An additional 293,500 Canadians enrolled as members of a registered pension plan in 2023, Statistics Canada data released Tuesday showed.
According to a StatCan report, the number of Canadians who were active members of a registered pension plan (RPP) grew by 4.2 per cent to a total of roughly 7.2 million in 2023.
Of these, 4.9 million members were part of a defined benefit plan, which is a type of pension plan in which an employer or sponsor promises a specified pension payment, lump sum or a combination of the two on retirement.
In a defined benefit plan, the pension amount depends on an employee’s earnings history, tenure of service and age, rather than on individual investment returns.
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This is in contrast to defined contribution plans, in which the employee’s pension benefits are determined by the size of their pension pot at retirement, rather than by a predetermined formula based on their salary and service.
Employees have control over investment choices, and the benefits are not guaranteed. The number of new members in defined contribution plans rose by 65,300 members, an increase of 5.1 per cent compared with 2022.
The number of Canadians enrolling in pension plans outpaced the employment growth rate. According to the Labour Force Survey, employment grew by 690,844, or 3.8 per cent, during the same period.
More women than men joined RPPs between 2022 and 2023. There were 150,700 more women with membership in an RPP, an increase of 4.2 per cent from 2022 to 2023, taking their number beyond 3.7 million.
The number of men with active RPP memberships increased by 142,800 in 2023 compared with one year earlier, bringing their total membership to just over 3.5 million. Women’s share of active memberships held steady at 51.3 per cent in 2023.
Memberships were up across the country, with all provinces except Manitoba seeing an increase in enrolments. There were 1,300 fewer Manitobans enrolled in RPPs compared with the previous year.
The largest number of new RPP members was in Ontario, which saw 161,800 new members. This was followed by Quebec with 54,800 new members, British Columbia with 32,000 new members and Alberta with 18,700 new members.
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