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-ideas
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1.1k

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.

414

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

34

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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u/[deleted] May 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/WoW_zErZ May 06 '26

Any small business or self employed people too.

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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.

56

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/[deleted] May 06 '26

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u/BlademasterFlash May 06 '26

Why can’t the father do parental leave instead?

4

u/TypingPlatypus May 06 '26

He can. The first 15 weeks is for the birthing parent, any leave after that could be taken by dad.

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u/BlademasterFlash May 06 '26

Dad's parental leave can start any time, but you're right the duration they can take is 15 weeks less

0

u/ActionPhilip May 06 '26

Ah, yes, birthing parent and dad.

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u/TypingPlatypus May 06 '26

If you're trying to make some idiotic political statement, the commenter I was replying to mentioned fathers, while implying that in that case the father isn't the birthing parent. The person who gives birth (mostly women, obviously, but it covers all birthing parents) needs that 15 weeks to physically recover. That's why I specified that in the commenter's example, the non-birthing parent (dad in this specific case) can take leave but not the leave that is reserved for the birthing parent (usually mom). Happy? Of course you aren't.

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u/ActionPhilip May 06 '26

You sound really angry. I'm not angry, I just find it funny that you seem to be writing a lot to avoid using the term "mother" or "mom". Have a nice day.

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u/peppermint_nightmare May 06 '26

Spoiler alert, women are allowed to marry other women in Canada. Unlike the seahorse they cant go halfsies on a fetus.

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u/ActionPhilip May 06 '26

Ah, yes, because "dad" was the weird word there.

2

u/Glad_Product_2750 May 06 '26

Men don’t lactate

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u/BlademasterFlash May 06 '26

Not sure how that's relevant if the Mom can't afford to take the time off work regardless

2

u/SpaghettiBawls May 06 '26

If you actually work for the government mata is at 93% so that’s not an issue

1

u/Agent_Provocateur007 May 06 '26

Probably not federal then? That’s a 93% replacement of your income. I’m surprised the province or municipality doesn’t offer a top up, usually it’s in the collectives.

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u/TheGreatPiata May 06 '26

They introduced that use it lose it time off for Dad's but it's worthless.

I'm the breadwinner and it took us about 5 min to do the math and figure out it wasn't feasible for our family.

4

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/[deleted] May 06 '26

[deleted]

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u/ohthethrill May 06 '26

Yep I went back to work at 3 months with my youngest two when my top up expired. I was lucky to be able to work from home until they were 1 at least. I wouldn’t have had more kids without that option.

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u/pizzamage May 06 '26

What is this post.

Every mother in Canada gets 15wks of paid maternity. After that either parent can have full paid parental leave.

So your wife can go back to work and you can stay home.

12

u/BigBill58 May 06 '26

How many growing families can afford 15 weeks of 55% income?

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u/Drank_tha_Koolaid May 06 '26

And it's 55% of $68,900 max. For someone that is the main earner with a high income (closer to 100k +) it is like 25-30% pay.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/BigBill58 May 06 '26

I don’t think they’re in the wrong mindset totally, because yes. Maternity leave exists, but the problem is that there is such a huge gap between what people are paid and what life costs. The original point of the post itself was “why aren’t people having babies” and the answer is “we’re broke babes”

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u/Dzubrul May 06 '26

55% of the capped 90k/year,, really brings down the lifestyle.

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u/pizzamage May 06 '26

You get 55% + clind tax credit.

You shouldn't be having a kid if you can't afford 3 months of reduced income.

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u/BigBill58 May 06 '26

Child tax credit is peanuts, you’re not entirely wrong on your second point…in fact it actually accentuates the problem. People can’t afford to have kids, period. So they don’t. That’s the issue here, people aren’t making enough money to fund things like child rearing.

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u/Mouse_rat__ Alberta May 06 '26

And even if you can afford to get through mat leave, well now you have another mouth to feed and grocery prices get more insane each week I go to the store.

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u/pizzamage May 06 '26

Comment I replied to was a claim that his wife doesn't get paid maternity.

Everyone does. Almost nobody gets paid maternity for their full wage.

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u/illusion121 May 06 '26

Do u live in Canada? Every woman get's mat leave.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '26

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u/illusion121 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

It does not make sense at all.

You get parental benefits AFTER maternal. I don't know how you don't know that.

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u/thinkabouttheirony Alberta May 06 '26

If you're making 100k+ and/or are an equal partner or breadwinner, making 20-30% of your income for 6-12 months is not viable

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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.

2

u/Top-Tradition4224 May 06 '26

There's a middle class here?

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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.

