(LifeSiteNews) –– A recently released report from major Canadian think tank the Macdonald-Laurier Institute has painted a dire picture for Canada’s future, noting that the nation’s marriage and fertility rates are at extreme lows and have been on the steady decline for years.
According to the report, titled, “Decline and fall: Trends in family formation and fertility in Canada since 2001, the number of never-been-married Canadian adults has increased significantly since 2001, notably among those 45 years and younger.
The report notes that being in a single, unmarried state for those under 30 has become the norm and that because of a decline in marriage rates, Canada’s fertility rates have been impacted as well.
Also troubling is that amongst couples that do get married, many of them are choosing not to have kids, and those that do only have children only have one or two, which is not statistically sufficient in boosting Canada’s birth rate into positive territory.
The report released concerning findings relating to the decline of the traditional nuclear family, noting that the proportion of those aged 25-29 who “are in a couple dropped by 10.9 percentage points between 2001-2021.”
“Younger people are increasingly delaying marriage or common-law relationships into the late 30s or early 40s, with a growing fraction of people remaining single well into middle age,” notes the report.
Also, Canada’s fertility rate was only “1.3 in 2022, down from 1.6 in 2016,” it noted.
Canada’s fertility rate hit a record low of 1.33 children per woman in 2022. According to the data collected by Statistics Canada, this is the lowest fertility rate in the past century of record keeping. For context, in the same year, 97,211 Canadian babies were killed by abortion.
Instead of promoting marriage and child-bearing, the federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has instead resorted to using immigration to boost the population.
Governments should ‘worry’ about low birth rates
According to Dr. Tim Sargent, Deputy Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards, as noted in the Macdonald-Laurier Institute report, “Governments have every reason to worry.”
“The most important step in addressing these problems is perhaps… to recognize that the declining family formation, dropping marriage rates, and deteriorating fertility are serious problems facing our society, and they should be a top priority for policymakers in our country,” noted Sargent.
The Macdonald-Laurier Institute noted that Canada needs to ensure that there are “policies that make housing more affordable, use the tax system to incentivize family growth and the raising of children, subsidize daycare, and address the rising problem of credentialism by finding ways to reduce the formal educational requirements for jobs will allow young people to marry, afford a house, and have children earlier.”
Some positives from the report note that in Canada, despite the fact of the current Liberal government, there are “incredible benefits, both in terms of income and broader well-being” by starting a family.
“Adjusting for economies of scale (recognizing that couples require only 1.5 the income of a single person to have the same standard of living) the average single 35-45-year-old has only 49.2 percent of the income of their coupled counterpart,” notes the report.
“Single parent homes have approximately 35-40 percent less income per family member relative to a two-parent family.”
The report observed that married couples have a “significantly lower incidence of, and better survival rates from both cancer and cardiovascular disease, are less stressed, and are less likely to suffer from depression and other emotional pathologies.”
As reported by LifeSiteNews earlier this month, a survey showed that more and more Canadians are delaying the start of families due to the rising cost of living.
Also, instead of embracing new and current life, as taught by the Catholic Church, Trudeau’s government has instead promoted abortion, contraception, and euthanasia.
As noted by LifeSiteNews contributor Jonathon Van Maren, a recent scheme by the Trudeau Liberals to offer free contraception to all Canadians, will only worsen Canada’s current demographic crisis.
“Canada, like any nation, needs babies. This is an obvious, undeniable fact. It is also a truth that few seem capable of uttering,” wrote Van Maren.
“Justin Trudeau is passionate about abortion, and his government is one of the most aggressive proponents of feticide in the world. Canada’s taxpayers fund the killing of the very children we desperately need.”