Editing Bas-Saint-Laurent (section)

== Demography ==
[[File:Rimouski.jpg|thumb|right|[[Rimouski]], the largest city in Bas-Saint-Laurent]]
After reaching its peak in the middle of the 20th century due to the strong natality and a reduction of child mortality, the population of Bas-Saint-Laurent has declined over the last 50 years. This is not unique to the region, as the population living on the south shore of the estuary, in the regions of Côte-du-Sud, Bas-Saint-Laurent and [[Gaspésie]], proportionally declined from 9.3 to 5.4% of the total population of Quebec between 1951 and 1991. This decline is due to structural issues like the rationalization of agriculture and the depletion of the forests, but also to [[rural flight]] and a declining birth rate since the 1960s.{{sfn|Fortin|Lechasseur|1993|p=597}}

=== Population ===
{{Main|Demographics of Quebec}}
Bas-Saint-Laurent was home to 200,500 inhabitants on the first of July 2011, which represents 2.5% of the total population of Quebec. This number indicates that this share has dropped by 4% since 1996. More than 40% of the population of the region lives in two [[Regional county municipality|RCMs]], [[Rimouski-Neigette Regional County Municipality|Rimouski-Neigette]] (55,364 inhabitants in 2011) and [[Rivière-du-Loup Regional County Municipality|Rivière-du-Loup]] (34,326 inhabitants in 2011).<ref name="SC2011"/>

Since 1951, the region has seen its population stagnate or slightly decline. This is due to two opposing factors, the decline of rural areas and the reinforcement of urban areas, like Rimouski and Rivière-du-Loup. The share of these two towns alone went from 16% of the total population of the region in 1951 to 34% in 2001. The new importance of these urban centres explain the fact that only their RCMs have had a population increase between 1951 and 2001. Opposite to these, RCMs devoid of a strong urban centre, like [[La Matapédia Regional County Municipality|La Matapédia]], [[Témiscouata Regional County Municipality|Témiscouata]] and [[Les Basques RCM|Les Basques]], have been the RCMs where the population has dropped the most in the region.

Accounting for the population decrease observed since 1951, even when Quebec's population has increased by 82%, it is not surprising that the share of the population of Quebec living in Bas-Saint-Laurent has decreased from 5.2% in 1951 to 2.8% in 2001.

=== Age ===
The population of Bas-Saint-Laurent is significantly older than the population of Quebec as a whole. In 2011, the average age of the population of Bas-Saint-Laurent was 47.3 years, making it the second oldest province of Quebec by that criterion, behind neighboring [[Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine]] (49.0 years) and just before the region in third place, [[Mauricie]] (47.2).

The share of youths under the age of 20 is also one of the lowest of Quebec, at 19.5%, compared to the average of 21.7%.<ref name="SC2011"/>

As is the case for data on population, the data on the age of said population shows a clear divide between the two urban RCMs and the rural ones. The RCM [[Les Basques RCM|Les Basques]] sees an important aging of its [[Population ageing|population]] and has the lowest share of youths between 0 and 19 years old (17.5), the population over 65 years old has the largest share (25.6%), and the average age of 51 years is the highest of the region in 2011.<ref name="SC2011"/>

=== Language ===
{{Main|Language demographics of Quebec}}
Nearly all residents of Bas-Saint-Laurent speak French as their mother tongue. According to the 2006, 98.6% of those who responded declared their native tongue to be French, 0.6% declared English, and 0.8% listed a different language.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Government of Quebec |title=Population having only one native tongue, administrative region of Bas-Saint-Laurent, 2006 |website=Institut de la statistique du Québec |url=http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/regions/recens2006_01/langue01/materuni01.htm |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130423001556/http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/regions/recens2006_01/langue01/materuni01.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=23 April 2013 |access-date=16 March 2013 }}</ref> Only 315 people indicated both French and English to be their native tongues, and 86 people cited French and another language.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Government of Quebec |title=Population having more than one native tongue, administrative region of Bas-Saint-Laurent, 2006 |website=Institut de la statistique du Québec |url=http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/regions/recens2006_01/langue01/matmulti01.htm |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130422222439/http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/regions/recens2006_01/langue01/matmulti01.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 April 2013 |access-date=26 November 2009 }}</ref>

