Births decline in Canada in 2018 while total fertility rate edges up

A Statistics Canada release about Canada's population accelerating, the largest annual increase ever observed, owing to immigration, made the CBC News.

What got less attention is that for the second successive year, the number of births in Canada declined in 2018.

On average, each day saw 11 fewer births than the previous year. And 2017 had, on average, 19 fewer births each day than 2016, even allowing for that being a leap year.

The total fertility rate per 1,000 females was 1,498.8, edging up from 1,496.1, reversing a decline over the previous three years.

Births to mothers younger than 25 continued to decline while increasing for those older.

That was true for every province except Quebec and the Northwest Territories which had marginal increases. No data was reported for the Yukon or Nunavut.

Month by month, August had the greatest number of daily births in 2018, narrowly exceeding September which had the most in the previous four years. December continued as having the fewest daily births.

Statistics Canada has comprehensive tables of statistics at Births, 2018.