Chart of the Week: Thank you seniors! For preventing the collapse in Canadian labour force participation rates  

In 2011, the oldest of the baby boomers—the giant demographic cohort born between 1946 and 1965—turned 65 (the typical retirement age). At the time, there was concern that this was going to lead to massive disruption—a giant wave of retirees exiting the labour market, creating worker shortages.

One of the reasons this doomsday scenario didn’t come to fruition is that older Canadians aged 50+ significantly increased their participation rates (the share of population working or looking for work) as shown in our Chart of the Week. The other reason is that immigration kept adding younger workers.

But we can’t be complacent. There are limits to how much seniors can keep increasing their part rates to offset aging, and immigration is re-normalizing at lower levels. Further, what happens if we really ‘build baby build’ in Canada?