ALTHOUGH the country’s population aging continues, it was slowed by the increase in permanent and temporary immigration observed in 2022 and 2023. As the many recent immigrants are on average younger than the rest of the Canadian population, the average age of the Canadian population fell slightly from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023, a first since 1958, says Statistics Canada.
However, the number and proportion of people aged 65 years and older have continued to rise, driven by the aging of the large baby boomer cohorts.
On July 1, 2023, for the first time, the millennial generation (born between 1981 and 1996) comprised a greater number of people in the population than the baby boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1965).
The baby boomer generation became the largest in the population in 1958, seven years before the last baby boomer was even born. For 65 years, they remained the largest generation in the Canadian population. From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, baby boomers accounted for around 40% of the population. By comparison, millennials’ demographic weight will never reach the level of baby boomers’ and is expected to peak at its current level of 23%, according to the most recent population projections.
Millennials are not the only generation to have increased their demographic weight from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023. Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) has become the third-largest generation in Canada, now surpassing Generation X (born between 1966 and 1980).
Notably, Generation X, whose members were born during a period of sharply declining fertility, will never have been the largest generation in Canada.
According to the latest population projections, Generation Z could overtake millennials in numbers between 2038 and 2053.
The rise in the millennial and Generation Z populations is largely due to the recent arrival of a record number of permanent and temporary immigrants, many of whom are millennials or Generation Z. From July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023, the millennial population increased by 457,354, exclusively due to the arrival of permanent and temporary immigrants. This increase even exceeds the annual growth of the young Generation Alpha (+454,133)—the members of which have been born since 2013—which grows mainly through births.
To a lesser extent, these changes in the generational breakdown of the population are also attributable to the aging of older generations. The number of baby boomers has been declining year over year since 2006, as deaths in this generation outnumber the arrival of immigrants, most of whom are young adults aged less than 40.
In the Atlantic provinces and Quebec, baby boomers remained the generation with the largest numbers. Ontario and British Columbia were the two provinces where millennials surpassed baby boomers from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023, as was the case for Canada as a whole.
