On September 23, 2026, Statistics Canada reported a total fertility rate of 1.26 children per woman for 2025, unchanged from the record low of 2024 and the third consecutive year below 1.3. The figure is usually read as a count of how many children women are having. It is narrower: a single-year measure built from the ages at which births occur. This article explains the calculation, the 2025 figures, why later motherhood lowers the number, and what the rate cannot say about family size or intentions.
A hypothetical woman, one calendar year
Statistics Canada’s definition of the total fertility rate describes an estimate of the average number of live births a woman would have in her lifetime at the age-specific fertility rates of one given year: the sum of those rates, divided by 1,000.
In effect, the calculation adds up 2025’s birth rates at each age, as though one woman lived through every age under 2025’s conditions. No real woman does. The figure summarizes one year in the units of a lifetime.
If each of seven five-year age groups from 15 to 49 recorded a hypothetical 36 births per 1,000 women a year, the rate would be 7 × 5 × 36 ÷ 1,000, or 1.26.
The crude birth rate differs: it counts births per 1,000 people of all ages, so it falls as a population ages even if women’s fertility is unchanged. Statistics Canada treats 2.1 children per woman as replacement level; Canada has been below it since 1972.
Flat nationally, lower in most provinces
According to Statistics Canada’s 2025 fertility release, the national rate matched 2024’s. The decline began in 2009, averaged −4.0% a year from 2017 to 2023 (2021 aside), slowed to −0.8% in 2024 and then plateaued.
Eight of 13 provinces and territories recorded all-time lows, including Saskatchewan (1.58), Manitoba (1.50), the Northwest Territories (1.28) and Nunavut (2.40). Yukon (1.02) had the lowest rate for the first time, displacing British Columbia (1.04), lowest from 2013 to 2024. Alberta recorded 1.42 and Ontario 1.23; the two are often compared on other grounds, such as how household costs differ between Alberta and Ontario, a question separate from fertility. A flat national rate amid widespread lows is no contradiction: none of the four most populous provinces set a new low.
Mothers’ average age at childbirth reached a new high of 31.9. Canada ranked seventh-lowest of 20 selected high-income countries. Figures are subject to revision; last year’s release put 2024 at 1.25.
Why later births lower a one-year rate
A rate built from one year counts only that year’s births. When births move to later ages, some are pushed out of each year while the shift lasts, so the rate falls even if eventual family size falls by less.
In a hypothetical population where every woman has two children at stable ages, the single-year rate is 2.0. If the average age at birth then rises about a year every five years, roughly a fifth of each year’s expected births shift into later years, and the rate reads close to 1.6, though every woman still has two. It recovers only once the age stops rising. Canada’s recent pace is slower, so the example does not estimate the Canadian effect.
Mothers’ average age at childbirth rose from 26.7 in 1976 to 31.9 in 2025. BC Stats’ analysis of fertility trends reports that since 2020, British Columbia women aged 25 to 29 have had lower fertility rates than women in their thirties, and that the rate at ages 20 to 24 has fallen about 82% since 1991. BC Stats notes that the rate is strongly affected by when women have children, so its changes may reflect later childbearing rather than a lasting rise or fall in births.
Timing does not explain the whole decline: more women are also without children, and a single-year rate cannot separate the two effects.
A count and a rate can move apart
Births and the fertility rate can move in opposite directions because the rate divides births by the number of women at each age. If those women increase faster than births, the rate falls even when births do not.
In 2023, births held steady at around 350,000 while the rate fell; Statistics Canada attributed the lower rate to more women of childbearing age. In 2025, births rose by about 1.6% while the rate held at 1.26.
Statistics Canada’s July 2026 estimates show the population aged 20 to 24 falling by 63,838 over the year; a smaller young-adult population can lower future birth counts with no change in the rate.
Family size, childlessness and intentions
The rate is often treated as a stand-in for three things it does not measure.
The first is how many children mothers have. Averaging across all women, including those without children, the rate cannot show whether families with children are shrinking.
The second is childlessness. Statistics Canada’s January 2026 release found that 51.5% of women aged 20 to 49 had no biological or adopted children in 2024; among women in their forties, the share was 23.6%.
The third is intention. Among women without children, 66.0% in their twenties wanted them, against 44.2% in their thirties and 13.1% in their forties. Those who want children would like 2.2 on average; for a couple, two children make a four-person household, the size used in estimates of what a family of four typically spends on groceries. A separate Statistics Canada study found the share of Canadians aged 15 to 49 planning biological children rose from 41% in 2021 to 46% in 2024. The desired 2.2 and the measured 1.26 answer different questions: one records preferences, the other one year’s births.
Nor does the rate record reasons. Statistics Canada notes associations with education, employment, marital status and religious practice, without ranking them. Family-size decisions are made within each household’s own circumstances and planning, including how a family budget is usually put together, none of which the rate captures.
A year, not a lifetime
Strictly, 1.26 is the number of children a woman would have if she lived her whole reproductive life at 2025’s age-specific birth rates. The figure is accurate and matches the lowest on record. It also combines how many children people have with when they have them, and with mothers’ average age rising for nearly five decades, timing pulls the figure below what family size alone would produce. The headline describes one year; eventual family size is a separate number that 1.26 does not report.