Pandemic threatens baby dreams
Health and money worries likely to reduce nation’s birth rate this year
Fertility clinics are preparing for a 20 per cent drop in demand after the Covid-19 pandemic, sparking fears some women may miss out on having children altogether.
Andrew Murray, Fertility Associates medical director, said there were concerns the economic impact of Covid-19 could mean some women miss the biological window to have babies.
One Wellington woman told the Herald IVF (in vitro fertilisation) was the only way she and her partner could have a baby. But as they were now facing financial uncertainty, their dreams of starting a family would have to be put on hold.
Murray said fertility seemed to move in sync with our economic cycle, so when the economy was suffering, people tended to have fewer babies.
He said after the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008 there was a dip in demand for about a year after.
“Our assumption is the hangover from Covid is going to be far worse than GFC and as a consequence demand will drop.”
Massey University sociologist Professor Paul Spoonley echoed Murray’s comments, saying New Zealand’s birth rate was likely to drop over the next nine months for two reasons.
“One is people are anxious about health of the country and community, and do you want to bring a child into a situation where there are challenges and issues?
“The second is because we are heading into a period of economic uncertainty, people don’t feel confident enough to start having a family. They may have lost their job and there is a whole lot of uncertainty.”
He said it was estimated the cost of bringing up a child in New Zealand to the age of 21 was about $285,000.
That took into account food, education, clothing, child care and other expenses, Spoonley said.
The impact of a decline in birth rates meant New Zealand’s growing ageing population would accelerate.
“We are going to reach a point quite soon where we have more people aged 65 and over than those aged 0 to 15.”
Spoonley said the issue was that a lot of our country’s polices dealt with a New Zealand that existed 45 years ago and so our policy framework really needed to change.
“The cost of superannuation and healthcare will become a growing issue.”
He said another problem likely to get worse was the tendency for our population to move north.
“In the last 30 years, a large chunk of people have moved to the golden triangle — Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga — and as a result schools in other parts of the country have been forced to close. And places like Auckland have had to build more schools.”
The prediction that birth rates will drop could also be evident in the demand for contraception, which sky-rocketed in recent months.
Jackie Edmonds, chief executive of Family Planning, said she was seeing a huge increase in demand from women seeking contraception.
She said it was a double effect of the Mirena contraceptive becoming fully funded in November last year and the impact of Covid-19.
“We are getting hundreds of requests every day. Our demand is huge, far more than the resource we have and lots of people are waiting for contraception.
“Wait times for appointments were up to two months.”
The United Nations’ sexual and reproductive health agency is forecasting that, globally, 47 million women could lose access to contraception, leading to 7 million unintended pregnancies in the coming months. However, most of its data points to women in low- and middle-income countries who may not be able to access modern contraceptives.
Edmonds said with pandemic financial pressures, people in New Zealand will likely be more concerned and more careful about becoming pregnant.
“It wouldn’t be surprising if we also saw a spike in abortion in the coming months.
“I think people will be delaying having children given the financial situation . . . couples will be grappling with the uncertainty of work.”