Fertility trends in developed countries during the COVID-19 pandemic
Abstract
The article discusses the dynamics of fertility in a number of developed countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on Human Fertility Database on the number of monthly births (Short-Term Fertility Fluctuations), the author carried out an analysis of trends in the number of births from 2000 to the present, paying particular attention to the period from 2020 to the first half of 2021. Most of the countries surveyed are experiencing an accelerated decline in fertility, which began in October-November 2020 and continues in 2021. In Spain, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Latvia and Russia, the number of births in December 2020 compared to the previous year decreased on average by 8.03%, in January 2021 - by 13.3%. The sharpest drop in the number of births among the monitored countries was observed in Spain, with the number of births falling by 21.3% in December 2020 and by 20.8% in January 2021. In a number of countries (Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Hungary) there is an increase in the number of births during the pandemic compared to the average for the past five and ten years. In some countries (Spain, Italy), the decline in the number of births during the COVID-19 pandemic is significantly higher than the decline in similar indicators after previous economic or epidemiological crises. The economic and social instability that began during the pandemic contributed to a decrease in the number of births in developed countries, which is especially noticeable in December 2020 - January 2021. However, subsequently, the number of monthly births is gradually returning to pre-pandemic levels. From this we can conclude that the impact of the coronavirus crisis on fertility in developed countries is likely to be short-term.
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References
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