SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Half a million fewer children? The coming COVID baby bust:
The COVID-19 episode will likely lead to a large, lasting baby bust. The pandemic has thrust the country into an economic recession. Economic reasoning and past evidence suggest that this will lead people to have fewer children. The decline in births could be on the order of 300,000 to 500,000 fewer births next year. We base this expectation on lessons drawn from economic studies of fertility behavior, along with data presented here from the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and the 1918 Spanish Flu.
[...] When the public health crisis first took hold, some people playfully speculated that there would be a spike in births in nine months, as people were "stuck home" with their romantic partners. Such speculation is based on persistent myths about birth spikes occurring nine months after blizzards or major electricity blackouts. As it turns out, those stories tend not to hold up to statistical examination (Udry, 1970). But the COVID-19 crisis is amounting to much more than a temporary stay-at-home order. It is leading to tremendous economic loss, uncertainty, and insecurity. That is why birth rates will tumble.
[...] There is ample evidence that birth rates are, in fact, pro-cyclical. This is shown, for instance, in the work by Dettling and Kearney (2014) described above. Their analysis of birth rates in metropolitan areas finds that all else equal, a one percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate is associated with a 1.4 percent decrease in birth rates. Schaller (2016) analyzes the relationship between state-level unemployment rates and birth rates, and finds that a one percentage-point increase in state-year unemployment rates is associated with a 0.9 to 2.2 percent decrease in birth rates. Other evidence shows that women whose husbands lose their jobs at some point during their marriage ultimately have fewer children (Lindo, 2010). This suggests that transitory changes in economic conditions lead to changes in birth rates.
[...] What are the likely implications of the COVID-19 episode for fertility? The monthly unemployment rate jumped from 3.5 percent to 14.7 percent in April and to 13.3 percent in May. Note that the BLS also indicate that technical issues in collecting these data likely mean that the actual unemployment rates in those months were likely 5 and 3 percentage points higher, respectively. That would bring them to about 19.7 and 16.3 percent. Although it is difficult to forecast the 2020 annual unemployment rate, assuming a 7 to 10 percentage-point jump to 10.6 to 13.6 percent seems reasonable. Based on the findings presented above, this economic shock alone implies a 7 to 10 percent drop in births next year. With 3.8 million births occurring in 2019, that would amount to a decline of between 266,000 and 380,000 births in 2021.
On top of the economic impact, there will likely be a further decline in births as a direct result of the public health crisis and the uncertainty and anxiety it creates, and perhaps to some extent, social distancing. Our analysis of the Spanish Flu indicated a 15 percent decline in annual births in a pandemic that was not accompanied by a major recession. And this occurred during a period in which no modern contraception existed to easily regulated fertility.
Combining these two effects, we could see a drop of perhaps 300,000 to 500,000 births in the U.S. Additional reductions in births may be seen if the labor market remains weak beyond 2020. The circumstances in which we now find ourselves are likely to be long-lasting and will lead to a permanent loss of income for many people. We expect that many of these births will not just be delayed – but will never happen. There will be a COVID-19 baby bust. That will be yet another cost of this terrible episode.
Journal References:
1.) Melissa S . Kearney, Phillip B . Levine. Subsidized Contraception, Fertility, and Sexual Behavior, (DOI: rest.91.1.137)
2.) Melissa S. Kearney, Riley Wilson. Male Earnings, Marriageable Men, and Nonmarital Fertility: Evidence from the Fracking Boom, Review of Economics and Statistics (DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00739)
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday December 03 2020, @09:45PM (8 children)
One would think that people being locked up (or locked down) together had nothing, or many, better to do then to f*ck. That said I'm sure once the vaccine comes around there will be some giant freedom orgy as every person that has been locked down (or up) gets to run free again and go to bars. Time to make up for lost time and all that.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday December 03 2020, @10:02PM
Presumably they have access to birth control of some type.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 03 2020, @11:14PM (1 child)
I don't know how it works in your area, around here (Florida) anybody who wants to go to bars is in the bars, maskless, basically like nothing is happening. If anything, those so inclined are living it up with the reduced crowds on the roads and in the stores.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @12:47AM
Is corn pop there? I heard hes not getting the vaccine.
Hes a bad dude.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Thursday December 03 2020, @11:34PM (2 children)
Throw in the people who can't easily cheat any more, and unemployment making people less confident in being able to pay the costs of raising children, and the projected decline is probably less than what we'll see.
Daily routines that provided some "social relief" from too-long domestic contract, such as going to earth, or one partner working from home while also taking care of the kids while the other doesn't do their share is explosive.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @12:25AM
That happened with my wife. Our baby is due this summer.
If you don't want a baby, try "Go fuck yourself!" instead. It's unproductive.
(Score: 4, Funny) by TheGratefulNet on Friday December 04 2020, @03:14AM
Daily routines that provided some "social relief" from too-long domestic contract, such as going to earth
holy cow, what kind of commute do you have?
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @01:50AM
You seem to think that governments have come up with one rule that everybody obeys (perhaps via The Science™). I live in a Democrat-run state, and I'm planning to go down to the bar, whose owner must be politically connected, in about an hour.
Conversely, even if governments let us have our freedoms again, I wouldn't expect some sort of explosion of joy on that one day. Governments and people have a herd mentality, it will take a critical mass of doubt in the helpfulness of the restrictions to start them running out, then there's going to be tons of people still afraid of the Coof that won't be going out until they feel their fear is regarded by people they respect as ridiculous and overblown.
As to demographics of my bar-mates here: They are on the older side, 50s and up. It seems to be suburban moms that are mostly susceptible to the fear mongering.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @04:48AM
Hahaha, can confirm this happened in my case. Pretty sure I got more during the COVID lockdown than I have in the past ~4 years combined.
I'd expect the issue they're not stating is that the COVID lockdowns will reduce pregnancies between people not living together. What percent of pregnancies come from these sorts as opposed to people living together in long term relationships? Given the decline in fertility, I'm expecting pregnancy *outside* of co-habitation may well make up a large percent of all pregnancies.