Are New Brunswickers a Dying Breed?
More Deaths Than Births A Worrying Trend
By Peter Ryan
In the last three months of 2005, the ground shifted in New Brunswick. For the first time, more people died (1967) than were born (1686).1
The news is troubling. If a population does not produce children in ample numbers, it withers away. No babies, no future.
How times have changed. According to a UNB report, in 1971-72 two and half-times as many people were born than died here.2 What’s happened since?
Deaths have increased though not drastically. Births, however, have plummeted. People aren’t having babies the way they used to.
The NB birth dearth is part of a phenomenon throughout the developed world that has demographers and social observers worried about what will happen if present trends are not reversed. We’ve gone from the Baby Boom of two generations ago to more like a Baby Bust today.
The news is hard to process: We’re used to hearing about overpopulation, not underpopulation. But a chorus about the latter is now rising from studies, books, and media articles. Just consider a couple titles:
- “The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It”3
- “It’s the Demography, Stupid: The Real Reason the West is in Danger of Extinction”4
In 2004 the United Nations warned of a trend toward population collapse in many countries. For a population to sustain itself a birthrate of 2.1 babies per woman are needed. All European Union nations are below that. Japan’s population is expected to fall from 127 to 97 million by 2050.5
Canada’s birthrate is 1.5 per woman. New Brunswick’s is 1.4.6 The combined impact of low birth rate and exodus of the young seeking work elsewhere has our population decreasing here.
In her recent article, “A Childless Culture,” reporter Anne Marie Owens portrayed the “double whammy” effect of birth decline and burgeoning numbers of seniors: “In a future Canada ...schools will be replaced by old-age homes ...playgrounds will become disused relics of the past.”7 With NB’s school system already down-sizing, the future has arrived.
The Baby Bust’s economic fall-out is hard to ignore. A BBC News report on Europe’s “Baby Blues” recently pointed out: “With fewer, younger workers to pay the health and pension bills of an elderly population, states face an unprecedented fiscal burden.”8 Similarly, the head of the UNB Policy Studies Centre has been quoted as warning, “In about 10 years our [NB] fiscal system is not going to make it.”9
The numbers are striking: In 1960 there were 10 Canadian workers for every senior. By 2025 it is expected to be 3:1.10 Which leads to the questions posed in this book title: “The Baby Bust. Who Will Do the Work? Who Will Pay the Taxes?”11
We all need to think more about this. This is a serious problem that, if not checked, will become a crisis impinging on our own future not to mention the world our children and grandchildren inherit.
What could be done to boost NB’s birthrate? Let’s consider some options:
1. Boost the economy. Many will say, if our economy were stronger, fewer young people would leave NB, they’d raise families here. A better economy would help, but would be no cure-all. The evidence is the better off people are, the smaller their families. It’s the rich nations whose birthrates have nose-dived.
2. Boost immigration. Worth considering. But attracting immigrants to a place like New Brunswick is difficult.
3. Baby bonuses. In 2002 Premier Lord mused about this. It might be worth a try. But in places where it’s been adopted, the uptick in birthrate seems minimal.
What else is there? Readers will not be surprised to hear me suggest:
4. Encourage childbirth rather than abortion. Consider this: If it were not for 100,000 plus abortions a year, Canada’s birthrate would be 2.0 rather than 1.5. Basically, replacement level!
New Brunswick has about 1,000 abortions a year. That’s like losing two schoolfuls of children a year. With most abortions for non-medical reasons, should we not do more to support pregnant mothers to give birth?
How can we do that?
(a) Do not fund private clinics. Public funding facilitates abortion, decreases the birthrate.
(b) Restrict abortion funding at public hospitals. If the NB Medicare ban on medically unnecessary abortions were more strictly enforced, many children would be born.
(c) Fund pregnancy support programs. The province’s ten private programs could do vastly more with public funding.
(d) Greater emphasis on adoption. With long lists of couples waiting to adopt, no baby is unwanted. NB has significant institutional barriers to adoption.
(e) Educate children. The more young people understand the facts about abortion, the less they choose it.
(f) Enact common-sense legislative measures - like informed consent (for women considering abortion) - that have reduced U.S. abortion rates.
A diversity of initiatives are needed to address our province’s underpopulation problem. It’s time to put all reasonable options on the table. Otherwise, as former finance minister Ralph Goodale said about Canada as a whole, we have “a demographic time bomb” on our hands.12
Here’s to new life in New Brunswick.
Peter Ryan is executive director of the New Brunswick Right to Life Association. He and his wife Suzie have seven children.
ENDNOTES
1. “NB Deaths Outnumber Births,” Times & Transcript 29 March 2006.
2. Sarah McGinnis, “Workforce Crisis Looms Without Immigrants,” Telegraph-Journal 6 Dec. 2004.
3. Phillip Longman, (New York: Basic Books, 2004).
4. Mark Steyn, in New Criterion Jan. 2006
5. Neil Reynolds, “Is Producing Babies Key to Productivity?” Globe and Mail 20 July 2005; Reuters 26 April 2006 reported in “Lots of Data Point to Fewer Births,” Zenit.org 6 May 2006.
6. “Births / 2003,” Statistics Canada as reported in The Daily 12 July 2005.
7. The National Post 18 Feb. 2006.
8. BBC News 27 March 2006.
9. Joe Rugeri, in Sarah McGinnis, op. cit.
10. Peter Robb, “The Implications of a Sinking Birth Rate,” The Windsor Star 5 May 2006.
11. Fred R. Harris, ed. (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005).
12. In Neil Reynolds, op. cit.
