Here's why Alberta's fertility rate is above the national average

Canada's birth rate fell in 2022 to its lowest point since Statistics Canada started monitoring it more than a century ago.

In 2022, on average, 1.33 children were born for every woman in the country.

That is well below the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population.

University of Calgary sociologist Jenny Godley says there are a number of factors contributing to the decline.

"The continued uncertainty around not just health and the environment but also economic uncertainty right now, I think, is a big driver for people to delay having children," Godley said.

"So when women have children later in life, absolutely, it limits the number of children women will have."

In a release titled Fertility in Canada 1921 to 2022, Statistics Canada notes, "The average age of mothers at childbirth has been increasing without interruption for nearly five decades, from 26.7 years in 1976 to 31.6 years in 2022."

The document also says, "The decrease in the total fertility rate (TFR) from 2021 to 2022 (-7.4 per cent) is the largest decrease since 1971 to 1972 (-7.6 per cent), at the height of the 'baby bust' that followed the baby boom (1946 to 1965)."

The fertility rate peaked in 1960, the year the birth control pill was legalized.

Fertility rates have been falling pretty much ever since.

Godley says that's not a coincidence.

"Women being able to choose when they have children has had a huge impact on fertility rates," Godley said.

Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, says Canada's low birth rate presents a looming public policy crisis.

"It is the single biggest issue we are going to be confronting this century," Bricker said.

"The effect is, first of all, rapid aging of the population followed by decline. So the global population is going to peak mid-century and start to decline after that and is going to get much older as we move along. And every day, we get less capable of being able to change that because the population gets older."

Bricker says it will affect every sector of our lives.

"It'll have dramatic implications for everything from pensions through to health care to even how we design our communities because increasingly, they're going to be populated by older and older and older people."

Alberta's TFR sits at 1.45, putting the province ahead of the national average.

Saskatchewan had the highest TFR at 1.69 and British Columbia had the lowest at 1.11.

Wednesday at the University of Calgary, students told CTV they had a variety of reasons to either forego or delay having children.

"I feel like I probably won't have kids," Meagan Zimmel said.

"I feel like I probably want to focus on my career and do lots of travel and I feel like that's kind of more difficult with kids."

For Mir Humayan, it's about economics.

"I mean, there's a whole cost-of-living crisis," Humayan said.

"People can't even afford to pay rent. How the hell are you supposed to have kids?"

Even those who say they will raise a family also say it will be delayed compared to previous generations.

"A few years back, I would have said kids are off the table, but now I'm a little more open to it," Inas El Mays said.

"But I would have to be financially stable before getting into the idea of having kids."

Godley says women often have to make a tough choice: work or have children.

"Some of that is changing with daycare becoming a little bit less expensive, but that's still very difficult for young families to afford to have one or two or even more children and still have two people working."

Bricker puts it more bluntly.

"It's really a question of culture. Do we have a culture that is friendly to natalism? Do we have a culture that promotes the having of children? And the answer is we do not," Bricker said.

"So that's the thing that has to change."

In a different document, titled Canada's population estimates: Record-high population growth in 2022, Statistics Canada notes that despite the record low TFR, immigration spurred Canada to record population growth in 2022.

However, Bricker says immigration is only a short-term solution

"You can certainly help the situation through immigration, but the problem with immigration, of course, is people don't come in at the age of zero. I mean, they already come in already pretty aged. And then the second thing is the places we're bringing people in from are also going through the same thing (declining TFR)," Bricker said.

"So we're going to run out of places where people are going to come from -- at least young people who can rebalance that population pyramid that we have that's getting older and older."