Baby bust in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic? First results from the new STFF data series

Tomas Sobotka, Aiva Jasilioniene, Ainhoa Alustiza Galarza, Kryštof Zeman, Laszlo Nemeth and Dmitri Jdanov

No mvy62, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Past evidence on fertility responses to external shocks, including economic recessions and the outbreaks of infectious diseases, show that people often put their childbearing plans on hold in uncertain times. We study the most recent data on monthly birth trends to analyse the initial fertility responses to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research, based on new Short-Term Fertility Fluctuations (STFF) data series (https://www.humanfertility.org/cgi-bin/stff.php), embedded in the Human Fertility Database (HFD), shows the initial signs of the expected “birth recession”. Monthly number of births in many countries fell sharply between October 2020 and the most recent month observed, often bringing about a clear reversal of the previous trend. Across 17 countries with lower fluctuations in births, the number of births fell on average by 5.1% in November 2020, 6.5% in December 2020 and 8.9% in January 2021 when compared with the same month of the previous year. Spain sustained the sharpest drop in the number of births among the analysed countries, with the number of births plummeting by 20% in December 2020 and January 2021. The combined effect of rising mortality and falling birth rates is disrupting the balance of births and deaths in many countries, pushing natural population increase to record low levels in 2020 and 2021.

Date: 2021-03-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://osf.io/download/605a70c37d552b00911b22c6/

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:mvy62

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/mvy62

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SocArXiv from Center for Open Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by OSF ().