Over 40% of babies born to foreign-born mothers last year as birthrates shift
Canada’s birthrate is now heavily dependent on immigration, with new Statistics Canada data revealing that over 40 per cent of babies born last year had mothers who were foreign-born.
Canada’s birthrate is now heavily dependent on immigration, with new Statistics Canada data revealing that over 40 per cent of babies born last year had mothers who were foreign-born.
According to a study released Thursday, births to foreign-born mothers reached 154,687 in 2024, double the total from 1997. This proportion rose from 22.5 per cent in 1997 to 40.3 per cent last year.
Statistics Canada found that Canadian-born mothers are having fewer children year over year, with a steady decline observed since 2010. Without the growing share of foreign-born mothers, the national birthrate would have declined much more sharply over the last decade.
The agency noted that while the number of births to Canadian-born mothers fell 1.4 per cent in 2024, births to foreign-born mothers grew by nearly 12 per cent over the same period. This trend followed earlier increases of 3.4 per cent in 2022 and 8.9 per cent in 2023, tracking closely with record-high immigration levels.
In contrast, births among Canadian-born mothers have declined in five of the last six years. After a brief rebound in 2021 — when births rose by 4.8 per cent — they dropped again by 8.6 per cent in 2022 and six per cent in 2023, before the latest decrease last year.
The study also found that a majority of new mothers over the age of 40 (57 per cent in 2024) were born outside Canada, further highlighting the demographic shift in the country’s childbirth trends.
StatCan linked earlier increases in birthrates among Canadian-born mothers to federal policy changes such as enhanced parental leave introduced in the early 2000s.
But those gains have since been reversed, and recent years have been shaped by mass migration under the Liberal government.
The findings come as immigration continues to be a prolific political issue for Canadians, even more so for non-white Canadians according to a Leger survey.