Alberta has the youngest average age population in Canada, averaging just over 39 years of age. The province also has the lowest proportion of people aged 65 years and older, just over 15 per cent.

Airdrie's average age is even younger than the province-wide average, with Airdrie residents' average age of 35. A third of the city's population is under the age of 20.

According to a new Statistics Canada report, millennials (born between 1981 and 1996)  are now outnumbering the baby boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1965). However, the trend of millennials outpacing baby boomers has been the norm in Alberta for some time.

"In the Prairie provinces, this shift had occurred previously. Alberta was the first province where millennials outnumbered baby boomers, in 2014," StatsCan stated. 

StatsCan added that from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, baby boomers accounted for around 40 per cent of the population. By comparison, millennials' demographic weight will never reach the level of baby boomers and is expected to peak at its current level of 23 per cent according to the most recent population projections.

However, Millennials may soon be outnumbered by Generation Z.

"Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) has become the third-largest generation in Canada, now surpassing Generation X (born between 1966 and 1980). Notably, Generation X, whose members were born during a period of sharply declining fertility, will never have been the largest generation in Canada."

Statistics Canada predicts that Generation Z could overtake millennials in numbers between 2038 and 2053.

The population shift, especially in the rise of both Gen Z and millennials comes amid a record number of permanent and temporary residents arriving in Canada, who are in that generation category.

"From July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023, the millennial population increased by 457,354, exclusively due to the arrival of permanent and temporary immigrants. This increase even exceeds the annual growth of the young Generation Alpha (+454,133)—the members of which have been born since 2013—which grows mainly through births."

And while Canada's population continues to age, it is doing so at a slower pace than previously.

"On July 1, 2023, for the first time in Canadian history, there were more people aged 65 years and older (7,568,308) than younger than 18 years (7,497,048). The number of people aged 65 years and older had already surpassed that of children aged 0 to 14 years from July 1, 2015, to July 1, 2016."

While Alberta may be the youngest average-aged province in the country, Newfoundland and Labrador continued to be the province with the highest average age, which was 45.7 years, with also the highest proportion of people aged 65 years and older.

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