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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: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 03 2020, @11:29PM (13 children)
Most data sources I have seen agree with these trends for US birth and death rates:
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/birth-rate [macrotrends.net]
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/death-rate [macrotrends.net]
Summary: 12 births and 8.88 deaths per 1000 people in 2020
The arithmetic I took in school would say that we are still birthing more people than are dying in the U.S., by a wide margin - that seems like a net population growth to me. Even if we are sending our old people to retire in countries with better healthcare economics for the elderly, our immigration balance is a net inflow, with population growing from 213 million to 331 million today. Migrant population is around 47 million, falling far short of explaining the 118 million growth in overall population.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 04 2020, @03:47AM (6 children)
Not at all. First, you start from 1970. The native (third generation or earlier immigrants) population had much higher fertility back then. Second, you're not actually measuring the contribution of immigrants to the overall growth. For example, this link shows percentages [pewresearch.org] of immigrant and second generation immigrant populations from 1900 to 2018 (the cutoff for the study). From 2010 to 2018, the two populations increased from 24.0% share of the US population to 26.4% of the US population. Given that the US population grew from 309 million (April 2010) to 327 million (April 2018), that means that the immgrant/second generation immigrant population grew from 74 million to 86 million over the same timeframe. So out of 18 million growth, 12 million was due to immigrants or second generation immigrants.
I wasn't able to get figures for third generation immigrants, but their number is supposed to be rather high due to the higher fertility of second generation immigrants. That sure looks to me like all of present US population growth can be explained by immigration as advertised.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 04 2020, @01:39PM (5 children)
So, all this: "immigration explains the US population growth" is predicated on the premise that 2nd generation immigrants aren't part of US population growth?
Last I checked, US grants citizenship to anyone born in the US. Just because we're adding children from immigrants doesn't mean that the US isn't growing its own population. Many (most?) of those immigrants would not have had the children if they didn't believe in the prosperity of their new home.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 04 2020, @07:02PM (4 children)
Consider what the label second generation means. You can't have second generation immigrants without first generation immigrants. So in other words, immigration does indeed explain population growth in the US, and is the difference between population growth and shrinking in the US today.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 04 2020, @07:18PM (3 children)
So, as opposed to the founding fathers' vision of second generation being granted automatic citizenship, you'd like to move the goalposts?
Consider that, except for the 3/64th of my ancestry that crossed the Bering Strait land bridge, most of all U.S. citizens are relatively recent immigrants, just a few generations removed.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 05 2020, @04:29AM (2 children)
Moving goalposts would not change the number of second generation immigrants or the number of kids they have. Nor would founding fathers' opinions on the matter. I guess this is as close to progress as we'll with you today.
Because that is somehow remotely relevant? Please tell us how.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 05 2020, @02:16PM (1 child)
Part of what "Made America Great" in the first place was acceptance of all people. Drawing some line in the sand for a New World Order wherein our borders are closed and if you didn't get in before the cutoff a new set of rules applies is a huge step backwards towards the world of genetically differentiated nations at constant war with one another.
Do we let in anybody who can swim the river or hike the desert? No. There always was a legal process for that, still is, and part of that legal process includes tolerance for some amount of less than legal activity, just like speeding on the roads, recreational drug use, buildings not to code, topless sunbathing, etc. It is and always has been part of our system of government: tolerance for some amount of "law breaking." Personally, I'd rather repeal the laws than leave them on the books for arbitrary rare enforcement at the discretion of our jackbooted enforcement types, but that's not how it has ever been done, and that's not likely to change. So, when "your guy" isn't elected chief executive, expect those polices to shift rather quickly, because that's how our system has always worked. Personally, I'd do things differently if I were absolute monarch of the world, but since I don't have that option - this is the best system available to me and my family, and we do have a fair degree of freedom to relocate to other jurisdictions if we wanted to.
Relevant example: again Central Florida, 1985 a Mexican family moves to town and opens a successful, modest restaurant in the WalMart strip mall. It is widely acknowledged by just about the entire county as the best restaurant in town. Mama runs a tight ship, dad cooks, and they hire a dozen or so locals, mostly Mexican girls, to serve and help out. Successful restaurant, plenty of money, Mama has a good immigration lawyer and follows all the advice to stay as legal as possible. Every couple of years Mama travels back home to visit family, and while her guiding influence is absent the quality of service and even food in the restaurant turns to shit, every time. But, when she comes back things straighten out immediately. Not only does Mama pay all her taxes, she donates back to the community, etc. 15 years later, WalMart builds a supercenter and the old location turns to a Tractor Supply, traffic dries up in the strip mall and the restaurant suffers. Flush with cash, but losing money due to lack of traffic, Mama moves out to "Restaurant Row" - a set of four restaurants on the main road, the local population can apparently only support three of these restaurants, one is perpetually out of business, but that's how it has been for 20+ years, the usual pattern is for a new restaurant to move in every 2-3 years and one of the old ones to lose business and close within a year. New location is a booming success, and the old fish restaurant suffers as a result. Old fish restaurant and the other two are owned by locals, they sic immigration on Mama and even though she has followed all procedures as well as the best immigration lawyer in the county knows how, she gets deported permanently. If that makes your heart all warm and fuzzy inside, you can just go fuck yourself with that feeling, that is NOT the America I was raised in and that is NOT the way I will vote to shape our future.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 05 2020, @03:50PM
You demonstrate above that you have no support for your arguments here. Here and elsewhere you've retreated from more births than deaths to knowledge of future population demographics is unknowable and mean-ole khallow has the wrong feelz about immigration policy. I place the blame on ideological brain worms. They've feasted quite well in your above post.