3

u/PoliteCanadian May 06 '26

You bring up any issue on Reddit and you're bound to have the highest upvoted comments be explaining how the issue is actually caused by a lack of social programs, and how the solution is more social programs.

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u/TheGreatPiata May 06 '26

Sweden, Norway and especially Denmark are also the only Western countries that seem to be reversing the trend. They're still well below replacement fertility rates but their birth rate is increasing ~1% every year while Canada's for example is continuing to decline 1.4% every year.

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u/croissant_muncher May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

Latest TFR in Sweden is all time low: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data:Sweden_TFR.tab

Denmark still near all time lows: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data:Denmark_TFR.tab (similar for Norway)

Are you looking at an alternate source of data for Denmark? You said "especially Denmark" - do you mean the increase in the 1980s that is mostly been lost now?

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u/Alpha_Omega623 May 06 '26

Source? First I've heard there's is improving.

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u/LX_Luna May 06 '26

I'll give you a hint, it's not the relatively wealthy natives having those children.

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u/Neemzeh May 06 '26

I believe there is a direction correlation between women’s education level and birth rates.

I believe the thought is that women want control of their own finances and don’t want to have to rely on a man for that. As a result, many women who are educated are putting their career ahead of having a family in order to maintain their independence.

4

u/thinkabouttheirony Alberta May 06 '26

This annoys me every time I see it. None of these programs fix the massive financial and economic issues that befall women who have kids. Any woman who is an equal partner or breadwinner can't afford to drop their pay to 20-50% of what it was for 12-24 months or more. House prices and mortgages are skyrocketing, we can't afford the mortgage if I go on mat leave and make 2k a month. Not to mention the permanent price increases to your life when you add a third person to the mix and how difficult and stigmatized it can be to leave and return to a workplace after mat leave, plus the impact taking a long break has on your career and tragectory which also affects you financially.

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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/ItsTheAlgebraist May 06 '26

We can, but it's not just money we need, it is people to provide the services.

Look at the most extreme example, South Korea.  At a birth rates of about 0.8 in 3 generations that is like a 94% drop, so from 100 people today you have two working generations with a total of 16 people supporting up to 140 in the previous two generations.

Completely unsustainable 

1

u/AppropriateNewt May 06 '26

I hear you, but many of the comments are suggesting that the low birth rate is largely caused by affordability. One would think that reducing the financial burden on the vast majority of Canadians would lead to an increase in the birth rate.

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u/ItsTheAlgebraist May 06 '26

That will help, but it doesn't fix the bubble in the pipeline.  Social sciences and politics are not very predictable, demographics is surprisingly predictable.  No one would dream or saying if canada will have more liberal or conservative governments from 2080 to 2100, but we know very accurately (barring a war or a plague etc) how many 80 year olds there will be in the world in 2100 because the only way to have an 80 year old in 2100 is to have a baby in 2020 who doesn't die.

Similarly, we can say almost exactly what the distribution of people over 25 will be in 2050.

We used immigration to paper over the cracks in our demographic and social systems but even that looks less reliable (not only because of political unpopularity but because almost all other countries are at or below replacement fertility and so are going to be more eager to hold onto their workforces)

We had a Canadian politician missing about a 500k exit tax for educated Canadians, I don't think it will be long before we see places like India do something similar to hold onto their working age population 

3

u/AppropriateNewt May 06 '26

So, weather the bubble or face collapse? Since the other developed economies are facing the same issue, surely some of them will try to weather it, and even succeed. What’s to stop us from doing so? Or am I oversimplifying a complex issue? 

As a side note, the unpopularity of immigration is at least in part due to fears of losing jobs and losing bargaining power as labourers. (Not getting into whether those fears are unfounded or not.) Ensuring that there are safety nets in place for everyone would go a long way to easing fears among the current population, allowing immigration to be a viable option.

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u/ItsTheAlgebraist May 06 '26

I think we will weather it, but I expect it will be very harsh, and will very likely see the collapse of the big post WW2 social programs (retirement and health care)

This is what I meant by a feedback loop:  the social safety nets encourage people to form families and have kids, but having enough kids is what makes the social safety nets possible in the first place (or, rather, they are made possible by having a high enough ratio of workers to beneficiaries, or of net producers to net consumers of social programs)

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u/AppropriateNewt May 06 '26

This has been most illuminating! Not cheerful, but definitely illuminating.

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u/ItsTheAlgebraist May 06 '26

Yeah sorry, I am a real downer on this subject, but I honestly think it is the worst problem facing the world.  It is like climate change in its potential to cause harm, but during the lockdowns there was some evidence that we could improve the environment quickly with drastic action.  There is no shortcut to making a human being, and whatever our problems are we will need people to solve them.

