Demographic Changes in Canada from 1971 to 2001 Across an Urban-to-Rural Gradient

91F0015MWE

Main page

Introduction

Methodology

Findings

Tables and figures

Bibliography

More information

PDF version

Factors associated with demographic growth

We have seen that among metropolitan areas, the regions with more than 500,000 inhabitants had the highest growth between 1971 and 2001. The growth in medium-sized urban areas was similar to that in the rest of Canada and lower in the smallest urban areas. As for rural areas, the population only grew slightly, except in the areas defined in 2001 as having a strong MIZ. The demographic growth in these latter areas was almost as large as in the more populated urban areas.

What could account for these differences? Ideally, we would have annual data for the eight types of areas under study for 1971 to 2001 on each of the main components of demographic growth: birth, death, immigration, emigration and interprovincial migration. But because of the limitations of the data (1971 to 2001 Census), we will focus on estimating the contributions made by three of these components—fertility, immigration and interprovincial migration—to differential growth. Despite the fact that data on mortality and emigration are not taken into account; a certain number of facts can be identified that, together, paint a clear picture of the mechanisms at play in the demographic dynamics in Canada’s metropolitan and rural areas over the last three decades of the previous century.

Fertility
Internal migration
Immigration

Fertility

Fertility is without question the component that had the strongest impact on growth in Canada between 1971 and 2001. During this period, it contributed to more than 11 million births across the country, or an average of 367,500 births annually. This number is more than double the number of immigrants who came to Canada during that period. However, fertility declined significantly, dropping from slightly over 2.1 children per woman in 1971 to approximately 1.5 in the early part of 2000. In fact, 1971 was precisely when Canada’s fertility last surpassed the replacement level (which is approximately 2.1 children per woman).

Despite the importance of this component in Canada’s population growth, it would appear that fertility cannot explain the previously noted differences. The data in Figure 2.6¹ gives a picture of fertility that is in many regards the opposite of that provided earlier by the data on population growth (Figure 2.2). This shows that fertility is lowest in the largest metropolitan areas² and tends to rise steadily with the level of rurality³. This was equally true in 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001, given that the decline in fertility across Canada had affected each of the eight types of areas covered in this study. Yet, the biggest increases occurred in the CMAs with more than 500,000 inhabitants, whereas the rural areas saw their growth rates fall as the metropolitan influence declined. Thus, we can confirm that, overall, fertility does not explain why the population growth was more significant in urban areas than in rural areas. In fact, if between 1971 and 2001 the increase had only depended on fertility, the rural areas would have grown faster than the metropolitan areas.  

Rural areas with a strong MIZ are a noteworthy exception, because they experienced both strong population growth and above-average fertility throughout the period. This coincidence may be partly attributable to the migration of young couples from the metropolitan areas to the peripheral regions in order to house their new families. In so doing, these young couples would contribute to the population growth of strong MIZ areas while also keeping fertility high in these areas.

Top of Page

Internal migration

Internal migration, although it has no real impact on the change in population figures at the national level, does have a significant impact on the demographic dynamics within the country. Between 1996 and 2001, for the population aged 5 or over that had been living in Canada five years before, approximately 4.5 million would have changed their municipality of residence at least once, thereby contributing to the decline or growth, as applicable, in their area of origin or destination.

Figure 2.7 presents the net migration rate for every type of area between 1996 and 2001, or in other words, that which reflects the net migratory balance in every area as a proportion of the population five years before. It shows that, contrary to fertility, the picture of internal migration between 1996 and 2001 shows similarities with that of population growth along the urban-to-rural gradient areas used in this analysis. Thus, the two types of areas that benefit the most from their migratory exchanges with the rest of the country—CMAs of 500,000 to 1.1 million inhabitants and strong MIZ areas—also stand out for their strong population growth. At the same time, weak MIZ and no MIZ areas had both the most significant net migratory losses between 1996 and 2001 and the lowest growth rates of all the areas in this study. Moreover, it should be remembered that the populations in the smaller metropolitan areas and in moderate MIZ areas grew less quickly than in the rest of Canada; overall, both regions faced migratory losses.

