Nearly two-thirds of younger Canadians want kids, up from 2021: study

Newly released Statistics Canada data suggests that in 2024, over half of Canadians without biological children “planned to have children” (58 per cent), a higher figure than in 2021 (52 per cent.)

The biggest jump in these numbers was recorded among Canadians aged 15 to 24.

In 2024, nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) said they wanted at least one, or another, child — an increase from 53 per cent in 2021.

In 2024, Canadians aged 15-24 said they want an average of 2.4 children, compared with 25- to 34-year-olds (2.0 children) and 35- to 49-year-olds (1.6 children).

One-quarter (25 per cent) of those who already had biological children “planned to have one or more additional children.”

Part of this rise was due to an increase among young women, rising from 50 per cent in 2021 to 63 per cent in 2024. Statistics Canada stated there was “no significant change in the proportion of young men wanting children.”

However, the study states that “young men in 2021 and 2024 were more likely than young women to indicate that they wanted to expand their family.”

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“Canadians aged 15 to 24 are the least likely to currently have children, and this could explain why their intended number of children is higher than that of Canadians aged 35 to 49, who are more likely to already have biological children,” the research reads.

In addition, Canadians who have never been married and are not in a common-law relationship — more than half of whom are younger than 25 — represented the single marital status group to see an increase in intentions to have children at some point in the future, rising from 48 per cent in 2021 to 56 per cent in 2024.

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Canadians who had never been married were also found to be planning to have more children than their married counterparts (2.3 compared with 1.8 children, respectively, in 2024).

Statistics Canada does note that this could stem from “their higher likelihood of not currently having children.”

For married and common-law coupled Canadians, the desire to expand a family remained relatively stable from 2021 (37 per cent) to 2024 (38 per cent).

When looking at intentions to have biological children, excluding any current biological children, a greater portion of Canadians in 2024 said that they wanted one or more children at some point in the future than in 2021 (46 per cent versus 41 per cent, respectively).

In 2021, Quebec held the top position across Canada for the proportion of people wanting children.

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While the number of people wanting children in Quebec in 2024 remained high (47 per cent), the number of people in Ontario wanting children rose slightly to the top spot (48 per cent).

In 2021, that number sat at 41 per cent in Ontario.

For the number of children desired, British Columbia was the only province to experience a decrease in 2024, with an average of 1.9 children.

A separate Statistics Canada study released in January revealed 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 infertility.

“Increased educational levels, greater participation in the labour market, changing social norms and the widespread use of contraception have contributed to diversifying life patterns, notably in terms of childbearing,” the report reads.

Canada remains part of a list of countries experiencing “ultra-low fertility” as the country’s fertility rates hit a record low in 2024 at 1.25 children per woman.

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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.

Thirty-one 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 were found to be unsure.

“At a national level, women have been delaying their childbearing from their 20s to their 30s,” the Statistics Canada study reads.

“Specifically, this trend of increasingly older average childbearing ages could result in a growing number of Canadians facing age-related infertility, and therefore being unable to achieve their intended family size.”