The contribution of foreign-born mothers to Canadian births from 1997 to 2024

Highlights

• In 2024, more than two in five newborns (42.3%) in Canada had a foreign-born mother (i.e., a mother who was born outside Canada), a proportion that has nearly doubled in just over a quarter of a century (22.5% in 1997).
• The adjusted proportion of foreign-born women among women of childbearing age was estimated at 32.3% in the 2021 Census, slightly lower than the percentage of births to foreign-born mothers, which was 33.0% the same year. This trend has been observed in the last five censuses, suggesting that foreign-born women are more likely to give birth in Canada than Canadian-born women of the same age.
• Without the contribution of foreign-born mothers, the total number of births in Canada would have declined faster since 2010.
• Without the contribution of foreign-born individuals to births and deaths, natural increase in Canada would have been negative since 2022.
• In 2024, nearly three in five babies (57.0%) born to mothers over the age of 40 had a foreign-born mother. At the other end of the spectrum, among babies born to mothers aged 19 and under, just over 1 in 10 babies (12.8%) had a foreign-born mother.
• In 2024, Ontario and British Columbia had the highest proportion of births to foreign-born mothers (48.7% each), while the lowest proportion was observed in the Atlantic provinces (23.6%).
• From 1997 to 2024, the largest increases in the number of births to foreign-born mothers were recorded in Saskatchewan (+437%), the Atlantic provinces (+298%), Alberta (+264%) and Manitoba (+206%).
• Among all births in Canada, the proportion of mothers born in India increased nearly fivefold, rising from 2.1% in 1997 to 10.3% in 2024. As a result, India was the most prevalent country of origin among foreign-born mothers in 2024.
• After India, the second-most common country of origin among foreign-born mothers in 2024 was the Philippines, representing 3.1% of all births, followed by China (2.0% of all births).