The areas comprising Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver are distinct cases in that they are recording migratory losses at the same time as one of the largest population growths in the country. This result should be compared to the findings for strong MIZ areas and medium-sized metropolitan areas. In fact, Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver lost most of their net migratory losses to these two types of areas (respectively -27,155 and -29,620). Migratory losses to strong MIZ areas could certainly be interpreted as being part of the urban spread phenomenon mentioned earlier. The data on population shifts between the three largest CMAs and the medium-sized metropolitan areas also seem to be partly tied to the phenomenon of urban spread. For example, a large part of the net migratory balance between these two types of areas consists of the losses by Toronto and Vancouver between 1996 and 2001 to their nearest CMAs: Oshawa (net gain of 16,340 residents from Toronto) and Abbotsford (net gain of 5,040 residents in its migratory exchanges with Vancouver).

The net migration profile by age presented in Figure 2.8 provides for a better understanding of the dynamics at play along the urban-to-rural gradient areas used in this study. First, we see that the preceding data on interregional migration conceal significant differences by age.  We also see—and this is the point we want to emphasize—that the metropolitan areas have their largest net migratory gains at the ages when the urge to migrate is the strongest, that is, between 15 and 29 years. This means that these are also the ages for which the rural areas record the biggest losses. This movement of young people from rural areas to the metropolitan centres, whether motivated by employment, an interest in studying, becoming independent or getting to experience life in the city, has a significant impact on the age structure of the areas being studied. This will be addressed later (see “Structure by age”).

It should be added that the data in Figure 2.8 seem to support the idea that the population in the rural areas around Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver would benefit from an influx of young couples wanting to start a family or raise their children. At the very least, in the 30 to 45 year age category, we see a marked positive migratory balance in the strong and moderate MIZ areas, which seems to be offset in the area formed by the three largest CMAs in Canada.

So far, the analysis of internal migration has been limited to the period between 1996 and 2001. This is because the limitations of our databases did not allow us to apply the geographic structure defined for this project to the data prior to 2001 regarding place of residence five years before the census. However, we could get a reasonable approximation of the migratory balance of the two types of areas containing the CMAs with 500,000 inhabitants or more for every inter-census period between 1971 and 2001 based on the 1976 to 2001 censuses with their respective geographies (Figure 2.9). ⁴

The data in Figure 2.9 reveal that the net migratory balance for the Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver areas was negative for five of the six five-year periods between 1971 and 2001. Three times in fact, the net losses were greater than 100,000 people. Thus, the strong growth in the country’s three largest metropolitan areas between 1971 and 2001 is not a result of gains from internal migration, and it cannot be attributed to fertility. However, in the other six CMAs with more than 500,000 residents in 2001, internal migration appears to have been a key growth factor. Their migratory exchanges with the rest of the country enabled CMAs to achieve net population gains over five years, which averaged 44,900 people over the period between 1971 and 2001. The only point at which these areas suffered migratory losses during the period under study was immediately before the 1996 Census. As for the data for the rest of Canada, which includes rural regions and smaller and medium urban areas, the results are difficult to interpret due to their heterogeneity.

Top of Page

Immigration

The demographic impact of international immigration in Canada grew over the last three decades of the 20th century. The average annual number of newcomers rose significantly over the period, from 130,000 between 1971 and 1985, to more than 200,000 between 1986 and 2000. When combined with declining natural growth, this increase helped turn international immigration into the main growth engine in the country in the 1990s. The current impact of international migration includes the fact that it enables Canada to maintain the strongest population growth among G-8 countries.

In addition, the origins of newcomers have changed significantly since the late 1960s. Whereas the majority of immigrants once came from Europe and the United States, at this point most immigrants to Canada come from Asia, with Europeans generally accounting for less than 20% of their numbers. Because of this change in the source of immigration, Canada’s population has become more diversified from an ethnocultural point of view.

