More than two in five city-dwellers were between age 25 and 40, according to the 2021 census results.

And millennials increased countrywide by 8.6 per cent, despite the impacts of COVID-19 on immigration, says the data agency.

For the very first time, millennials in Toronto have edged out baby boomers, new census data shows — with more than two in five city-dwellers last year being between age 25 and 40.

It’s a trend that’s playing out in cities across the country; millennials are 23.3 per cent of Canada’s six largest urban centers — Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa-Gatineau, Calgary and Edmonton. That squeaks them ahead of baby boomers, who represent 22.3 per cent of those populations.

Calgary and Edmonton had already been seeing their younger generations dominate population counts, the 2021 census data bolstering that evidence with half of Calgary’s population found to be millennial-aged. However, the data released Wednesday marks a shift for Toronto, as well as Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa-Gatineau. It’s a new trend that, Statistics Canada says, comes with specific infrastructure needs from daycare to schools and transit.

“These findings are due in part to the strong economic vitality of large urban centers and the contribution of immigration, which is concentrated in these areas and tends to increase the number of millennials,” the agency wrote. Between 2016 and 2021, the millennial population countrywide increased by 8.6 per cent, it said, despite the impacts of COVID-19 on immigration.

The dominance of the millennial generation, defined by the data agency as anyone born between 1981 and 1996, is strongest in cities’ downtown cores. The census found that, last year, 40.5 per cent of Toronto’s downtown residents were millennials, while just 17.6 per cent were baby boomers — a population the agency defines as anyone born anytime between 1946 and 1965.

For the first time since the end of the baby boom, that population — who would have been between 56 and 75 last year — made up less than a quarter of Canada’s residents. While boomers were 41.7 per cent of the country in 1966, they now represent 24.9 per cent.

Still, the country is aging fast, with the senior population increasing by 18.3 per cent between 2016 and 2021 — the second largest increase in 75 years, the data agency said. There are now roughly seven million seniors across Canada, versus about six million kids under the age of 15.

That population of children has grown six times slower than residents over the age of 65 — and the country has seen a drop in its youngest kids, with 3.6 per cent fewer under the age of five.

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