Aging valley needs youth movement
Birth rates too low, not enough younger people moving here, Central Okanagan Foundation finds
The Okanagan Weekend
With an aging population and a fertility rate too low to maintain the population, the future of the Central Okanagan depends on attracting more working-age people to the region, a Vital Signs report released by the Central Okanagan Foundation has found.
“The Central Okanagan has a welldeserved reputation as a place for people to retire, but the community needs people of all ages here,” said John Grimes, the foundation’s Vital Signs co-ordinator.
“The Central Okanagan has to become more diverse to become more attractive to young people and young professionals and families with children.”
The median age in the Central Okanagan from 2013-15 was 45.5, compared to 43 in B.C. and 40.6 across Canada.
Between 2013 and 2015, there were 36 seniors per 100 working age people in the Central Okanagan, compared to 30 seniors per 100 working age people in B.C. and 28 in Canada.
“In the Central Okanagan, there’s a higher dependency on people in the workforce for productivity than Canada as a whole,” said Grimes. “For a robust, healthy economy, there needs to be a balance between the number of people who are retired and not part of the workforce and people who are part of the workforce who are largely driving economic productivity.”
From 2006 to 2016, the Central Okanagan’s biggest population increase was among people 65 and older, a jump of of 35.1 per cent.
The biggest negative change in population came among people 40-44 (an 11.1 per cent decrease) and people 45-49 (a 6.5 per cent decrease).
The only other two age groups with negative growth were children between 10 and 14 with a decrease of 5.2 per cent and teens 15-19 (a 2.6 per cent decrease).
The fertility rate — the average number of children per woman of childbearing age — from 2013-15 in the Central Okanagan was on par with B.C. at 1.4, but was lower than the Canadian average of 1.6.
“Replacement fertility rate is generally considered to be 2.1 to maintain a stable population, so there are not enough births to maintain the population here,” said Grimes. “The future depends on attracting people here. The community needs to balance the number of seniors with the number of working age people just to maintain economic productivity.”
Two-thirds of the population growth in the Central Okanagan in 2015-16 was a result of new residents arriving here.
In that time, 388 immigrants arrived in the Central Okanagan, 17.3 per cent of whom were children from babies to 19 years old, 80.9 per cent of whom were people between 20 and 64 and 1.8 per cent of whom were 65 and older.
The largest influx of people came from other provinces, with 2,802 people migrating to the Central Okanagan from elsewhere in Canada. Of those people, 16.8 per cent were children up to age 19, 73.7 per cent were between 20 and 64, and 12.9 per cent were aged 65 and older.
In that same period, 1,393 people moved to the Okanagan from elsewhere in B.C., 16.1 per cent of whom were children, 73.7 per cent of whom were between 20 and 64 and 10.2 per cent of whom were 65 and older.