Michael Haan

Can New Brunswick’s Population Time Bomb be Defused?
April 27, 2011, 7:00 pm, Charlotte Street Arts Centre

In 1956, New Brunswick tied with Prince Edward Island for the highest fertility rates in Canada (4.6 children per woman, compared to an average of 3.9 for the rest of Canada). Today, we face one of the biggest baby busts, second only to Newfoundland and Labrador for having the smallest proportion of young people in its midst. When coupled with relatively low immigration rates, this creates an environment where population composition increasingly affects the prospects of economic growth and self-sufficiency. This talk will examine implications of such a profound population change and look at the prospects for reversing New Brunswick’s demographic dilemma.

Michael Haan is Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Population and Social Policy and an Associate Professor in the Departments of Economics and Sociology at the University of New Brunswick. He received his PhD from the University of Toronto in 2005. He is interested in housing, immigration, mobility, migration, and population decline.