Early assessment of the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and births in highincome countries

Abstract

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.