THE RENNIE OUTLOOK
POPULATION GROWTH & CHANGE Combining the composition of the region’s current population with consideration of their aging and future levels of net migration, fertility, and mortality frames the demographic context for change in the Lower Mainland to 2041. GETTING LARGER... The projection describes a population that grows larger over time, but does so at a relatively slow (and slowing) rate when compared to the historical experience. More specifically, the outlook takes the Lower Mainland from its current (2017) population of 2.93 million residents to 3.12 million by 2021, past 3.62 million by 2031, and further to 4.03 million by 2041 (Figure 2). In growing by 38%, the Lower Mainland is projected to add an average of 45,000 net new residents each year (on a net basis), with the annual growth rate averaging 1.3% between 2017 and 2041. As a point of comparison to this latter metric, the Lower Mainland grew by an average of 1.8% per year over the past decade and a half.
340,000 IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA BY 2020. As international migration to Canada is shaped by federal government policy, the national immigration outlook outlined in the introduction provides the context for international migration to the Lower Mainland. While historical trends in the region’s share of Canada’s international migrant flows were considered in determining the number of immigrants moving to the Lower Mainland over the course of the projection period, other short- and long-term push and pull factors (such as the potentially competing effects of a growing local economy and deteriorating housing affordability) were considered. When combined with the flow of emigrants from the region (here projected on the basis of historical emigration as a share of the existing regional population) and the change in the number of non- permanent residents (such as students and those on work visas), 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 before subsiding to just under 40,000 annually by 2041.
...AT A SLOWING RATE. In the near-term, the annual rate of population growth in the Lower Mainland is expected to increase from its current 1.2% to 1.7% (by 2020)— largely due to increased net international migration— before slowing over the medium- and longer-term, towards 0.9% by 2041. This would occur in spite of annual net migration levels that will be above historical averages (38,500 over the next 25 years versus 33,000 from 1992 to 2016), as the decline in the contribution of natural increase will slow regional population additions compared to what has been experienced historically (of note is that deaths will outnumber births in the Lower Mainland beginning in 2042).
FIGURE 2
Total Population, Lower Mainland 1991 - 2041
4.03
3.62
3.38
3.4%
2.93
2.70
2.49
2.36
2.5%
1.86
1.7%
ANNUAL RATE OF CHANGE
1.6%
0.9%
1.2%
JANUARY 2019 — P A G E 5
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