The average age of the Canadian population declines for the first time since 1958

The average age of the Canadian population decreased slightly from 1^er July 2022 to 1^er last July, the first time since 1958, thanks to an increase in permanent and temporary immigration generally made up of people younger than the rest of the population of Canada.

Statistics Canada adds that even though the number and proportion of people aged 65 and over have continued to increase, the demographic weight of people born between 1981 and 1996 has increased while that of people born between 1946 and 1965 has decreased.

From 1^er July 2022 to 1^er July last year, the population of people born between 1981 and 1996 increased by 457,354, which was exclusively due to the reception of immigrants. The baby boomer generation remained the largest generation in the Canadian population for 65 years.

Generation X, which brings together people born between 1966 and 1980, during a period when fertility was in sharp decline, will never have been the largest generation in Canada.

Statistics Canada states that the recent reception of a large number of permanent and temporary immigrants is clearly perceptible in the age pyramid of the population.

The large numbers aged between 20 and 40 are the result of several successive years of strong immigration. In particular, the recent arrival of many non-permanent residents has increased the number of Canadians aged 20 to 24, so that 22% of people in this age group were non-permanent residents in 1^er July 2023.

This also had the effect of slowing down demographic aging. The average age of the population increased in one year, from July 2022 to July last year, from 41.7 to 41.6 years.

On the other hand, the proportion of the population aged 15 to 64 increased during this same period, a fact that has not been observed in the recent past.

A regional analysis indicates that it is in the Atlantic provinces and Quebec that baby boomers remained the generation with the largest numbers, while Ontario and British Columbia are the two provinces where the millennials have surpassed baby boomers from 1^er July 2022 to 1^er July 2023, as for Canada as a whole.

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