Canada: Immigration helps to hold back the demographic time bomb – RBC

Andrew Agopsowicz, senior economist at the Royal Bank of Canada, notes that Canada’s 65+ population is projected to rise to 22.5% by 2030 with immigration likely to add 3.5 million Canadians by 2030.

Key Quotes

“Canada is aging at a rapid pace. By 2030, the fraction of the population aged 65 and older will rise to 22.5% from 17.5% now. With the retirement of the baby boom in full swing, Canada faces a big challenge: healthcare and elderly support costs are set to increase just as the growth of the working-age population slows.”

“The impact will be uneven, with some regions, notably Atlantic Canada, hit particularly hard. Close to 30% of its population will be 65 or older by the end of the 2020s. Immigration will help Canada tap the brakes on this aging process. New immigrants, with a median age of 28.6 years compared to 40.8 for Canada as a whole, tend to be much younger than the existing Canadian population. This has had the effect of keeping Canada’s population significantly younger over the past decade than it otherwise would.”

“If Canada had closed its borders to new immigrants in 2006, we calculate Canada’s median age would have been 1.9 years older today. By keeping Canada’s borders open, we likely avoided the pattern of rapid aging experienced in Japan in the 1990s that continues to this day.”