Two studies dealing with the Jewish school-age child population in Canada and with the Jewish aged in the metropolitan census area of Montreal and environs were made public here today by the Canadian Jewish Congress. Both studies, based on official, Dominion-wide census data of 1961, were made by Louis Rosenberg, CJC research director.
In the school-age Jewish child area, the figures showed that there are in Canada, this year, an estimated 34,780 children, aged 5-12, on the elementary school level, and 35,490 Jewish teenagers. The 1966 figures in this study were projected from the official 1961 census data.
The data showed that there was a 12.7 percent drop in 1966 in the Jewish elementary school age population as compared with 1961, and an increase of 31.6 percent in the Jewish teenage population in 1966 as compared with the figures of five years ago.
The study also showed that, in 1961, 94.7 percent of Canada’s total Jewish population lived in 17 metropolitan census areas and the city of Regina. The 1961 Jewish population ranged from 128 in metropolitan St. John’s, Newfoundland, to 102,724 in metropolitan Montreal.
The study on the aged is intended to furnish social welfare agencies here, and others interested in the welfare of the Jewish population 65 years old and over, with comparative statistical information, including the number of aged, marital status of Jews over 60, and sex distribution. The CJC noted that a special cross-classification was made necessary because the statistics of Jews by ethnic origin in Canada differed from the figures of Jews by religion in 1961. The figures showed that there were 8,209 Jews in metropolitan Montreal in 1961 who were 65 years of age and over, of whom 3,862 were men and 4,347 were women, forming 8 percent of the total Jewish population of all ages in that area. Of the 8,209 Jews who were 65 years of age and over, 3,173 were in the 65 to 69 bracket and 5,036 were 70 years of age or over.
In addition to the 8,209 Jews in Metropolitan Montreal who were 65 years of age and over in 1961 there were 4,587 Jews who were 60 years of age or older, but had not yet reached their 65th birthday, so that the total Jewish population of metropolitan Montreal 60 years of age or over numbered 12,796, of whom 6,162 were men, and 6,634 were women, forming 12.5 percent of the total Jewish population of all ages. Among the total population of all origins, those who were 60 years of age and over comprised 9.8 percent of the population in metropolitan Montreal.
The study indicated that in the city of Montreal there were 9,883 Jews 60 years of age and over in 1961, of whom 3,948 were 70 years of age and over. In Outremont there were 1,351 Jews 60 years of age and over, of whom 555 were 70 years of age and over. Next in number of Jews 60 years of age and over were West mount with 407, Cote St. Luc with 307 and St. Laurent with 271. In every area of metropolitan Montreal and in every age group over 59, the number of women exceeded the number of men among the Jewish population.
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