Number of aging baby-boomers surpasses number of youth
By Davie Wong, Sports Reporter
All around the world, signs of humankind aging litter the land. From eroding monuments to healing battlegrounds, proof of humanityâs long past exists almost everywhere. But for Canadians, evidence of that aging lies no further than in our population.
For the first time in Canadian history, the seniors in the country outnumber the youth. According to Statistics Canada, the number of people over the age of 65 is currently higher than the number of people under the age of 14. And that gap is only supposed to get wider.
David Foot, a demographer, estimated in an interview with the Canadian Press that, by 2035, there will be approximately 50,000 more seniors than there are youth.
The massive influx of seniors comes from an era nicknamed the âbaby boom.â These âbaby boomers,â as they have been nicknamed, consist of people born in between 1946â65. After World War II came to an end, many of the soldiers returning home wished to settle down and start a family. The âbaby bonusâ monthly payments from 1945 onwards provided further incentive for having children.
Children were born by in massive numbers each day. Without knowing it, these âbaby boomerâ families had permanently impacted the future of the unborn, just by having children.
At the moment, Canada is in the midst of struggling to come back from an economic recession. With an unemployment rate of seven per cent, job creation has been a hot topic of the upcoming election. There arenât enough jobs in Canada right now, and this is doubly true for BC, which has approximately 148,500 people unemployed, according to Statistics Canada.
Many of the unemployed blame the senior population for crowding an already over-populated jobs market. These seniors make up to an approximated 37 per cent of the Canadian workforce. Data released by Statistics Canada in 2013 also proved that in many companies seniors held high positions that could have been given to younger employees. However, many seniors claim that they are doing the jobs that the younger demographic doesnât want or are too inexperienced for.
Sometimes, seniors are necessary members of professions, such as in skilled trades. Trades professions include electrical work, carpentry, plumbing, and welding. In these lines of work, new trainees are required to work with a master of the trade to assist them in learning it. Due to the lack of interest in the skilled trades as of late, many of these masters are seniors.
Whether or not the aging population of Canada is a worrying trend has yet to be seen. All that is known is that the boom of seniors has begun, and there is nothing that can be done to stop it.