I have never denied that the US has a higher birth rate than death rate or that third plus generation immigrants in the US had lots of kids in the past. What I have repeated stated, backed with facts, is that the US continues to grow in population (a thing I think we can sustain at fairly high levels for a long time) due solely to immigration - not just the immigrants themselves, but also the births due to those immigrants and their children.
To introduce more fact into this discussion, consider that the second generation immigration population increased by 5.3 million (from 34.9 million to 40.2 million) between 2010 and 2018 (see links in my previous post [soylentnews.org] for the data sources). At the end of that period there were 46.1 million immigrants. Even if we suppose that no second generation population died in that period, we have almost a third of the US's population growth during that period solely from immigrants and a birth rate of better than 14 births per thousand. If instead we suppose that 7% of immigrants died over that time period (like the US population as a whole), then we're looking at over 15 births per thousand. That alone drops the birth rate of everyone else from 12 to around 11.5 births per thousand. Add in the fertility of that second generation and you go even lower.
Now add that the US population is getting older so death rate increases and birth rate decreases, and you have the very predictable decline in US population as expected.
(Score: 1) by Socrastotle on Friday December 04 2020, @05:46AM (5 children)
Link to previous comment with more details. [soylentnews.org]
In a nutshell, fertility is only measurable on the scale of a life-cycle. So if you want to see the overall net effect on a population from a certain level of fertility, you need to wait for about 80 years (the life expectancy of a human) *after* that point. To do a reduction to absurdity, imagine you started with a large population but only one in a million were having children. Until you reached the point where that initial population started reaching their life expectancy, you'd actually see a net increase in population per year! But when the declines did drop, you'd see massive reductions in population.
The US fertility rate only dropped below sustainable levels in the 70s. So you're only going to start seeing sharp drops sometime around the 2050s.
This is why fertility is so incredibly important. By the time evidence of a problem becomes apparent, it's long since passed the time where it could have been fixed through moderate means.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 04 2020, @01:50PM (4 children)
The last 80 years has seen more than 3x increase in global population. Even though we're slowing, waiting another 80 years to see how things play out is not a great plan - unless you're going to be dead soon, then, sure, enjoy the party - I've always liked to live by the Def Leppard philosophy of: "It's better to burn out, than fade away." but, only on a personal level - as a species it's a shitty plan, or rather, it's a shitty thing to do to the children of the world which doesn't really involve planning at all.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 1) by Socrastotle on Friday December 04 2020, @02:24PM (3 children)
But there's no sort of 'wait and see'. You can tell exactly what the population levels will be far ahead of time. This is how I can confidently tell you that you'll start seeing substantial 'native' population decline in the US around 2050. It's not an estimate or a guess, it's simply pairing fertility rate with life expectancy which gives you precise values. The past 80 years have seen a tripling of the population because who are you seeing die today? In general it's those born in the 40s. And they had families well beyond the replacement rate, and so even when they die their overall impact is a positive growth in population.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 04 2020, @03:03PM (2 children)
No, I cannot.
The population prediction curves I remember from the 1970s put us somewhere on the "worst case" side of the curves back then. Our methods and accuracy of results have not improved much since then.
Crystal balls don't work. What you can tell exactly is what happened in the past. You can only project, estimate, guess, hope about the future for matters as complex as human population levels.
What age will your confident self be in 2050? What kind of skin will you have left in the game at that point. I'm sure your confidence is risking little for yourself.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 1) by Socrastotle on Friday December 04 2020, @03:27PM (1 child)
Population change is a simple function of exactly one variable: fertility rates. Life expectancy, what might be expected to be another variable, plays a role only in defining how long a 'cycle' is.
The hyperbolic predictions of the 1970s were based upon the assumption that people would continue along their current fertility trends, which were extremely high at the time. They had no way to predict that the entire world (sans Africa and a handful of other locations) would have their fertility rates catastrophically collapse. And so yes I definitely could be wrong if (and only if) somehow the world's fertility rates just exponentially increase. However, (1) I don't believe that's what you're trying to argue and (2) I certainly see no reason to believe this is even a remotely likely scenario.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 04 2020, @07:06PM
There's no place in the world, including Africa, that isn't experiencing substantial declines in fertility. You can consider that catastrophic, but it won't be anywhere near as catastrophic as continued exponential growth.