Open AccessEarly assessment of the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and births in high-income countries
Author(s) -
Arnstein Aassve,
Nicolò Cavalli,
Letizia Mencarini,
Samuel Plach,
Seth Sanders
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.011
H-Index - 771
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2105709118
Subject(s) - pandemic , covid-19 , fertility , geography , high income countries , demography , birth rate , socioeconomics , developing country , economics , economic growth , population , medicine , outbreak , sociology , virology , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty)
Drawing on past pandemics, scholars have suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic will bring about fertility decline. Evidence from actual birth data has so far been scarce. This brief report uses data on vital statistics from a selection of high-income countries, including the United States. The pandemic has been accompanied by a significant drop in crude birth rates beyond that predicted by past trends in 7 out of the 22 countries considered, with particularly strong declines in southern Europe: Italy (−9.1%), Spain (−8.4%), and Portugal (−6.6%). Substantial heterogeneities are, however, observed.