A Canadian woman today has the most spectacular return on investment for her pregnancies since time began despite smallest ever family size. The corollary: Canada can shrink and prosper. Using
Gapminder's interactive charts: A woman in Canada about 1800 endured an average of 5.72 births (stats talk) and her off-spring lived an average of 39 years earning annually $1340 in inflation-adjusted dollars.
A Canadian woman today has 1.66 children who can expect to live 81 years with average earnings of $40603. Times it all out and you get a ROI of 299,000 dollar-years for the woman of the 1800's and 5,460,000 dollar years for today's woman.
The first corollary: From a woman's point of view, it doesn't matter if Canada's population shrinks because her Return On Investment is spectacular and still growing as we live longer.
The second corollary: A man and woman's best lifetime investment is to form a reproductive couple to rear one or two children.
Gapminder is sponsored by scientist, Hans Rosling. If you haven't seen his illustrated talk, you probably are out of date thinking about population, family size and prosperity.
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