English  Français

Early Assessment of the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Births in High-Income Countries

Arnstein Aassve, Bocconi University
Nicolò Cavalli, Carlo F. Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policy, Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi
Letizia Mencarini, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
Seth Sanders, Department of Economics, Cornell University

Drawing on past pandemics, scholars have suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic will bring about a fertility decline. Evidence of this using actual birth data has so far been scarce. This brief report uses now emerging data on vital statistics from a selection of high-income countries, including the United States. At the present, the pandemic is causing a signi?cant drop in crude birth rate of 1.3%, but with particularly strong e?ects in Spain (-11.5%), France (-6.3%) and the United States (-4.6%).

Keywords: COVID-19, Fertility and childbirth

See paper.

  Presented in Session 17. Pandemics, Health, and Fertility