Baby bust: Fertility rate of 1.6 continues to put onus on immigration: StatCan
TORONTO — After Debbie Clarke’s first child had reached the “terrible twos,” she and her husband decided their family of three was big enough — adding a sibling would be just too much.
“At the time I was working really late hours and I just didn’t think it was fair to have another child when I didn’t really have the time and the energy to put into another child,” said Clarke of Mississauga, Ont., whose son Austin is now 15.
“When he was younger it was very hectic because I had to work nights. My husband worked days. I thought to myself, ‘You know what? I have to do what I think I can handle physically, emotionally financially … I think one is good enough for me.’”
Clarke is among a growing proportion of Canadian women choosing to have only one child — or none at all. And that trend towards limited child-bearing is increasingly reflected in Canada’s average fertility rate, which 2016 census figures released Wednesday have pegged at 1.6 per cent, slightly higher than the 1.59 posted by Statistics Canada three years earlier.