COVID-19 baby boom might be more of a bust

When stay-at-home orders were announced in the spring, some people wryly speculated about a COVID-19 baby boom. Social media users even came up with a few suggestions for what this new generation should be called — “coronials” to start, followed by “quaranteens,” being two popular ideas.

But as COVID-19 drags on, economists and epidemiologists don’t really know how the pandemic will affect birth rates. While some forecast a loss of up to half a million births due to job losses and anxiety about public health, others say other factors unique to the pandemic complicate the situation.

In June, Brookings, the public policy nonprofit, published a report that predicted a decline of between 300,000 and 500,000 births as a result of the pandemic. To arrive at that number, the researchers looked at how birth rates were affected after both the Great Recession of 2008, which led to a 9% drop in births over the next four years, and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which resulted in a 12.5% decline.

Phillip Levine, a co-author of the report, said the theory that birth rates will go up as a result of the pandemic is inconsistent with the economics of fertility.

“We decided to investigate and draw our own conclusions,” said Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley College. “We concluded the exact opposite. … The main takeaway we should be expecting out of this is a significant decline in the number of births next year.”

One could argue that COVID19 will result in an even bigger decline in births than that after the 1918 pandemic, Levine said. During the Spanish flu, economic activity didn’t slow down because the U.S. was fighting a war, he noted. Factories needed to remain open because “the tools of war needed to be produced.”

“The only situation that was occurring at the time was anxiety associated with the public health threat,” Levine said. “The other thing that is remarkable is that contraception was not available at the time, so for women to be having that many fewer children, that requires a greater effort than it takes now.”

A Guttmacher Institute survey of 2,009 women between the ages of 18 and 49 in early May

DREAMSTIME/TNS Brookings, the public policy nonprofit, published a report that predicted a decline of between 300,000 and 500,000 births as a result of the pandemic.

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