In today’s Morning Brief, we look at the implications of an expected decline in Canada’s birth rate due to the coronavirus pandemic. We also have the story of the resurgent sea otter population on B.C.’s coast, and what that means for the ecosystem and those who harvest shellfish.
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The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to lower the birth rate. Here’s why that matters
The COVID-19 pandemic will likely lower Canada’s already declining birth rate, and that has implications for everything from how competitive it will be for a child to get a spot on a soccer team to how healthy the Canada Pension Plan will be in 2050, economists say.
The global health crisis is having an impact on fertility intentions, which are the decisions people make about having a child or adding to their family and when to do so, said Nora Spinks, founder and CEO of the Vanier Institute for the Family, a charitable research and education institute based in Ottawa.
“When it comes to the impact of COVID-19 on fertility intentions, what we’re seeing all over the world is that people are choosing, in large part, to delay, defer or just not have a child or additional children at this time,” she said.
A forecast published in June by the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank, said there could be 500,000 fewer babies born in the U.S. as a result of the pandemic. Because Canada has a robust health-care system and more supports than the U.S., such as parental leave, economists are not predicting an equivalent drop in Canada’s birth rate. But a decline of any kind will have lasting impacts.
“What it means for families and for policy-makers and for communities is that if we see a drop in pregnancy in 2020, we’ll see a drop in demand for child care in 2023 to 2024, a drop in kindergarten in 2025 and a drop in adolescents available for summer jobs and part-time work by 2030,” said Spinks.
That becomes even more of a problem down the road when that cohort needs to provide enough income tax revenue to support the growing portion of elderly Canadians, said Elisabeth Gugl, an associate professor at the University of Victoria specializing in family economics.
When there’s a larger, older population drawing on the Canada Pension Plan, the smaller working population would have to pay more per person in order to provide the same benefits, said Gugl. The only other way to rectify the issue is through immigration, she said, but that, too, has been disrupted by the pandemic. Read more on this story here.
No fan interference
(Ted S. Warren/The Associated Press)
Seattle Mariners first baseman Evan White tracks a foul ball next to cut-out photos of fans in the stands during a baseball game against the Oakland Athletics on Sunday in Seattle. The Athletics won 3-2.
In brief
Nearly 2,000 people in B.C. have been prescribed hydromorphone, a synthetic opioid, under the province’s safe-supply program. Despite this, fatal overdoses continue to rise, reaching a historic high in June, with 175 deaths. New provincial guidelines were issued in March that gave p