(found this at groups.yahoo.com/voluntary...xtinction)

Globe and Mail, Canada

The birth dearth
Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - Page A22


Canada's birth rate has dropped to its lowest level since Ottawa began keeping track of such things in 1921. The latest statistics show that 10.5 babies were born in 2002 for every 1,000 Canadians, down from 10.7 a year earlier. The fertility rate, which estimates the number of children women will have, also dipped slightly to 1.50 per woman from
1.51. That may not seem a significant fall-off, but the downward
population trend has been clear for more than a decade and makes it all the more essential to maintain an open immigration policy.

Forecasting long-term demographic trends and predicting possible
repercussions are not easy tasks. But the hope that a slight increase in the birth rate in 2001 signalled an end to the steady decline appears to have been dashed. Even including the one-year blip, the Canadian birth rate has plunged 25.4 per cent since 1992.

Canada is by no means alone. Most developed countries face declining birth and fertility rates -- even those, such as France, that have invested heavily in incentives to encourage larger families. The United States was once the only industrial country producing more than the 2.1 children per woman considered necessary to keep its population stable. But by 2002, the U.S. fertility rate had slipped to 2.0 and
the birth rate was the lowest since the government began keeping count.

Unless the trend is reversed, Canada and other low birth-rate
countries face a host of difficulties, including severe pressure on public finances as governments cope with a growing proportion of the elderly in the population and fewer people of working age to cover the rising costs of such big-ticket expenses as pensions and health care.

Canada has taken certain family-friendly measures, increasing the child tax credit and extending parental leaves. But these and other measures, such as access toaffordable daycare in Quebec, have had only a limited effect on fertility rates. Fundamental social changes have played a more important role. For instance, more women are delaying having children until they have established themselves in the workplace. The average age of a new mother today is 27.7, compared with 23.8 three decades ago.

Luckily for our future economic and fiscal well-being, Canada is
well-positioned to counter the declining population trend by
continuing to encourage the immigration of talented people to this country from overcrowded parts of the world where too many of the young and ambitious are chasing too few opportunities.