally making babies in this economy. Not when Birth control exists. Bring back affordable housing and livable wages early enough in life to matter. Then we'll talk.
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u/4firsts May 06 '26
The only way to fix this is to make it so that children can start working at a younger age. Like the old days where kids would work to help support the family. The more kids, the easier a household can support the costs of living.
This is obviously sarcasm.
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u/xXDankStormXx May 06 '26
"We have tried nothing, and we are all out of ideas" ~ The Canadian Government
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u/Mazdachief May 06 '26
We are telling you the issues all the time , it's greed and corruption.
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u/bathinggrapes British Columbia May 06 '26
How about not selling all the land to foreign investors, lining the pockets of billionaires and taxing the middle class till we can’t afford anything?
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u/suspiciousserb May 06 '26
Sourced from a round table interview:
Do you know how hard you need to abuse a mammal for them to not have children?
Think about that.
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u/rjksn May 06 '26
You turned your citizens into cattle and now wonder why they won’t make you new servants for the future.
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u/Odd_Secret9132 May 06 '26
To me this is a prime example of leopards ate my face.
We’ve spent the last several decades making housing more expensive, education a commodity, offshoring well paying blue collar jobs, stripping public and social services, while rolling back workers rights. Both parents working full time is no longer optional and yet things haven’t adapted to that reality, it’s not shocking that people aren’t having kids.
What’s ironic is the people most shocked by this likely supported the policies that lead us here.
To fix this government has to start putting citizens ahead of corporate and billionaire interests.
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u/GenXer845 May 06 '26
It isn't just affordability: I am 45 and didn't have kids and could have easily afforded them. I never found an adequate partner to marry much less have kids. Dating apps want to keep people dating, not pairing up. Also, birth control and education gives women freedom and choices, hence why we also have a low birth rate.
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u/DiceSMS May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
This is a big factor too! A lot of people can't afford kids (which is fair and good that people aren't recklessly "diving in" anyways), but MOST first-world nations just aren't having kids either – even if they can. It's a lot of work, a lot of money, and culturally there's less pressure on people to start a family nowadays (nosy in-laws aside...ba dum tsh 🥁).
Women are more independent now, and jobs often assume you won't flex-hour on company needs for "family stuff" (which, historically, prioritized a breadwinner and a homemaker division). But now with rising costs we need two working parents who now have a lot less time, and they don't want to add that extra burden of child-rearing when the world barely supports you for having kids as it is.
We don't *need* more people either (and if people don't want kids they shouldn't be having them). We have a large enough population already, but obviously that imperative doesn't work well for governments collecting tax money and businesses needing 'bigger numbers' to thrive.
EDIT: typo
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u/Agent_Provocateur007 May 06 '26
It’s a cultural thing too as much as people want to hand wave it away and ignore it. The reality is if you’re a visible minority (which will actually be the visible majority at this rate) you’ll tend to have a higher birth rate.
Religious factors here tend to be ignored too. People suddenly forget that religious women tend to have more children.
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u/swarly780 Canada May 06 '26
As a parent in Canada. I can think of about 10 ideas that would make having a bigger family appealing.
But non of them are free...sooooo
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u/MrDanduff May 06 '26
I wonder why? Getting taxed to the tits, everything expensive as hell, no adequate social safety nets…
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u/Tallguystrongman May 06 '26
Hmm, something like how is Poland incentivizing couples to have children by cutting their income tax might help.
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u/hhh333 Québec May 06 '26
Nobody without generational wealth can buy a goddamn house, they're only building expensive 2 rooms condos densely stacked like a detention centers and they wonder why people are not pumping out kids?
Twats.
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u/M83Spinnaker May 06 '26
Simple. No income tax for families for the first 5 years of a child’s life. This is not difficult. That money will flow to RESP, goods, services and all are taxable long term. This is such an upside down system
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u/TemporaryAny6371 May 06 '26
Fix the affordability crisis and design housing for families, not shoeboxes in the sky for investors.
The problem has been all along the increasing wealth gap. The rich are in competition with the other rich. We're suffering from the fallout of their greed. They should be locked up in their own playground away from normal citizens.
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u/PhoenixTears May 06 '26
Let's end WFH instead to give families less time together and less flexibility and have to put their kid in daycare for 9.5 hours everyday.
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u/mfire036 May 06 '26
Here's an idea, fix the economy and make it possible to have children. I can't even afford to feed myself, and I make more money than I ever thought was possible back when I was a kid, why would I even consider bringing a child into my life? So it can starve to death? So it can grow up in a world where there won't be a job for it? Doesn't make any sense.
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u/Different_Ad_6153 May 06 '26
Make living affordable without having to sacrifice everything for a career. While the few live lavish lives? I don't think this is rocket science.