International immigration is very unevenly spread across Canada, as shown by Figure 2.10, which provides the number of immigrants by year of immigration and place of residence in 2001. Most immigrants admitted to Canada choose Montréal, Toronto or Vancouver as their place of residence. These were the choices of approximately 60% of the immigrants who arrived in Canada between 1971 and the early 1980s. This proportion increased during the 1980s, to the point where nearly three quarters of the 1.8 million immigrants admitted in the 1990s, and enumerated on Census day in 2001, lived in one of the three largest CMAs in Canada. Toronto alone had close to 800,000, or 43% of all recent immigrants. Thus, international immigration explains why the country’s three largest CMAs had one of the largest population growths since 1971 despite low internal migration and fertility.

With regard to the other areas, the larger CMAs were the choice of most immigrants admitted since 1971, followed by medium-sized and then small metropolitan areas. Fewer than 4% of all immigrants chose to live in a rural area, compared to approximately 20% of the entire population. In brief, immigrants to Canada generally prefer to live in an urban area, particularly in the largest metropolitan areas.

Consequently, it is not surprising to see that the proportion of recent immigrants has tended to increase with the degree of urbanity, as measured by every ten-year Census since 1971 (Figure 2.11). In 2001, for instance, more than one out of eight people in Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver had been granted immigrant status over the previous ten years, compared to fewer than one out of 100 people in all of the rural areas taken as a whole. Such a disparity in the population’s composition of immigration translates, as will soon be seen, into significant differences between areas in terms of their residents’ ethnocultural diversity.

Furthermore, the changes that occurred between 1971 and 2001 regarding sources of immigration were not uniform throughout Canada. For every type of area along the urban-to-rural gradient, Table 2.1 presents the four main countries of birth of immigrants admitted to Canada in the 10 years prior to the 1971 and 2001 censuses. It is evident that in 1971, the primary countries of birth of recent immigrants were the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States and Portugal. What applied at the national level was also true for every type of area: Europe and the United States were the most important sources of immigration across geographic regions.   

In 2001, as we indicated, recent immigrants were mainly from Asian countries, principally from China, India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Yet this change in the origins of immigrants appears to have mainly affected the most urban areas, that is, populations larger than 100,000 inhabitants in 2001. In other regions, the United States and the United Kingdom are still among the most frequent countries of birth for immigrants who arrived in Canada within the past 10 years. In this regard, it is interesting to observe that in 2001, in every type of rural area we found that three of the four main countries of origin were the same as had been identified in 1971. In other words, the composition of immigration does not appear to have changed very much, contrary to what we observe in the large cities, where there was a complete renewal of the source countries of birth for newcomers.

Notes

1. The total fertility rate (TFR) was calculated by applying an indirect technique, which is known as the own-children method, to the data from the 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001 censuses.  See Desplanques (1993) and Cho et al. (1986) for a description of this method and Bélanger and Gilbert (2003) for a discussion of its application to the Canadian data.
2. The lower than average fertility in Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver may seem surprising given that they have the largest proportions of recent immigrants, who have high fertility in Canada (Bélanger and Gilbert, 2003). This is because the fertility of non-immigrants appears to be particularly low, at 1.31 children per woman in 2000 to 2001.
3. Large Aboriginal populations contribute to higher fertility in no MIZ areas and the non-metropolitan areas in the territories. The total fertility rate of Aboriginal people was 2.6 children per woman in the 2001 Census (Ram, 2004).
4. These two types of areas are the only two that can be re-built with the help of the place of residence variable and that of place of residence five years before for every census between 1971 and 2001. Clearly, using a variable rather than a constant geography will result in population differences for each of the two types of areas and that they, even if they are smaller, tend to grow as we go farther back in time. In 1971, this difference was approximately 140,000 people for each of these two types of more heavily urbanized areas, representing approximately 2% of the populations of Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver and approximately 4.5% of the populations of the other six CMAs with populations over 500,000 inhabitants in 2001.