Population growth between 2024 and 2027 will be zero because of an expected decrease in non-permanent residents, ISQ research suggests.
The population of Quebec could rise from 9 million to 10.6 million by 2071, an increase that will be fed mainly by immigration, as the province’s death rate is expected to exceed its birth rate in less than three years.
Those were the conclusions contained in the latest demographic analysis published Monday and conducted by the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ).
According to its reference scenario, population growth between 2024 and 2027 in Quebec will be zero because of an expected decrease in the number of non-permanent residents. Population growth would then resume to reach 10 million by 2054 and 10.6 million by 2071.
The ISQ forecasts a negative natural growth rate beginning in 2027 as deaths exceed births in Quebec, a situation the ISQ attributes principally “to the arrival of generations of baby boomers at ages of high mortality.”
“Due to the sustained decline of natural growth over the coming decades, population increase will depend more and more on migratory growth,” the ISQ writes.
The Quebec City region could see the largest increase in its population — 30 per cent — while the Eastern Townships would grow by 24.5 per cent, Chaudière-Appalaches 23 per cent and Lanaudière 22.3 per cent.