Interestingly, the COVID-19 pandemic will have lasting effects in ways not usually considered during the initial acute stress. School populations will dip while this smaller cohort journeys though the educational system. Looking further into the future, the workforce population will shrink exactly when older folks will be needing more assistance and care.
Families respond to economic conditions. Places with lower employment and earnings have lower birth rates. The Great Recession resulted in about a 10% decrease in birth rate. Looking back to the Spanish flu pandemic, large spikes in death rates were matched by about a 15% decrease in birth rates.
Economic hardship does result in lower birth rates according to a
paper by the Brookings Institute. Two surveys, one in America and the other in Europe conducted during the height of the current pandemic, showed that about a third of women either delayed plans to have a child or reduced the number of children they expect to have due to the pandemic. The thought that a spike in births would occur nine months after people were stuck at home never occurred. In fact, couples quarantined at home with school age children reported they had even more stress and less opportunity to add a child. Interestingly, although during blizzards and blackouts apocryphal stories abound of an increase in births nine months later, the facts do not confirm this happening either.
Access to birth control and abortion also have profound effects on birth rates. These factors have been relatively steady, whereas the economic impact of COVID has been severe and well documented. In better economic times and in regions with higher incomes, the birth rate increases. Economists call this “a positive income effect.” Housing values also correlate with birth rates. Increases in housing value result in more kids for the homeowners. However, renters suffer when rents increase, resulting in fewer babies.
All the above factors affecting birth rates are part of the economic cycle. Women whose husbands have lost their jobs at some point in their marriage ultimately have fewer children. States severely stressed economically have lower birth rates than prosperous states. Unemployment rates are good proxies for birth rates.
Getting to a new normal will require an adjustment as people overcome re-entry anxiety. Watching changes in birth rates going forward will be informative. Will there be “pent up demand” with overcompensation or a gradual return to normal? Nine months from now will yield an answer.