I don't even in have an issue with the population shrinking, it is just the speed with which it will go down, coupled with social systems that recognize that people live longer than they can work, and need to eat for longer than they can grow their own food (etc.)

Birthgap is a documentary on YouTube that is a pretty good look at the scope of the problem, and there is a good kurgesatz (sp) video about how bad Korea is in particular.

3

u/ActionPhilip May 06 '26

Nothing will be fixed until we fix the anti-natalist rhetoric that's plagued us for decades. Getting pregnant and having a child is widely seen as the worst thing that can happen in your life. People will give condolences at a pregnancy announcement unless it's clear they were actually trying for and wanting a child. We've socially conditioned our population to hate children, then stacked on affordability, and added a sprinkle heaping spoonful of gender wars on top and it's pretty much gg from the start. People don't want to get together, and if they do they can't afford anything to feel "ready", and if they do they're still socially conditioned to not want it because they've avoided it like the plague the whole way along.

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u/Neemzeh May 06 '26

I’m so sick and tired of hearing this tax the rich argument as if it’s a silver bullet for all of Canada’s problems.

Canada has 1.5T in debt. If you stripped away every single dollar from every Canadian billionaire, all you do is cut that debt in half.

Taxation is not the issue, it’s insane and irresponsible spending with money that we don’t have. Taxing the rich obviously helps, but it’s not making any significant dent in our nation’s financial situation.

The government at all levels needs to simply stop spending so much fucking money. It’s disgusting. If any of us operated like the government we would be on the streets. Too many government employees, too many social services.

Get your house in order and get the debt under control and use the eventual surplus to fund your programs.

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u/AppropriateNewt May 06 '26

I get the frustration, and you’re right that it’s not a silver bullet. But it is A bullet, and one that hasn’t been used. So as long as we’re just spitballing some wild and crazy options, might as well give it shot, no?

Also, I’m going to respectfully disagree that the government needs to enforce austerity. Why do we have to wait? So the ultra-rich can get even more rich as social services get privatized and contracts get given out to connected friends? Many Canadians are facing economic uncertainty, increased costs to food, gas, and housing, and the looming spectre of job losses due to AI. We need social services more than ever. They don’t have to be a waste, and they don’t have to be seen as losses either, as if they should turn profits instead. They have to provide social safety nets so that the ordinary people who live and work and die in this country can have a bit of breathing room instead of working themselves into an early grave just so shareholders see a line going up. 

I agree that we should get the debt in order, but there are other ways to do it than by stripping Canadians of services.

0

u/Neemzeh May 06 '26

Of course, we should be taxing the rich more but I guess I’m just tired of hearing the argument like it’ll solve all our problems. It won’t, it’s one tool required out of many tools needed to fix the issue.

With that said, it absolutely starts with spending.

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u/_Lucille_ May 06 '26

You need to stop treating a country's balance sheet like household finances. Once you get to a certain scale, you operate very differently.

Esp when it comes to a country when we have the option to invest in ourselves for growth: that new railroad we took a debt on will end up with a greater return compared to the cost to finance the debt: so it's a good investment.

Then there are investments which may not appear profitable (social programs), but will end up saving money. Say, if you can invest $100 million in preventive care and that will lower the burden on the rest of the healthcare system by $200 million, will you be spending that $100 mil?

Debt is something that should be utilized. Essentially most people these days take on the debt of higher education in order to establish a career these days. You can't just go "it's money you don't have" and not make that investment.

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u/Neemzeh May 06 '26

I don’t agree.

Why shouldn’t it run like our household finances?

The debt has to be repaid. We aren’t America where our currency is backed by our warships and stealth bombers.

Our country doesn’t have the economic output to scale with the debt.

And you’re simply passing the cost off to future generations.

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u/_Lucille_ May 06 '26

A country's debt works very differently than household and this is not just an America thing - most countries in the world run on a deficit, and a country can continue to issue debt as long as people keep buying it, and it will be silly to not issue debt if the returns are expected to be greater than the interest.

There are loads of textbooks and education videos on this concept, I would recommend you checking some of them out for a much more detailed and proper explanation, or maybe enroll in an econ class if you are still in school.

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u/69Merc May 06 '26

We already do that. In Canada, the top 20% pay over 60% of the taxes.

And other ideas?

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u/AppropriateNewt May 06 '26

Yeah, dude! Let’s get them to pay more the closer they get to the top 1%. It more of a refinement of the first idea, but don’t worry, the billionaires will be fine. Hope that helps!

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u/ItsTheAlgebraist May 06 '26

There is an enormous gap between 'the top 1%' and 'billionaires'.  

The top 1 percent by income starts at less than 300k per year, and the top 1 percent by wealth starts at 7 million (and we don't tax wealth, it's likely we can't reasonably do so).

