As reported by the Globe & Mail newspaper, data from Statistics Canada says that sometime in 2013, the number of Canadians aged 55 to 64 will outnumber those aged 15 to 24. When that happens, it would be the first time in Canadian history that people in their middle ages and early retirement years are more numerous that teens and early twenty-somethings.
One of the consequences of this demographic transition is a workforce where the younger generation of Canadians will have to stay in their jobs longer, or take on encore careers, to help share the cost of increased healthcare for Canada’s aging population.
“Relatively fewer young people means probably fewer children,” University of Alberta demographer Frank Trovato told the newspaper. “Fertility could decline even further, which could intensify the aging of the population.”
According to Prof. Trovato, most of the growth among Canada’s working-age population in the next 20 years will be as a result of immigration.
What do you think of Canada’s demographic changes? How would you propose to increase Canada’s working population?