THE RENNIE OUTLOOK
mortality rates, implying continued increases in life expectancy (at all ages).
SLOWING INTERPROVINCIAL MIGRATION. Balanced against other short-term trends, such as the labour requirements of an expanding regional economy and issues of housing affordability, net inter-provincial migration to the Lower Mainland is projected to moderate somewhat from peaks seen in the recent past. Specifically, the region is projected to grow by an average of 4,300 residents annually between 2017 and 2041 through net inter-provincial migration, which is below the historical average of more than 6,200 per year (1986 to 2016). As this projection is, on a historical context, modest, it is worth noting that this inter-provincial outlook implicitly acknowledges a landscape of demographic and economic projections for all provinces and territories in Canada, and in doing so also represents a “levelling-out” of the peaks and the troughs in migration flows that will inevitably be realized here in BC and the Lower Mainland. NET OUTFLOWS TO THE REST OF BC. In contrast to this net annual gain in population through inter-provincial flows, net intra-provincial migration is expected to continue to remain negative out to 2041: on average, it is expected that almost 8,000 people will leave the region each year (on a net basis) for other parts of the province. This out- flow is expected to be reinforced over the medium- and longer-terms by the significant equity gains in residential real estate that have been realized throughout the Lower Mainland over the past three decades. For many homeowners (especially retirees), the 108% increase in average home values within the region over just the past decade represents a significant source of tax-free capital gains, which in turn are collectively expected to act as a “push factor” for local households relocating to other (amenity-rich) cities and regions throughout the province.
INCREASING LIFE EXPECTANCY. Male life expectancies are projected to increase into the neighbourhood of 84 years at birth (from the current 80), and for females towards 87 years (versus 84 today) by 2041. While mortality rates have been projected on the basis of the historical pattern of decline seen over the past three decades, the rate at which they decline is expected to slow considerably. INCREASING MORE SLOWLY. A diminishing rate of increase will reflect the relative contributions of medicine and medical technology to the extension of life expectancies, as future declines will be incrementally more expensive and harder to achieve than those experienced in the past. MALE-FEMALE CONVERGENCE. Another interesting trend that is expected to continue to characterize future patterns of mortality is the declining gap between male and female life expectancies. From 7.3 years in 1976, the gap between male and females life expectancies for Canada as a whole has fallen dramatically since then, to 3.9 years in 2017. This overarching demographic phenomenon has implications for a wide range of issues, including housing, as the archetypal image of an elderly widow living alone continues to shift towards couples living together, longer. MIGRATION While the regional outlook for international migration reflects the federal government’s policy shifts towards accommodating 340,000 immigrants by 2020, the projection of domestic migration considers the past two decades of annual inter-provincial migration (those moving between the Lower Mainland and other provinces) and intra-provincial migration (those moving between the Lower Mainland and other parts of British Columbia), both in terms of the in- and out-flows, and the age composition of these flows. This more-than- two-decade period (spanning 1993 to 2016) provides a reasonable baseline for future estimates as it encompasses periods of both high and low net in-migration—high in the early-1990s and low through the early-2000s, particularly between 1997 to 2002, when provincial economic activity was flagging.
When combined with the flow of emigrants and the change in the number of non-permanent residents, net international migration to the Lower Mainland is expected to increase from 33,000 people in 2016 to a peak of 46,000 in 2023 .
JANUARY 2019 — P A G E 4
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