Babies make comeback -- except in Canada
Okanagan Sunday
Aug 16 2009 
By: Carol Goar

Canada is what statisticians call an outlier: an exception to a well-established trend.

The fertility rate in most developed countries is climbing after a 40-year drop. It is still below the population replacement level -- 2.1 children per woman -- but it has turned around in a way demographers never anticipated.

Three western nations are not experiencing a millennial baby boom: Canada, Japan and South Korea.

This puzzles Hans-Peter Kohler of the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania, whose paper, Advances in Development Reverse Declines (in Nature magazine), is attracting worldwide attention.

"Further research is required," he says, suggesting one relevant factor may be a country's support for families.

Canada would be an ideal test case for Kohler's hypothesis because it has its own outlier: Quebec.

Since 1997, the province has implemented a panoply of measures to support women who want to be good mothers without sacrificing their careers.

They include generous parental leave, affordable child care, tax incentives for child-bearing, and employment premiums for working parents.

They appear to have worked: Twelve years ago, the province's fertility rate stood at 1.51 children per woman. Today it stands at a 30-year high of 1.72 children per woman, higher than the Canadian average of 1.58….

Quebec's programs are expensive. The province will spend $6.5 billion to support families this year … the majority of citizens support their government's family policies because they make life easier for parents and safeguard the province's francophone identify.

No other government in the country is following Quebec's example.

The federal government has reduced child-care funding, claiming parents want "choice," not a single, state-imposed model. To provide that choice, Prime Minister Stephen Harper introduced a $100 monthly allowance to each child under the age of six. (The average monthly cost of child care is $800).

A few provinces have taken isolated steps -- Ontario and Newfoundland implemented strategies to reduce child poverty and Manitoba invested in subsidized child-care spaces - but most are waiting for support from Ottawa….

They needn't look far: Quebec spends 3.2 per cent of its gross domestic product on families. Canada spends 1.2 per cent.

Quebec offers 34.8 per cent of its children regulated child-care spaces. The Canadian average is 12.3 per cent.

Quebec's parental insurance plan allows either parent to stay at home for the first year of their child's life. It provides a maximum of $41,432 in benefits. And it covers self-employed workers….

With national leadership, Canada could become a family-friendly country.