Perceptions by Gerry Warner

They say numbers never lie, and if that’s the case, the numbers uncovered by research from the Columbia Basin Rural Development Institute have some surprising things to say about the future.

For instance, do you realize how old Cranbrook is getting? According to the Institute based at Selkirk College in Castlegar, the median age of our population in the 2011 census was 43.1. That’s not too far from ‘Freedom 55’ when many of us thought we would retire in Mexico on our savings. Fat chance! And the female average age is 44.1, more than two years older than the 42 male average. (It’s all that stress, guys. Or is it all that beer drinking in front of the TV?  Hard to say.

But here’s a stat that will make you think. In 2011, Cranbrook’s population was listed as 19,319, and out of that total, we had more senior citizens than we did children, namely 3,455 seniors over 65 compared to 3,245 children under 15. Some serious implications there for education, health care and the economy.  And our average age of 43.1 is older than the average age for the province of 41.9. Are we becoming a retirement community?  Don’t fret because the average age of Kimberley residents is 46. We are indeed an aging society.

And we are changing in other ways too. Take marital status. If you grew up in the late 1950s and 1960s as I did, divorce was a word more whispered than anything else and you had to go to court to be divorced and you had to prove adultery, which led to messy situations with private detectives and all. In those days, no one talked about common law partnerships; you were “shacked up.” This may sound strange to younger readers, but not to those of you with gray hair – if you still have hair – those were the good ol’ days, or so they say.

Compare that to the situation now.  In 2011, there were 8,020 legally married couples in Cranbrook, a decent number all told. There were also 1,600 couples living common law, 3,660 people over 16 who had never been married, 1,160 divorced people and 545 couples who were separate but still married. Definitely a more diverse society than the days of Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver.

Was it a better society then with more social cohesion? Who’s to say?

Some other interesting stats from the report includes the fact that there are more married couples in town without children (2,490) than there are married couples with children (1,915). Some 2,285 people in town live alone while the average number of persons per household is only 2.3 and there are 745 single-parent families in town.

So where is all this leading? Anyone who knows the answer will be a millionaire someday if he or she isn’t already. But a few observations can be made. We are evolving into a childless or almost childless society. Such a society can only last so long. Unfortunately, the more affluent a society becomes, the more quickly family size diminishes. This is a worldwide phenomenon. The fertility rate for women in Japan has plummeted to 1.39 per fertile woman and only 8.39 children are born for every thousand people in the country. Families with more than one child are rare in Japan and that ‘child’ may live with his parents into his 40s because the Japanese economy has been in recession since the late 1990s and jobs are scarce and rents high. Families are an ‘endangered species’ in Japan and many Japanese  families have even taken to adopting adult members in order to keep family dynasties alive especially for family businesses.

Is this the fate awaiting Canada? Or, for that matter, Cranbrook? Not likely, you say. Maybe so, but when you consider that School District No. 5 enrolment currently stands at around 5,200, down from almost 8,000 when I moved here in 1997, you’ve got to wonder. As for Canada, we would be losing population now if it weren’t for the 250,000 or so immigrants that enter the country every year. And where do you find the highest birth rates and the biggest families? The countries of Africa and Asia and those countries aren’t showing signs of slowing down. This could be good news for an under-populated, resource-rich country like Canada or a city like Cranbrook. And what would I be doing if I were a young person now?

I’d be learning to speak Chinese.

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and a Cranbrook City Councillor. His opinions are his own.

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