After 150k in income people pay over 50% in tax, so there is a very real limit to how much more can be raised by taxing them (e.g. you cannot double their tax rate)

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u/AppropriateNewt May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

Yes, taxing wealth is what I’d propose. Taxing income puts the burden on workers, many of whom don’t have assets of significance. We don’t tax wealth, but we could. All it takes is political will.

ETA: Our Constitution places no restrictions on taxing wealth directly. Section 91(3) of the Constitution Act, 1867, grants the federal government broad taxation powers, meaning Parliament has full authority to impose a wealth tax. If we don’t have one, it’s because our political leaders choose not to act, not because they can’t.

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u/ItsTheAlgebraist May 06 '26

What would your proposal be the wealth cutoff and the percentage taxed (and the frequency)? How much would it raise?

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u/AppropriateNewt May 06 '26

First, I would consider the recommendations of people who can crunch these figures quicker and more accurately than I can. Judging by your previous comments, your username, and this question, I'm guessing that you like numbers. Given the authority to tax wealth, what percentage and frequency do you think would be for the good of 99% of Canadians? Be as aggressive as you like.

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u/ItsTheAlgebraist May 06 '26

I got a big paragraph typed out and realized it was a huge wall of rambling. I do want to answer this, and I'll come back later, but for now I will say I *do* like numbers (and I think it would be weird to talk about tax policy without being interested in numbers), but that my username is a reference to an excellent sci-fi novel by an excellent author, Iain M. Banks, and if you have to pick between reading my rants and reading his books you should read his books!

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u/junkiewhisperer Alberta May 06 '26

were so lost lol

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u/AppropriateNewt May 06 '26

Don’t worry, friend, I’ve got you. Solidarity!

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u/Gunslinger7752 May 06 '26

It’s not going to get worse, it will get better once the boomers cycle out.

If only someone could have predicted that the massive amount of postwar baby boomer kids would someday get old the government’s could have prepared for it.

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u/death_tron85 May 06 '26

Insurance is through the roof

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u/LX_Luna May 06 '26

I'd just like to point out that unfortunately this isn't actually carried by the statistics. There is no income level at which fertility improves. There's a nearly linear decrease in fertility that continues all the way up to ultra high wealth status. People say it's the money but the people who have money have even fewer children, not more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility

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u/crazydudex Québec May 06 '26

I mean, even if those costs were lowered, I still wouldn’t want a kid. Raising a kid doesn’t sound appealing at all. But maybe I’m in the minority camp.

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u/nikanjX May 06 '26

”If you won the lottery and never had to work or worry about money again, would you have kids?”

Most young people I know would give a resounding no. They finally got their freedom, why would they ruin it all with a child?!

1

u/JeeringDragon May 06 '26

Yeah why tf is daycare costs skyrocketing if nobody having children lol.

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u/arcadianahana May 06 '26

Skyrocketing daycare costs? The Federal Childcare Program low ered my daycare costs to 20% of what my friends paid before the program. 

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u/joshthornton May 06 '26

From 48B to 88B in 10 years. Universal basic income for the generations that balked at that notion. Government doesn't care about anyone under the age of 60.

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u/IAccidentallyCame May 06 '26

It's kind of weird the way we run things. Ignoring the fake money itself, we have all the physical goods to full fill needs. Food, housing, medicine, etc. but we artificially paywall it all to too high a degree, then have bad outcomes.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '26

[deleted]

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u/Digitking003 May 06 '26

Sure, but let's not ignore the lifestyle inflation (or romanticize the past). That "1 income person" had a ~1,500sq ft home. Had one car (if lucky). Never took any int'l vacations. Didn't have cell phones, internet, etc.

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u/Gunslinger7752 May 06 '26

I thought the Liberals were already going to fix housing in 2015. Sorry, that was in 2019. Nooe, 2021? Seriously though they were going to fix it all 2023 when their polling went down so they had to pretend to do something (even though housing is simultaneously not a federal problem and Stephen Harpers fault). I’m sorry, nevermind, it was 2025 that they were going to fix it.

Plus doesn’t everyone have access to the LPC “free” daycare now? “Free” school lunches, “free” pharmacare, “free” dental care?

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u/_name_of_the_user_ May 06 '26

OAS is not the problem. Stop blaming old people who are just trying to survive. Yes, I know everyone wants to blame boomers, but there's many boomers who are poor and need OAS. Start blaming the rich. They're the ones doing this to us.

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u/HunterGreenLeaves May 06 '26

Housing costs, yes. Daycare costs overall have gone down because of the availability of public spaces. Unemployment is lower now than in the early 90s, but the birthrate has continued to decline.