New Census results out today from the 2016 Census! They include dwelling type, age, and sex figures. The former is of great interest to me, but I’m going to concentrate on the latter just to update my older posts on migration patterns for Metro Vancouver.

Behold, the lifeblood of Vancouver still isn’t leaving!

I followed the same basic procedure here as I described in previous posts, comparing 5-year age groups across 5-year census periods. For example, given how many 20-24 year olds we had in Vancouver in 2011, how many 25-29 year olds would be expect to be here in 2016? Without any net migration, we’d expect roughly the same number, subtracting a few who died. So if we compare population figures, and make minor adjustments for mortality (I used 2013 figures, drop me a line for details [UPDATE: I think I’ve made better technical assumptions about late life mortality effects in this later post, reducing net migration estimates from age 70+]), then we can estimate net migration by how many more (or less) people show up in 2016 than we’d expect. I use the intervening age intervals (e.g. 23-27 year olds) as labels to demonstrate where most of the in-out movement is taking place between census years, which I find really captures, for instance, those university years (18-22) well.

The big takeaway, given the frequent concerns expressed over millennials leaving Vancouver,* is that it’s STILL NOT HAPPENING! Young people continue to pour into the region (University town, vibrant urban scene, etc.), and they tend to stay well into their forties.

What does appear to be new this year, at least according to my calculations (which are heavily dependent upon mortality assumptions as the population gets older), is that we’re starting to see a net loss of our late-career / early retirees. These are folks in their fifties and sixties. Yes, yes, the slow leak of our Baby Boomers is upon us! Apocalypse Now! (to be fair, it is their movie…) It’s quite possible these are predominantly people cashing out on their investments in the local real estate market and leaving for elsewhere. But if so, that’s about the only age-specific migration trend I’m seeing that seems driven by Vancouver’s widely unaffordable real estate.

*- I’ve still not seen any calculations or corrections on this issue from Bloomberg. Show your work! Tell us where your bad data is coming from! It’s ok to get stuff wrong, but not ok to keep false stories running!