Analysis: Birth rates decline in many states in pandemic
NEW YORK — When most of the U.S. went into lockdown over a year ago, some speculated that confining couples to their homes — with little to entertain them beyond Netflix — would lead to a lot of baby-making. But the statistics suggest the opposite happened.
Births have fallen dramatically in many states during the coronavirus outbreak, according to an Associated Press analysis of preliminary data from half the country.
The COVID-19 baby boom appears to be a baby bust.
Nationally, even before the epidemic, the number of babies born in the U.S. was falling, dropping by less than 1% a year over the past decade as many women postponed motherhood and had smaller families.
But data from 25 states suggests a much steeper decline in 2020 and into 2021, as the virus upended society and killed over 574,000 Americans.
Births for all of 2020 were down 4.3% from 2019, the data indicates. More tellingly, births in December 2020 and in January and February 2021 — nine months or more after the spring 2020 lockdowns — were down 6.5%, 9.3% and 10% respectively, compared with the same months a year earlier.
December, January and February together had about 41,000 fewer births than the same three-month span a year earlier. That’s an 8% decline.
“When there’s a crisis, I don’t think people are thinking about reproduction,” said Dr. John Santelli, a Columbia University professor of population and family health who reviewed the AP’s analysis.
The analysis included 24 states that provided data on births to residents. Joining them in the analysis was California, the most populous state, which provided data on all births that happened in the state, including among visitors.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to provide a national picture later this year. But the data for the 25 states is not expected to change substantially.
The AP’s findings echo projections by researchers at the Brookings Institution and elsewhere, who have predicted a sizable drop in births this year.
“The widespread consensus is there is going to be a decline,” said Hans-Peter Kohler, a University of Pennsylvania researcher who focuses on fertility and health.
It didn’t look that way around March 2020 with much of America indoors. Some figured that couples had more time together and that some men and women might find it harder to run out and get birth control, leading to at least a small uptick in births.
New York, the deadly epicenter of the U.S. outbreak in the spring of 2020, was not part of the analysis. Its Health Department said the figures were not available.
A majority of the babies born in 2020 were conceived in 2019, before the virus took hold in the U.S., so the numbers partly reflect the preexisting downward trend.