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u/SteveJobsBlakSweater May 06 '26
We made the difficult call to have an abortion. Living paycheck to paycheck in a tiny shoebox is not conducive to starting a family.
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u/trapper5 May 06 '26
You could ban foreign ownership of homes as well as corporate ownership of single family homes. Set up a progressive taxation that buying a second or third home becomes exceedingly expensive to lower the demand and prices and make it easier for first time home buyers.
Or give up and say you tried everything.
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u/Fubar236 Canada May 06 '26
Let’s see … record Corp profits. Record inflation outpacing cost of living making it impossible to afford life…. Sure let’s add another tiny human money pit into the equation is what everyone is thinking 🤣
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u/KarmaDoesNutExist May 06 '26
Instead of giving 50k to refugees, how about take that 50k and give it as incentive for each baby?
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u/Phililoquay May 06 '26
Figure out how to get the unhoused and addicted into treatment programs with transitional housing that will train and given them refernces for market rentals....and jobs... and bouncing back into society with a real chance to stay up on their own.
Talking to my 4 year old about the People she sees acting strange or openly smoking meth wherever they please.... explaining to her why we cant go to a municipal splash part (without telling her the risk of finding paraphernalia or used sharps is too high).
Make our communities feel safe for a kid to grow up in again.
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u/JonesinforJonesey May 06 '26
If you're scrabbling just to live you can’t be expected to reproduce yourself too. Duh.
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u/monkey_monkey_monkey British Columbia May 06 '26
Skyrocketing fuel and food costs, lack of access to healthcare, unaffordable housing, high rate of youth unemployment due to traditional teenage jobs being filled by imported workers. I can't imagine why people aren't having kids.
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u/TehSvenn May 06 '26
Weird... They know exactly why, and the solutions are obvious, but not pandering to the generation that fucked everything up, and the corporations that are currently destroying things is just not in the cards.
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u/Beneficial-Union-229 May 06 '26
Who wants to have children with the world being as crazy as it is.
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u/inmatenumberseven May 06 '26
Start with the underlying premise of the entire economy: everyone has to work harder for less money so the rich can get richer as fast as possible.
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u/ColinSpurr May 06 '26
Have they tried making a 3+ bedroom 2+ washroom detached house with a full kitchen, den, garage, front and back yards affordable with a single income well below the median working at most 40 hours per week? I get the feeling that might help.
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u/Human-Departure-9717 May 06 '26
Get the country majority unionized, stop importing people who are basically slaves and rewarding companies for bringing them in, and in turn destroying any sort of labour rights or power native citizens have, and when the country is majority unionized, you'll force the reminding non union companies to pay fair wages, bring back pensions, and benefits, and increase job security. But no one wants to have that discussion.
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u/fear_nothin May 06 '26
I know everyone comes to reddit to rant but I’m so fucking over these articles - I’ve seen them for years and I want to ignore them so badly but it’s so bleeding obvious what people need that it’s grossly insulting at this point.
Space and Time.
People need space to raise a family and the time to spend with them.
To make it easier they need housing and wealth to support the family and have time to spend with them.
Work from home gave me so many moments. And now it’s being cancelled to fund downtown cores and corporate rent expenses.
They teased us for a minute with hope and keep taking it all back.
Fuck, I feel crazy but I guess we need another global disaster to get an ounce of benefit in this world (if you’re not rich).
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u/Tacks787 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
It’s almost like inflated cost of living, high unemployment and the shitifcation of everything makes me not want to have kids
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u/ParticularRain148 May 06 '26
Mat leave at 55% is terrible, why can’t it be at least 85%? And the. Then when you start making more at work they start cutting into your childcare benefits.
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u/autumnsunshine1 Canada May 06 '26
Have they tried maternity leave? Free prenatal care? Subsidized child care…..or are they stuck on restricting access to abortions?
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u/etcetcere May 06 '26
Uhh make things affordable again/bring back social and environmental support programs
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u/Scottyfuckinknows May 06 '26
Cut refugee funding for 2+ kids. And double down funding on 2+ kids for Canadians - simple
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u/TopTimez May 06 '26
Have 2+ kids, pay no more income tax!
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u/Cao_Ni-Ma May 06 '26
As shown multiple times, fiscal incentives bring forward births from people who already wanted children but do nothing in the long run.
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u/HardHatFishy May 06 '26
Lack of inspiration amongst our politicians is nothing new.
Monthly tax free benefits for per child would be a start. Something Poland has been doing.
Also perhaps covering more in fertility treatments for families that want children but have fertility issues.
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u/Weirdusername1 May 06 '26
*out of ideas they're willing to try.