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Calgary's booming economy is setting the stage for another boom &em; an explosion in the birth rate.
Nearly 50,000 children are expected to be born in the city over the next decade, a surge that will affect schools, hospitals and day cares across the city, an economist says.
Statistics to be released later this month by the City of Calgary forecast a 42- per-cent increase in the number of children under the age of nine.
Calgary's economic prosperity has drawn young people to the city who are starting families, said Patrick Walters, an economist with the City of Calgary.
"People in the age group who migrate generally are in the child bearing ages. They're generally less than 35 years old, so they are having children," he said.
High fertility rates and a steady flow of young Canadians have made Alberta the youngest province in the country, with a median age of 35.5 years, according to figures released by Statistics Canada in October.
That's just over three years younger than the national median age.
Calgary's day cares will be the among the first to feel the impact.
According to the City of Calgary's statistics, by 2010 there will be 77,100 children under age four in the city, up from 59,500 today. By 2016, that number will reach 84,600.
"That's quite a frightening number because we can't service the zero to four- year-olds we have," said Noreen Murphy, spokeswoman for Calgary Regional Association for Quality Childcare.
Child care organizations can't plan for the baby boom without government funding, she said.
"The infrastructure has to be in place to support the spaces, the staff training, the education in the first place and the wages. Parents cannot afford what it takes to have people not work at Starbucks."
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- reprinted from the CBC