Aging Population In Canada And Decreasing Labor Force

According to 2006 Census of Canada, Canadian population has been aging due to the nation's low fertility rate and increasing life expectancy. As a result, the number of seniors with ages more than 65 years increased from 13.0% in 2001 to 13.7% in 2006 or to more than 4 million. This is expected to increase further beyond 2011. The increase has been recorded all over the country. Now one person in every seven in Canada is a senior.

Not only that population of aged has increased considerably, people reaching the retirement age has also gone up to record levels. The number of workers in 55-64 year age group has substantially gone up.

Because of changing population structure, Canadian society and employers could face labor shortage. This is more so as the number of children aged 14 years and less is on the decrease.

Though Canada is the youngest country in the G8 group of industrialized countries, it is the oldest in Americas.

Along with the increase in the proportion of seniors, longevity for Canadian women has gone up to 82.5 years as against 77.7 years for men.

Immigrants are believed to have pushed up diversity and population growth. But since their average age on their arrival in Canada is 33 years, they also start aging along with the rest of the population. Their affect on minimizing the proportion of an aged population is minor.

Census 2006 has also revealed that the number of centenarians with ages more than 100 years increased markedly over 5 year period from 2001 to 2006. The number of people over 80 years of age has increased to 21 million. Eighty percent of centenarians are women.