Oh, Baby: Newfoundland and Labrador’s declining birth rate is something to cry about

N.L.’s birth rate is down and the average age is up, but there are some solutions to stabilize an alarming situation

Empty playgrounds could be a common sight in Newfoundland and Labrador. If current declining birth rate trends continue, these playgrounds could stay barren. Jason Sheppard/Kicker

Jason Sheppard

Kicker

In September, 2007, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador announced a new policy aimed at helping financially struggling families, while also addressing the issue of the province’s declining population.

The “baby bonus” was a provincial tax credit where parents of children, natural or adopted under the age of 18 and whose income was less than $25,257, could receive an additional $1,000 per year to help with child costs.

Some praised the initiative, while others believed the issue concerning the province’s declining population and lowered birth rates ran much deeper. Even the Premier in the policy announcement addressed the underlying reasons involved for the bonus.

"We can't be a dying race," Premier Danny Williams said. “We can't be in a situation where our population is shrinking, where we have more people dying than are being born."

That was in 2007. Now, in 2019, Newfoundland and Labrador is facing an even more dire fate. According to statistics, the average age of the population is getting considerably older while at the same time, birth rates are declining.

Historically, if you look at the 1950s, the birth rate in Newfoundland was about 15000 babies a year and now it’s dropped down to 4300. From 1960 to today, the number of women in the workforce has grown. However, today's economic reality usually requires two incomes.

Is the situation as dire as reports and statistics claim?

Statistics show that the province's birth rate has been declining steadily over the last five years. Source: ServiceNL

“Yes. It is very much as serious as people describe it,” said Ed Hollett, who has written about this issue on his blog The Sir Robert Bond Papers. Hollett believes some people aren’t recognizing the seriousness of the situation.

“We have an older population and we’re dying faster then we’re replacing them. The population as a whole is shrinking.”

Ed Hollett is a public relations and public policy professional and is the author of The Sir Robert Bond Papers blog. He feels the birth rate situation in this province is dire. Jason Sheppard/Kicker

Individuals such as Hollett are getting older and eventually leaving the work force. As a large section of the population move towards retirement-age, an increasing responsibility will be placed on those working. Hollett fears this increased financial responsibility will restrict young people and could delay couples from starting families of their own.

Childcare then and now

Prior to Newfoundland’s Confederation with Canada in 1949, it was not uncommon to see couples have many children per family. It was not unusual for example, for a couple to have as many as eight or nine children per household. These days, those numbers hover around one to two at best and Newfoundland and Labrador is certainly not alone when it comes to seeing this change.

With the change in society’s attitudes towards women and families over the past decades, numbers in births went down over the generations. This meant the provincial government were forced to look for ways to encourage people to have more children.

One of those was the baby bonus. But are initiatives such as this the answer?

“These policies tend not to work because the reasons that people have children are not related to that simple kind of incentive,” Hollett explains. “Lifestyle, accessibility to childcare, job and working conditions and household income. Children are expensive so you have to have an income to support it.

“There’s no one bullet answer. There’s no one magic solution to it. There are several different things which have to be put in place.”

One of those solutions is improving and offering affordable child care.

Provinces such as Quebec offer childcare tax credits which takes a burden off families. This includes expenses paid to licensed and even at home day-cares, nursery schools and day camps.

This province offers the Newfoundland and Labrador Child Benefit (NLCB) which came into effect in July 1999 and differs from the 2007 incentive in that it pays parents $33.75 per month per child. This amount does not include money for child care facilities.

Skye Taylor, executive director for the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Newfoundland and Labrador (AECNL) deals with couples who face these challenges almost daily.

“It’s not just in Newfoundland and Labrador but all across the country child care is very expensive,” said Taylor. “If you have an infant under the age of 18 months, for their child care you’re paying $900 per month. That’s $11000 a year for one child. In my opinion, this is a big setback for people to have children or have more than one child. Our hope is that parents have access to affordable childcare that’s of high quality.”

Skye Taylor is the executive director of the Association of Early Childhood Education (AECENL) in St. John's. Taylor feels higher quality child care is needed for parents. Jason Sheppard/Kicker

Organizations such as the AECNL don’t just view children as a spot to put a child while the parents work. They feel that every child should have the right to early learning opportunity and having quality childcare is one of those opportunities.

Fertility rates and births leveled off in Canada during the late-1970s to early 1980s according to government reports. Taylor says it was common for couples to begin families in their early 20s, however, now it’s not uncommon to see couples who are 30-35 years of age or even older before starting a family.

Sabrina Reid of Torbay is 24 years old and while she gave birth to a daughter, Avery, last year, she says most of her friends have chosen to hold off. “Actually we have a lot of friends who aren’t even planning on having families,” Reid said. “I guess they’re afraid of not having the freedom they had before and they’re just content with their life the way it is.”

Reid is a young professional, working as a nurse and helping raise a family, however, it wasn’t and isn’t easy. Reid’s daughter Avery, now almost 11 months old, suffers from hearing loss and cerebral palsy. She was born 26 weeks premature and spent several months last year in the Janeway NICU unit.

Sabrina Reid, 24, from Torbay and her daughter, Avery. Although Reid wanted a family, she says friends have decided to wait. Jason Sheppard/Kicker

Her daughter's health has taken an emotional and financial toll on Reid’s family. Her income was cut 40 per cent while she was caring for her sick newborn - the same amount as maternity leave.

“We ended up diving into our savings and using up our VISA’s and our line of credit. It was really hard.”

Solutions and the future

Understanding there is a problem is the first step. The next is implementing initiatives to address the problem.

“The trends in society that have led families to have fewer and fewer children or wait later in life to have children are not necessarily things a government policy can fix, although there are things which can help it along,” said Hollett.

Among the main solutions is convincing people in their child-bearing years to stay in the province. If younger individuals are packing up and leaving the province and raising those families somewhere else, these two things affect both the population and the birth rate as a whole.

Along with increased childcare initiatives, experts agree that a major solution to the dilemma is creating and offering better paying jobs.

When there is a thriving economy with high-paying jobs, more parents can afford childcare and then grow families. But even then, it will take time.

“If you were to have a child today, that doesn’t really change the work force or anything else for 20 years,” said Hollett. “So what you would need is to have an economy that attracts people to come here in the first place. If things are booming here then people will come here and everything else will follow along behind it.”

With the right solutions in play, one can wonder what the future of Newfoundland and Labrador might look like years from now.

Aya and Mohammad Alhamdouni play at Kenny's Pond Park in St. John's. Their parents recently moved to this province from Syria. Jason Sheppard/Kicker

Hollett believes there is tremendous potential in the future of Newfoundland and Labrador and the future depends on the decisions we all make today and how we change our behavior. He says everybody has to become part of the discussion and part of the action. The history of the people here illustrates this.

“People have been here for thousands of years so there’s lots of potential for a society who has survived that long,” Hollett said. “We all have to collectively participate in the solutions to see where we’re going. The future depends on how we react and what choices we make over the next two, three, four, five years.”