No lockdown baby boom as 75,000 fewer births forecast

AS MANY as 75,000 fewer babies could be born in the UK next year as fears fuelled by coronavirus prompt a “Covid baby bust”, economists have warned.

The UK saw 731,000 births in the UK in 2018 but households across the country are facing a financial squeeze, with unemployment threatening to hit three million when support measures, including the Government’s furlough scheme, are wound up.

Phillip Levine, an economics professor at Massachusetts-based Wellesley College, forecast a “7 per cent to 10 per cent” fall in US births next year – a fall of up to 500,000 – as economic uncertainty as well as public health fears deter would-be parents.

Mr Levine, who co-authored a paper on the topic for the Brookings Institution in the US, said “many of these births will not just be delayed – but will never happen”.

The academic told The Sunday Tele

graph: “We do not focus our analysis on Europe, but if you were willing to apply our estimates… then births would fall by perhaps 10 per cent, or 75,000 or so births in the UK.” If realised, such a fall would see the number of UK births fall to levels not seen since the 1970s. Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG, said: “If you have financial insecurity or concern about employment security, it is likely that you would postpone starting a family.”

A recent survey of 6,000 people in five countries found the UK had the highest share of those postponing plans for children since the pandemic erupted, with nearly one in five abandoning them altogether amid financial concerns. Deep interest rate cuts have previously helped to stem the effects of recession on births.

Bank of England research last year estimated that an extra 14,500 babies were born in 2009 as a result of cutting interest rates from 5 per cent to 0.5 per cent. The study found a 1 percentage point reduction – lopping mortgage payments by 12 per cent on average – boosts birth rates by 5 per cent.

Its researchers found the stimulus “was sufficiently large to outweigh the headwinds of the Great Recession and prevent a ‘baby bust’ in the UK”.

‘If you have concern about employment security, it is likely that you would postpone starting a family’