Demography

New data from Statistics Canada is shedding light on the contribution of foreign-born mothers to annual Canadian births, which would have fallen significantly since 2010 without them, the agency says.

A new study released on Thursday found that in 2024, more than 40 per cent of babies were born to a mother who themselves was not born in Canada. That’s compared to just 22.5 per cent in 1997, according to StatCan.

The study also found that in 2024, 57 per cent of new mothers over the age of 40 were foreign born.

The decline in fertility, which began in the 1960s, coincided with societal change including rising divorce rates and legalized abortion.

Fertility rates have plummeted worldwide over the past six decades, leading experts to warn of dire consequences as the downward trend continues.

Continued low fertility rates will cause “a gradual implosion of the world’s economy as the population ages and dies,” Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, told The Epoch Times in an email. Mosher is an expert on population control, demography, and China.

“This will not occur overnight, of course, but once it is well underway it will be difficult, if not impossible, to reverse course,” he said.

Make America Pregnant Again. A Financial Times article slaps that label on recent pro-family programs announced by the US government. The Trump administration is considering $5,000 cash baby bonuses for every American new mother and a National Medal of Motherhood for women having 6 or more children.

The US is not alone these days in wanting to encourage more babies. Russia and South Korea now pay baby bonuses to new mothers. Hungary’s government says it will exempt mothers of three children from paying income tax. And politicians in India are boldly telling young couples to have three children.

Two graphs in recent weeks have highlighted the intersection of demographics and party politics. The first shows that in both the United States and across the developed world, birth rates are falling much faster among progressives than among conservatives. This isn’t a small or marginal difference. The data show that progressive households are increasingly postponing or forgoing children altogether, while conservative households are having children at rates closer to the replacement birth rate. Over time, these differences compound and could lead to deep consequences for culture, economics, and politics.

EISENHÜTTENSTADT, Germany — Back behind the Iron Curtain, when this town 75 miles southeast of Berlin was called Stalinstadt, it was meant to be a blueprint for utopian life in Communist East Germany — a model socialist city built around a steelworks.

Today, East Germany is no longer its own country and, despite the gaps slowly closing, residents of the region lag behind the West in virtually every category, including life expectancy, wealth, employment and population.

So, as Germany celebrates the 35th anniversary of reunification on Friday, Eisenhüttenstadt — “Ironworks City” — has become a different kind of model: one of several towns experimenting with a strategy to repopulate and attract skilled workers called Probewohnen, or trial living.

It’s no secret that the West is increasingly hostile to children. Long think-pieces are written about the ethics of taking babies on planes. A rambunctious toddler is likely to earn disapproving glares in even the most casual cafés and restaurants. Child-free weddings are more common than ever before. The idea that peace and quiet must be preserved above all else—even at the cost of creating new human beings—is now prevalent. Fulfilling the most basic function of human biology has become a weirdly revolutionary act.

To boost birth rates, we need to address the narratives that demean family life.

Over the past few decades, birth rates have plummeted in the West. A recent Financial Times article reported that the decline in fertility has been much steeper among progressives than conservatives.

The fertility drop began in the 1960s. While some attribute it to “climate anxiety” or economic pressures, cultural changes offer a better explanation.

An NBC poll found this week that male Donald Trump voters under the age of 30 rank “having children” first among 13 options when asked what is most important to their “personal definition of success”. Female Kamala Harris voters, by contrast, put “having children” in 12th place. Zoomer women were less likely than their male counterparts to rank children as important, but the bigger difference was between Trump and Harris voters.