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Canada's population: Charting into the 21st century
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Article: Canada's population: Charting into the 21st century (PDF)
Objectives
- To improve students' knowledge of demographic statistics
- To understand how population patterns in the past affect current and future trends
- To understand how fertility, mortality and migration contribute to population changes
- To appreciate how population patterns impact on society
Method
- Provide each student with a copy of the article "Canada's population: Charting into the 21st Century." Review terms such as "fertility," "mortality," "migration," "natural increase," and "dependency ratio."
- Have the students write down their year of birth and calculate in what years they will be 30, 50 and 65 years old.
- Have the students read the article.
- In small groups or as a class, identify the changes in fertility, mortality and migration in the last fifty years. Discuss the major factors that caused these changes.
- Discuss with the students how Canada's fertility, mortality and migration levels have led to slow population growth and population aging.
- With specific references to the article, conduct a role-play where students are divided into three groups of "social policy planners." Group one is responsible for children and youth, group two for the working-age population, and group three for seniors. Have the students identify the issues facing their age group today and in the future. Ask each group to present their ideas to the class.
Using other resources
- Annual Demographic Statistics, 1995, Statistics Canada, Catatlogue no. 91-213-XIB for information on population estimates.
- Statistics Canada's E-STAT or CANSIM Tables to access and graph population projections by age and sex. For current and historical data, refer to table number 051-0001, and for population projections, table 052-0004. Under the major subject "Demographic and Social Statistics" in the Topics list, you can find information on births, deaths, marriages, immigration and emigration.
Please e-mail comments or examples of how you used this exercise in your class.
