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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: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @09:48PM (1 child)
Even on the worst day of the pandemic this holds,
See it in real-time
https://www.worldometers.info/ [worldometers.info]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Gaaark on Thursday December 03 2020, @10:07PM
Probably half are Trumps! ;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @09:53PM
Being stuck together is not romantic
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-55146909 [bbc.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Thursday December 03 2020, @10:05PM
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 2) by EJ on Thursday December 03 2020, @10:42PM (3 children)
If we could go an entire year without a single baby being born, then perhaps we wouldn't need pandemics, wars, or natural disasters to cull as many humans for our species to survive.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by NateMich on Thursday December 03 2020, @11:12PM (2 children)
That's not how that works.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EJ on Friday December 04 2020, @04:30AM (1 child)
It actually is. It very much IS how that all works.
You do not create more people than you can support.
Our world's supply of freshwater is already tapped out.
Before we make more new people, we need to let old ones leave.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @06:12AM
Oh, yeah, like water is a finite resource, and not a cycle that can be enhanced, or modified? Learn to drink your piss, EJ, for humanity, and the future!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 04 2020, @12:28AM (6 children)
What he means is "MUH HU-WAITE BEBBIEZ ISN'T GETTIN' BORN!"
He'll deny it of course, but given his posting history and his obsession with his "grandkids not becoming slaves to make brown and black people happy," it's fairly obvious this is what he's angsting about.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @01:37AM (3 children)
What you really mean is "KILL WHITEY". You'll deny it of course.
Isn't it fun when your insane delusions include thinking you can read minds?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @06:20AM (1 child)
All I want for Christmas is my White Genocide. You could contribute, if you think of yourself as "white". Please go to mass meetings and superspreader events. Keep you concealed carry fully loaded, for those times you might think about ending it all. But mostly, maybe you could question why you think of your self as "white", when there is no such thing? "White" only means "not-black", which is not really anything at all. And amazingly, whites seem to want to be non-white, given the cosmetic choices of our White Supremacist in Cheetos. So please, if you consider yourself "white", please consider genocide for the Holiday Season. Happy Holidays!! And Thank You!
Roll Coal for Jesus, Ya'll!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Friday December 04 2020, @02:06PM
I know. I find it deliciously hilarious how the most racist ones often seem obsessed with tanning their white skin as brown as they can by whatever means they can easily get, be it sunbathing, fake tan or sun beds. If only someone could teach them what a paradox is, I think the poor fuckers would blue screen!
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 04 2020, @11:00PM
Who needs to read minds when I can just read the bastard's post history? :) Cry harder!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @03:15AM (1 child)
It is amazing how close he gets to saying "we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children" and the other choice quotes sometimes.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday December 04 2020, @03:58PM
What white children? Even albinos are kind of a semi-translucent pinkish.
If you're white white white you've been sitting indoors too long. Nothing more sickly looking than a pasty white basement dweller. Looks like maggot grubs on rotting meat.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Username on Friday December 04 2020, @01:01AM (3 children)
No, the (covid) pandemic isn't to blame for the economic recessions. Lockdowns and the fascist who insist on them, are to blame for the economic recessions. We have had several pandemics in the past without fascistic lockdowns. There is no historical evidence of a successful disease related lockdown. It didn't work for the FLU or the bubonic plague, and it isn't working now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @01:38AM
Hear, hear!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @05:48AM
I hear the hospital business is booming. It's about to spill in the streets, literally. So continue with your private partying and soon you'll start dying in the streets.
And for the fun of it, economic recession in Sweden too and they never had a "lockdown". And China seems to be booming, relatively speaking. You know, controlling the disease seems to do more for your economy than what you do for your economy kind of a thing.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday December 04 2020, @04:09PM
The government cancelled Christmas here yesterday. Took their sweet time doing it - polls showed most people had already decided to do so. We just have to look at the disaster here after Canadian Thanksgiving to make that obvious. But keep being in denial. The more covidiots who die off the better the average IQ will be. It's not eugenics when stupid people off themselves, it's just Darwin Awards time.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @03:18AM
Are far more effective at curbing the birth rate than diseases.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @05:44AM (2 children)
There is the rest of the world in the world. Thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @02:54PM (1 child)
I don't give the fuck about the rest of the world. We can withdraw all the economic interaction with Africa, sink all their rafts, and the continent will devolve into hunter-gatherer lifestyle within 100 years. Problem solved.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by barbara hudson on Friday December 04 2020, @04:16PM
Look at the droughts in the US. Each one causes more water diversion projects, which results in more people moving into what are really deserts, setting up even more water diversions.
So when it all collapses, then what? Just desserts, or just deserts? Same diff, because the area is by definition overpopulated compared to what it can support.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2020, @04:45AM
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