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THE LEN LESSER REPORT  

THE LEN LESSER REPORT

 

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THE DIRE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT HAVING CHILDREN.

"Birds do it bees do" it the musical refrain emphasizes. Maybe Londoners are doing it but we Londoners are not having school age children. Applause, applause to Sabina and her staff at the Mom & Caregiver who recognize the importance of having/caring for children.

Canada's birth rate has fallen 25% in the last ten years to 10.5 live births for every 1000 of the population.

Gil Owens, Planning Officer for the Thames Valley School Board was very kind to share some numbers. In 2008 he anticipates to have 51,000 elementary school students compared to 2007, 52,126. The TVDSB lost over a thousand elementary school students. The projections for the secondary panel are for 26,949 this year compared to 27,500 students for 2007.

With the reduction in numbers of students the board will have to contemplate closing schools that do not come up to complement. We will need fewer teachers , support staff to take care of the diminished numbers attending our schools.

We Londoners have to worry who will sustain our comfortable standard of living/health care/pensions etc etc. Our young people are staying in school longer. The average age of females graduating from university is 22.1 years compared to their male cohorts at 22.4 years.

Men and women are marrying later in life. Many women are opting to stay single or shun the role of motherhood until they are in their thirties.

In the good old days couples had their families by the age of thirty. These days many couples are pushing forty before they are pushing their strollers.

20% of women in Canada over forty years of age are childless. For many it is sure hard to give up good paying careers as lawyers ,doctors, chemical engineers for domestic tranquility.

Our young women should not have to give up their dreams of attending university/college and attain careers of their own. Corporations/governments along with affirmative taxation policies are needed.

Flexibility, affordable day care and appreciation for the role of the family is needed before we can expect meaningful changes.

I am interested in your comments.

Len Lesser

Len Lesser posts a report every week

You can email Len at lenlesser@hotmail.com