The news a lockdown baby boom didn’t happen is a depressing sign of the times

For better or worse, the pandemic has hastened a host of economic trends that were already on the way; sparking a “home-working revolution”, speeding up the exodus from high street retail to online shopping, and propelling us, inexorably, towards a cashless society. But what of the impact on another current tendency – declining birth rates?

At the start of the pandemic, some commentators playfully imagined that locking down couples for an extended period, with little to keep them busy beyond – well, getting busy – would translate into a Covid-related baby boom. Demographic spikes, they reasoned, often follow conflicts and natural disasters, most famously after the Second World War. There are only so many Zoom quizzes and jigsaw puzzles one can stomach to while away the hours. Yet a growing, and deeply depressing, body of evidence now suggests that this assumption was not just naive, but Panglossian in the extreme. In reproductive terms, we are less rabbit – more panda.

Few of the demographic Pollyannas imagined that schools and nurseries would remain closed for such an unconscionable length of time. Being stuck at home, with small children, frazzled and panicky, lacking childcare and support from grandparents, has, unsurprisingly, proved a major anti-aphrodisiac for many parents. And who would choose the worry and sheer isolation of becoming pregnant in lockdown? Social distancing destroys, or moves online, much of the support available to new and expectant mums; the antenatal classes, mother-and-baby groups, Lamaze sessions, and so on. The same sense of uncertainty which pervades the economy exerts an equally deadly impact on family planning. Meanwhile, a year of abandoned weddings and hastily rescheduled receptions will delay parenthood for many young couples.

Long before the pandemic, the housing crisis caused millions of twenty-and-thirtysomethings to postpone milestones like marriage and children. Now concerns over a collapsing jobs market and income prospects are also keeping at bay thoughts of parenthood, or expanding an existing brood, borne out in recent opinion surveys. The app Natural Cycles, which tracks female fertility, notes a sharp uptick in the numbers using the app as a form of contraception, rather than to plan a pregnancy. A recent Brookings Institution study of the USA predicts that 300,000 to 500,000 fewer babies will be born in 2021 compared to 2019, thanks directly to the pandemic.

Although my procreating years are – fingers crossed – some way off, I feel deeply saddened by these developments. For they reflect not just the harsh economic realities of our time, but also a deep-rooted pessimism pervading millennial culture. Drawn towards the gloomy cult of Greta Thunberg, with its predictions of imminent global catastrophe, growing numbers of contemporaries were already opting to remain “childless by choice” for environmental reasons. Our current fearful, safety-first attitudes are only intensifying this process. After all, settling down and starting a family requires not just money and commitment, but a sense of risk-taking and optimism – qualities notably lacking in these anxietyridden times.

True, declining birth rates reflect changing preferences as well as economic reality – but the implications go well beyond the personal. The demographic time-bomb in countries like Japan, where more than a quarter of the population is aged 65 or older, seriously threatens their continuing economic vitality.

For individuals, the stakes are incredibly high. Tragically, at the height of the lockdown, many fertility clinics shut their doors for months – robbing would-be mothers of precious time to conceive. So too the decimation of the dating scene, an annoyance for all singletons but a particular penalty for women in their mid-to-late 30s, keen to meet their life-partners as soon as possible. Many men and women live lives of great joy and fulfilment without children – but for others, childlessness can be a source of desperate grief and trauma. Sadly, Covid-19 looks set to inflict sorrow and disappointment on a whole cohort of would-be parents.

The pandemic has exposed a moral crisis for conservatism; the Government has cravenly failed to defend the interests of schoolchildren and parents, while its deafening silence on issues such as childcare betrays a dangerous ignorance of the realities of family life. But what of that all-important Burkean demographic, the not-yet-born? We may be locking down not just the economy but the lives of the next generation.

Being stuck at home, with small children, frazzled and panicky, lacking childcare and support, proved a major antiaphrodisiac for many parents