Thread by @chris_m_neill

OK, so yesterday I noted some incoherent comments re demographics and future demand for PSE in Ontario. I was a little flippant re baby boom, bust and echo in that tweet, as @AlexUsherHESA pointed out.

I could not leave it there.

Did I not take a course called "Econ & Demographics", with David Foot, Mr Boom Bust and Echo himself? I did.

Did we use his book throughout? We did. (Can I find it now? I cannot - v irritating.)

Do I recall the maxim "Every year we get a year older"? Oh my word, do I ever.

So here are some things that make me cautious about doom & gloom scenarios for PSE.

Every year we get a year older - but the population doesn't. You can't just look at the population aged 10-14yo now to estimate the 20-24yo population 10 years from now, tempting as that is.

Projecting population stats is hard. Ontario's MoF tries, and it's those projections that universities presumably use to estimate the university age population 10 years and 20 years from now.

So how have they done? Well ... not so great.

We've been projecting a downturn in the 20-24yo population around 2013-18 for some time. But projections of when exactly, how strong, and how long have varied. Early projections had us not reaching our current 20-24yo population until maybe 2036. Surprise!

The 2001 projection put our peak population (in 2016) at 941,000. That's less than what we now project for our trough in 2025. The current estimates have us dropping between 2018 and 2025 before recovering our 2018 population by 2033.

Here is Ontario's population pyramid for 2017, by birth year. So when would you reckon the baby boom, bust and echo were?
Boom: 1953-67? (Allowing for some deaths)
Bust: 68-82?
Echo: 83-97 - and it was a doozy!
And a massive bust after that.

Every year we get 1 year older right? So let's look back 10 yrs. This superimposes the 2007 year of birth pyramid on 2017's.
At the top, you see 10 years of deaths: there are fewer people from the 1923-27 birth cohort in 2017 than in 2007.
At the bottom, it's the opposite.

In 2007, the echo looked mild: we'd see some increase in the 20-24 yo population, but not much, before a decline hit. Totally consistent with the MoF projections.

In 2017, the echo looks much bigger and longer-lasting. And the coming bust seems bigger.

Will the bust hit, or will we see changes in the youth population along the lines of the past decade? Hard to tell, since what matters here is projecting migration - way harder than taking the current 10-14yo population and ageing them 10 years.

If we believe MoF's current projections, there'll be a small dropoff followed by continuing growth in the 20-24yo pop. They've been wrong before, but always on the low side. Are they over-forecasting now to make up for under-forecasting previously? Dunno! This stuff is hard!

It's certainly harder than just saying "The baby boomers have stopped having kids now [or 20 years ago, whatevs], so the 20-24yo population will drop soon."

And this doesn't consider the Q of what % of 20-24yos will want PSE (it has been rising, & there's room for men at least to increase their participation rate).

And for the new campuses, geography matters: MoF projections for GTA population suggest nary a drop in 20-24yos.

In the CBC interview that started this, Leo Groarke flapped around haplessly trying to make these points (I think):
1. uni age population will drop
2. though admittedly not as much in GTA
3. so we shouldn't spend $ on new GTA campuses, & should churn the $ back into the system.

My position:
1. Questionable (see thread)
2. Yep- but the GTA differs a whole lot more than Groarke suggested (see above)
3. I kind of agree, with proviso that GTA needs spots
The last may make me a contrarian. But it is entirely in Groarke's institution's interests.

PS. Just found StatCan's call on the boom/bust/echo. It's odd.
Boom: 46-65; Bust: 66-71; Echo: 72-92; then GenZ.
So the Bust was only 5 years? And the Echo mostly had fewer people than Bust?