The proportion of Bas-Saint-Laurent residents reporting they can speak both French and English was 15.6%, compared to 40.6% in all of Quebec. This share was greater in the two largest cities of the region, reaching 21.7% in Rimouski and 18.0% in Rivière-du-Loup. Among smaller towns, Notre-Dame-du-Lac stood out with a bilingual rate of 20.3%. In the region, 140 people reported they only spoke English, and 125 others reported that they could not speak either French or English.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Government of Quebec |title=Population according to their ability in the official languages, administrative region of Bas-Saint-Laurent, 2006 |website=Institut de la statistique du Québec |url=http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/regions/recens2006_01/langue01/matmulti01.htm |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130422222439/http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/regions/recens2006_01/langue01/matmulti01.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 April 2013 |access-date=16 March 2013 }}</ref>

=== Immigration ===
The regional conference of elected representatives considers immigration to be a major issue for the economic and social development of Bas-Saint-Laurent and expends great efforts to attract new inhabitants, it also creates programs of insertion and promotion for them.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Conférence régionale des élues du Bas-Saint-Laurent |title=Immigrant population according to arrival period, administrative region of Bas-Saint-Laurent, 2006 |website=Institut de la statistique du Québec |url=http://www.crebsl.org/social/immigration |access-date=16 March 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131016111624/http://www.crebsl.org/social/immigration |archive-date=16 October 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Bas-Saint-Laurent welcomed 585 immigrants between 2001 and 2006, which is about 30% of the 2000 inhabitants who migrated there according to the 2006 census. The RCM of Rimouski-Neigette welcomed more than half (310) of the new arrivals in the region between 2001 and 2006<ref>{{cite web |last1=Government of Quebec |title=Immigrant Population according to arrival period, administrative region of Bas-Saint-Laurent, 2006 |website=Institut de la statistique du Québec |url=http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/regions/recens2006_01/immigration01/perimmig01.htm |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130422221029/http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/regions/recens2006_01/immigration01/perimmig01.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 April 2013 |access-date=16 March 2013 |author1-link=Government of Quebec }}</ref>

These numbers must however be put in relation to the fact that 77.3% of the 236,975 immigrants to settle in Quebec between 1998 and 2007 chose the metropolitan region of Montréal, Bas-Saint-Laurent received only 0.2% of the immigrants that came to Quebec during this period. 
<ref>{{cite web |last1=Government of Quebec |title=Statistical Quebec: Immigration |website=Institut de la statistique du Québec |url=http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/publications/referenc/quebec_stat/pop_imm/pop_imm_10.htm |access-date=16 March 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131003145245/http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/publications/referenc/quebec_stat/pop_imm/pop_imm_10.htm |archive-date=3 October 2013 |url-status=dead |author1-link=Government of Quebec }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1= Youth commission of Bas-Saint-Laurent |title=Immigration : Bas-Saint-Laurent, a region open to immigration |website=Le Bas-Saint-Laurent pour vivre à temps plein |url=http://www.vivreatempspleinbsl.com/setablir/? |access-date=16 March 2013}}</ref>

=== Demographic projection ===
According to the most recent demographic projection from the [[Institut de la statistique du Québec]], the population of Bas-Saint-Laurent will register a slight [[Population decline|decline]] to 198,600 in 2031. According to this prediction, the proportion of inhabitants above 65 years old should reach 36% and will be twice as large as the share of inhabitants between 0 and 19 years old. This demographic prediction settles that the average age of the population of Bas-Saint-Laurent would reach 53 years, an increase of 6% compared to the latest data. The positive [[net migration rate]] will be insufficient in countering the negative [[rate of natural increase]] of the population.<ref name="DemPers">{{cite book |date= 2009 |title= Perspectives démographiques du Québec et des régions, 2006-2056 |url= http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/publications/demograp/pdf2009/perspectives2006_2056.pdf |location= Quebec |publisher= Institut de la statistique du Québec |pages= 52–53 |isbn= 978-2-550-56456-0 |access-date= 23 December 2018 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130701233256/http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/publications/demograp/pdf2009/perspectives2006_2056.pdf |archive-date= 1 July 2013 |url-status= dead }}</ref>