A newly-released Statistics Canada report reveals that since 2024, 51.1 per cent of Canadian women aged 20 to 49 years were not mothers — roughly one in four, for women over 40 — but the main cause is not solely due to fertility.
The report, released on Monday, comes as Canada remains part of a list of countries experiencing “ultra-low fertility” as the country’s fertility rates hit a record low in 2024 with 1.25 children per woman.
Other countries in a similar situation based on this data include Switzerland (1.29), Luxembourg (1.25), Finland (1.25), Italy (1.18), Japan (1.15), Singapore (0.97) and South Korea (0.75).
The report says “increased educational levels, greater participation in the labor market, changing social norms and the widespread use of contraception have contributed to diversifying life patterns, notably in terms of childbearing.”
The report suggests that 31 per cent of women between the ages of 20 and 29 currently without children either “definitely” or “probably” do not want children, while 17 per cent are still unsure.
“There is an increasing trend to postpone fertility,” said Ana Ferrer, professor at the University of Waterloo and research fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics. “Of course, with that almost necessarily deduces the number of children that you can have.”
In 2024, the average age of women at the birth of their first child reached an all-time high in Canada at 31.8 years old.
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“As long as the trend is higher, it doesn’t look like it will stabilize anytime soon,” said Ferrer.
Ferrer suggests one of the reasons is the lack of stability in the job market.
“It’s harder to find jobs. One hopes that’s not going to be forever, but it is pushing all your big decisions, your savings, having a house and all these things you need,” she said.
A separate Statistics Canada research study found that in 2025, more than 253,000 women 25 years and older cited “caring for children” as the reason why they work part-time jobs, close to the 254,000 women who said the same in 2015.
In comparison, 26,000 Canadian men of the same age range listed “caring for children” as their main reason for working part-time jobs in 2025.
StatCan stated that “this gap between intentions and reality shows the influence of structural factors- such as marital status, level of education, employment status, religious activity or migration status- that contribute to declining fertility rates.”
For example, the report found that in 2024, more than half (52.8 per cent) of Canadian-born women aged 20 to 49 years old had no children, compared with 44.6 per cent of landed immigrant women.
About six in 10 West Asian and Chinese women in those age brackets in Canada have no children, while the same was true for only about 40 per cent of Latin American and Arab women.
In addition, StatCan found that in relation to women who practice religion, “48.7 per cent of non-practicing women in their 30s had no children, compared to the 35.9 per cent of their practicing counterparts.”
Ferrer notes that “it is hard to know what is going to happen” when it comes to what the fertility rate will look like in the future.
“When you go through a period of high unemployment, you can see a drop, or a temporary hold in fertility because households are adapting to this,” she said.
“People may decide to postpone until things are a little bit clearer.”
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