“Surrey’s population growth appears to be occurring for a few reasons: birth rates that are higher in Surrey than in any of the four comparison municipalities in this report [Burnaby, Richmond, Vancouver and Metro Vancouver as a whole]; mortality rates that are slightly lower than in the rest of British Columbia and high immigration rates, where immigrants make up 40.5% of Surrey’s population with almost 36% having arrived in the last ten years,” the United Way said in the report.
The birth rate in Surrey is 13.5 births per 1,000 people. Across the province, the rate is 9.9 births per 1,000 people. In all, one out of every 10 births in B.C. takes place in Surrey.
In the 2014/15 school year, more than half of all students in the city spoke a language that was not English. The most common languages, besides English, were Punjabi, Mandarin, Tagalog and Hindi.
The survey also found that between 2010 and 2014, 929 government-assisted refugees settled in Surrey, comprising 27% of the total number of government-assisted refugees across the province.