Environics Analytics Announces Release of New Demographic Estimates and Projections for 2007-2017
Environics Analytics, the marketing services company, today released its new Demographic Estimates and Projections (DEP) database covering the years 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2017. The new database, created by an innovative methodology, features authoritative estimates for 216 variables, including population and household counts, age, sex and marital status, immigration status, educational attainment, average household income and income distribution.
The demographic information helps companies make informed decisions for forecasting new trade areas, site selecting locations, analyzing population and household trends, and performing urban and facilities planning. It also offers insight into major trends in Canadian population changes.
The 2007 DEP release reflects Environics Analytics’ continuing commitment to disseminate the most accurate demographic data available to companies, government agencies and not-for-profits. To produce the estimates, EA analysts supplemented Census demographics provided by Statistics Canada with other data sources—including government estimates, economic data like building permits and immigration reports by research groups. An EA research team, consisting of veteran statisticians and modellers led by Tony Lea, Ph.D., collaborated with Tom McCormack and other economists at the Centre for Spatial Economics to produce proprietary models that project population growth and income changes at all levels of geography down to the 52,993 dissemination areas (representing an average 500 Canadians nationwide). The developers combined traditional demographic methods with cutting-edge macroeconomic modelling, advanced spatial trend analysis and exclusive databases to develop their projections.
“We’re able to score every dissemination area for growth, that is, its probability to attract additional people,” says Dr. Lea, senior vice president and chief methodologist with Environics Analytics. The company utilises an exhaustive research methodology that includes gathering information about a small area’s density, proximity to new subdivisions, and previous growth patterns, and then employs a proprietary geographic model to develop the estimates. “We want to make sure that our projections are as rigorously grounded in reality as possible,” says Robert Dominico, EA’s key research methodologist on population projections. “The result is a methodology that provides the best available estimates and projections of small-area demographics anywhere in Canada.”
The EA data offer a preview of what researchers will see in the new 2006 Census from Statistics Canada, which will release total population figures for 2006 next month but won’t make available all of the detailed 2006 population characteristics until the spring of 2008. In addition, EA’s DEP database provides estimates and projections of extra variables, including household income distributions in $10,000 increments, reported in constant and inflation-adjusted dollars, for all dissemination areas. Such detailed data have proven valuable to banks, utilities and retailers, which depend on the latest geodemographic analysis to better serve their shifting customer base. “A lot of planners use these data to decide where to open a new store or branch,” says Dr. Lea, “or whether they’ll need to build new infrastructure to reflect where people are moving.”
Already, the 2007 DEP statistics indicate what to expect with the release of the new Census. According to EA’s projections, the Canadian population has increased 6 percent in the last five years to 32.7 million, with higher growth rates found in the metro areas of Toronto, Calgary and Oshawa (while declines occurred in two northern areas, Thunder Bay and Saguenay). Immigration accounted for much of that population increase, and foreign-born residents now constitute one in five Canadians. Among the booming immigrant groups are newcomers from China (up 46 percent since 2001), India (up 36 percent) and Pakistan (up 28 percent). Meanwhile, Canada’s population is steadily aging—one-third are over 50 years old—thanks to the leading edge of the Baby Boom generation entering its retirement years.
“Canada has now entered a low-growth period with an aging population,” says Doug Norris, Ph.D., senior vice president and chief demographer with Environics Analytics. “But immigration levels will increasingly determine our demographic future. And in many ways, the country will become increasingly diverse in the future.” Dr. Norris notes that the DEP numbers show relatively modest growth in metropolitan central cities and older suburbs while a population boom is occurring in outlying “exurban” areas. “These trends have important implications for the Canadian workforce, government programs and consumer spending,” says Dr. Norris. “They provide a roadmap of what’s to come in Canada’s future.”
The 2007 Demographic Estimates and Projections database presents census dissemination area-level statistics on a wide range of subjects, such as:
- Population characteristics, sex and age
- Household information
- Marital and common law status
- Family status
- Average household income and income distribution
- Educational attainment
- Labour force activity and occupations
- Mother tongue Immigration status
- Visible minority populations