Amy Robichaud, 37, has made it her life’s work to help isolated and at-risk Canadian moms find the support they need to thrive as parents. Robichaud is the chief executive of Mothers Matter Canada, a national community advocacy organization.
Yet, despite her passion for helping mothers, Robichaud has no desire to be a mom herself.
“Even with … my deep belief that motherhood is intrinsically valuable to our society, I don’t have kids — and part of that is a personal choice,” said Robichaud, who is married.
“It’s definitely been influenced by the world I live in, by the fact that I don’t know if I could afford to do the work that I do and have children,” she said.
Many Canadians are making the same choice, for similar reasons.
A new World Happiness Report says Canada has a higher percentage of couples without children than any other country in the developed world. The report cites OECD data showing 26 per cent of Canadian couples were childless in 2016, followed by the U.S. at 25 per cent.
The report says the shift in family composition will have significant implications for societies in the decades to come.
“The emerging trends raise significant concerns from a wellbeing perspective as they suggest increasing threats to both the quantity and quality of person-based relationships and the role that households play in contributing to happiness.”
Financial instability
The report’s remarks about couples without children comes on the heels of recent Statistics Canada data showing Canada’s fertility rate has fallen to new lows.
An Angus Reid poll from October suggests personal choice is the main reason for individuals remaining childless. In the poll, two-thirds of childless survey respondents said children were “just not something I want for my life.”
Couples without children are not unhappy, says Denise Whitehead, associate professor at the Department of Sexuality, Marriage and Family Studies at the University of Waterloo. In fact, studies show couples without children tend to be happier than parents.
Last year, the United States’ top health official issued a health advisory warning that parenting has become a serious health issue. Parenting creates financial, time and social pressures that can be detrimental to health, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said.
The Angus Reid poll indicated other key reasons for childlessness include the cost of child care and the difficulty of getting “proper housing to raise a child.”
Financial instability greatly influences couples’ decisions about whether to have kids, says Ana Ferrer, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo.
Couples rarely decide outright to forgo kids because they are cash-strapped, Ferrer says. Rather, financial instability can lead couples to defer having kids — sometimes to the point that it becomes difficult to have them.
“It used to be the case that by 25 most people had a job that was more or less secure, or at least [a] starting point on a career. But now … it takes longer in school, then it takes longer to have a stable job,” said Ferrer.
Many couples feel they must buy a home before having a baby, she says. But for many, homeownership is out of reach.
A 2024 report on housing affordability by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy ranked four of Canada’s six largest cities unaffordable for middle-income Canadians. Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Calgary were all deemed unaffordable. The report ranked Edmonton and Ottawa as affordable.
Child-care costs also remain expensive for many parents. Since 2021, Ottawa and the provinces have been reducing parental fees for children enrolled in the subsidized child-care program. But there are significant waitlists to get into these programs, with tens of thousands of families currently unable to access subsidized spaces.
“Spots for $10-a-day or affordable childcare … their availability is still at a premium. It’s almost impossible to get a spot if you don’t already have one,” said Robichaud, of Mothers Matter Canada.
‘Can’t pay people enough’
Subsidized child care is not the only way Canadian governments have sought to support parents.
In 2006, Canada introduced the Universal Child Care Benefit (now the Canada Child Benefit), which gave eligible families $100 a month for every child under six. That same year, Quebec also established the Québec Parental Insurance Plan, which lowered the eligibility criteria for taking maternity leave, increased income replacement and enabled fathers to take parental leave.
Sitian Liu, an assistant professor at Queen’s University, is researching how the Universal Child Care Benefit and Quebec’s parental leave policies have affected Quebec’s fertility rate. She suggests Quebec’s parental leave changes had a greater effect on Quebec’s fertility rate than the child benefit.
After 2006, “the total fertility rate in Quebec increased dramatically compared with the rest of Canada,” said Liu. “It seems that this more generous support through parental leave, and in particular, this policy that encourages fathers to take more roles in child care, might be effective for encouraging people having kids or having more kids.”
Whitehead disagrees that parental policies have significantly affected fertility rates in Canada — or elsewhere.
“There is this suggestion that if we put in place more family friendly policies … that that will get people to have more children — and what’s becoming clear is that’s not working,” said Whitehead. “You can’t pay people enough money, it turns out, to have children.”
Ultimately, there is most likely nothing Canada or other developing countries can do to increase the national birth rate, Whitehead says.
But it is not all gloomy for parents, says Matthew Johnson, who researches the development of couple relationships at the University of Alberta. While parents may not be happy raising their children at times, many find a sense of purpose in child-rearing that can lead to overall fulfillment — even through difficult periods.
“On a given day, your kid wakes up with a fever and it just wrecks your day, you’re probably not going to be feeling a lot of happiness,” said Johnson.
“But I really do believe there’s a lot of meaning that comes from parenthood and developing another human and the next generation and bringing that experience.”
Having children is a commitment from their birth to your death. The costs to raise a child to adulthood from daycare, housing and education are enormous. With a shortage of affordable housing and daycare it is not surprising delaying or declining to have kids is the result. However, there is much that can be done to discuss as a nation how we raise our kids. Beyond national programs, how about societal expectations? Is living in a detached family home critical? Do we have enough urban family apartments, playgrounds, parks and schools? What is the benefit of the adult child in your life, particularly as you age? The ROI for kids is had in snatches raising them but the dividends once they are adults are unbelievable. Grandchildren are like stock splits. And if you have had your own children young enough, often helping with the younger generations either financially or with time is not a burden. Some people choose not to have kids for personal reasons, but if it about finances and obligations we should address the issues. Our children are for most of us the biggest contribution we make to our country in preserving the values we have as a democracy and influencing the world.
I think maybe Robichaud is just selfish and is entitled to the things she can now have in life through a convenient marriage (she believes in that institution! – For its financial advantages?) that she did not have growing up. I think she is just out for herself. Working for nonprofits is very profitable for its CEOs! She and her husband can afford children but they feel children would take money and time away from themselves. She will feel regretful for the last few decades of her life and can’t see it yet. Her now husband can have a child with a younger woman at ANY time. So many young women fail to picture these risks and upsets to their life plans. Anyway, a lot of these yuppie couples in Canada are just self-absorbed, have an insipid desire to ‘travel’ and think career defines them. Frankly we need natality and families. Mothers Matter? Yes, they do! Really, why is a woman who has sworn off children heading up Mothers Matter? Only in dumb Canada.
I like how the CEO of Mothers Matter would never want to be a mother! Kind of like the CEO of Burger King coming out and saying “burgers aren’t for me but give me money because I believe so much in burgers.”
Oh, it’s a “personal choice.”