In 2022, the population of Quebec experienced its strongest annual growth in the last 50 years, thanks to immigration. But this relative growth was the lowest of all the Canadian provinces, indicates the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ).
Québec’s demographic report for 2022, published Wednesday, reveals that in 1er last January, the population of Quebec was estimated at 8.8 million people, an increase of 149,900 people during the year 2022. According to the Institute of Statistics, this resumption of demographic growth, after the significant slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, is essentially based on a marked increase in permanent and temporary immigration.
Because if immigration has increased, births have decreased and deaths have experienced “a significant increase” in Quebec in 2022. “Natural increase” thus falls “to a particularly low level”, notes the ISQ.
In the end, the growth rate in Quebec is 1.7%, compared to 3.0% in the rest of Canada. The demographic weight of Quebec in the federation as a whole thus decreases again slightly, from 22.4% to 22.2%, underlines the ISQ.
In terms of immigration, Quebec welcomed 68,700 permanent immigrants in 2022, “a peak partly fueled by a catch-up after the drop in admissions caused by the pandemic”, indicates the Institute.
Influx of temporary residents
On the other hand, it is non-permanent residents who have again become the main source of migratory increase in 2022, as they had been in 2019, according to the ISQ.
The strong pre-pandemic growth of non-permanent residents (temporary workers, international students and asylum seekers) had been curbed in 2020 and 2021 due to the effects of the pandemic, but their estimated number increased by 86,700 in 2022, “a balance record” which brings their total workforce to approximately 346,000 people.
According to the ISQ, Quebec is the place of residence of 57% of asylum seekers present in Canada, but of 16% of temporary workers and only 12% of foreign students. Moreover, the proportion of permanent and temporary immigrants residing outside the Montreal metropolitan area is tending to increase.
+ 12% of deaths
The number of births has decreased by 5% compared to 2021 and according to the ISQ, we have to go back to 2005 to find a lower number. The fertility index now stands at 1.49 children per woman, dropping for the first time in 20 years below the 1.5 child mark. The average age at childbearing continues to increase in Quebec, to stand at 31.1 years.
In contrast, the number of deaths increased by 12% in 2022, an “exceptional increase” which can be associated with various factors, according to the ISQ, including the pandemic and the resumption of the circulation of other respiratory viruses.
This increase takes nine months off life expectancy in Quebec, which had nevertheless returned to its pre-pandemic level in 2021, after a difficult year with COVID-19. Instead, life expectancy is back to 2020 levels, ie 84.1 years for women and 80.5 years for men.