Alberta: a young province compared to the Canadian average

It’s really a young population, it’s very interesting when you compare it with the rest of Canada, Alberta is really the province of the youngest at this levelexplains the analyst at the Demography Center of Statistics Canada, Arnault Bouchard-Santerre.

The average age of Canada is 41.9 years against 39 years for the province of Alberta. In addition, 19% of Alberta’s population is between the ages of 0 and 14. The Canadian average is rather 16.3%.

There are a lot of factors that go into it that there are a lot of 0 to 14 year olds in Alberta. We can think in particular of interprovincial immigration where Alberta is really making gains, more so in previous years, but these gains are still being feltadds Arnault Bouchard-Santerre.

Only Saskatchewan has a higher proportion of 0 to 14 year olds than Alberta among the Canadian provinces with 19.7%.

In the north, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut also have young populations with 20.6% and 32.8% respectively of their population under the age of 15. The Yukon is closer to the Canadian average with 17%.

Mr. Bouchard-Santerre indicates that the fertility rate is one of the factors explaining why Alberta’s population is generally younger than elsewhere in the country.

The fertility index [en Alberta], thus the number of children per woman, is higher than the Canadian average. In Alberta, it’s around 1.5, while in Canada it’s around 1.4 children per woman. So there are definitely gains in terms of fertility in Alberta compared to the other provinces.

According to Statistics Canada, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan are the only Canadian provinces where the number of children still exceeds that of people aged 65 and over.

Alberta still has more children under 15 than people over 65, says Arnault Bouchard-Santerre, an analyst at Statistics Canada’s Center for Demography.

Photo: Radio-Canada / Arnault Bouchard-Santerre

Alberta also has the highest gap between the proportion of children under 15 and the proportion of people aged 65 and over, at 4.2 percentage points. Those aged under 15 make up 19% of the population against 14.8% for the second group.

According to the federal agency’s population projections, the number of people aged 65 and over could exceed the number of children under 15 in 2031.

Urban centers that are young

Statistics Canada data also shows that Alberta’s large urban centers are made up of a high proportion of young people. Almost half of downtown Calgary’s population is young adults between the ages of 25 and 40 (49.1%). This is a highest among all major urban centers in the country .

” Half of Calgary’s downtown population is millennial, the highest in the country. Downtown Calgary is also one of the city centers with the fastest population growth between 2016 and 2021. »

Moreover, it is in Alberta and Saskatchewan that we find the highest proportions of children under the age of 15 in the major urban centers in Canada: Saskatoon (19.1%), Lethbridge (19%), Regina (19%), Edmonton (18.6%) and Calgary (18.5%).

18.6% of Edmonton’s population is under the age of 15 (archives).

Photo: Radio-Canada / David Bajer

The news comes amid reports suggesting Alberta is struggling to retain its youth. For his part, Arnault Bouchard-Santerre indicates that the numbers speak for themselves.

We can still see that urban regions remain a fortress for the youngest, and therefore millennials. If we look at the situation of Edmonton and Calgary, we see for example at the national level, so out of 41 urban areas in Canada, Edmonton ranks fourth in terms of 0 to 14 years and Calgary is sixth he specifies.