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By Chris Brown

2021 Federal Census

Number of seniors in Medicine Hat rising, virtually no population grown overall: StatCan

Apr 28, 2022 | 11:52 AM

Census data released by Statistics Canada this week shows Canada is aging, and Medicine Hat is no different.

The number of people in the city who are of working age – between 15 and 64 years old – has dropped by about 1,500, from 40,875 to 39,370 since 2016.

The number of Medicine Hat residents over 65 years of age is up to 13,265, from 11,220 five years ago.

During that same period, Medicine Hat’s population has risen by only 11 people, from 63,260 to 63,271. The average age in Medicine Hat is 42.7 years.

The fastest-growing age group in the country is seniors over the age of 85. In Medicine Hat, that number has risen from 1,765 to 1,855.

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Data shows that the number of people aged 85 or older in Canada grew by 12 per cent, more than twice as high as the country’s overall growth of 5.2 per cent.

On the other end of the spectrum, millennials, those born between 1981 and 1996, are the fastest-growing generation. Their numbers rose 8.6 per cent between 2016 and 2021. Statistics Canada says the increase is due to immigration, despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on recent immigration.

Millennials are the generation that accounts for the largest share of the working-age population, those aged 15 to 64, at 33.2 per cent.

And for the first time since the end of the baby boom, baby boomers —who were born between 1946 and 1965 — make up less than a quarter of the Canadian population. They represent 24.9 per cent of the Canadian population, compared with 41.7 per cent in 1966, when they were under the age of 20.

Alberta is one of four provinces or territories where millennials outnumber baby boomers – 23.3 per cent versus 21.4 per cent. The other are Yukon (25.0% versus 24.2%), the Northwest Territories (25.2% versus 19.2%), and Nunavut (24.1% versus 10.6%).

The province as a whole has a higher percentage of youths under the age of 15 (19%) compared to the national average (16.3%), a higher percentage of the working population between 15 and 64 years of age (66.2%) compared to the national average (64.8%), and fewer seniors (14.8%) than the national average (19%).

The average age of Albertans in 2021 is 39.

The full census report is available on the Statistics Canada website.

— with files from Lethbridge News Now and The Canadian Press