We Expect 300,000 Fewer Births Than Usual This Year

The Public Square
#1

It’s arguable to what degree doing something other than the lockdown and then semi-lockdown, etc. could have avoided the economic problems. I tend to think that there would have been a major economic downturn no matter what.

Having said that, it’s worth noting that this is one of the knock-on effects that is counter-intuitive. The initial expectation was that everybody being stuck at home would result in a baby-boom. Turns out the old rule still applies: if you don’t have economic stability, you tend to have fewer children, even if you have plenty of time for sex.

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#2

The idea of a lockdown baby boom always struck me as pretty risible. When the future is insecure, people have fewer kids. The Silent Generation (born more-or-less during the Great Depression) stands as witness to this. And their parents didn’t have a panoply of contraceptives available down the street.

You can practically track Americans’ optimism about the future by looking at birth rates, from the Great Depression (Silents) to the post-war optimism (Boomers) to the stagflation/malaise (GenX) to the Reagan/Clinton boom years (Millennials).

The pandemic also drastically reduced mating opportunities among young people by reducing schools, social events, etc., and this was against a backdrop of an in-progress collapse in marriage.

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#3

I don’t know what you mean by major economic downturn – aren’t the stock market and housing market at record highs? It goes to show that we missed out on a great opportunity by not locking down harder. Perhaps we should keep schools, businesses, and churches closed long-term in order to keep the boom times going.

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#4

I read an article about this recently in another outlet. It covered declining birth trend both nationally and internationally, and not just this year but over many years. It’s not isolated to the U.S. or the West alone. China, the country perceived to be our top competitor and the country most likely to overtake us in terms of world power (or at least I think so) is also facing a demographic “wall.”

I remember reading that around 40 years from now the overall global population will actually decrease rather than increase. Projections that far into the future should be met with some skepticism, but it’s interesting that 40 years ago you heard confident projections of extreme overpopulation. Now it’s just the opposite.

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#5

Yes, and combined with declining male fertility on the physical level, it’s definitely worrisome.

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#6

In the short term I would expect a baby boom roughly nine months after most major restrictions are ended.

And sadly before that a significant increase in abortion.

There’s going to be a rebound from prohibited social interaction.

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#7

… The idea of a lockdown baby boom always struck me as pretty risible. When the future is insecure, people have fewer kids. The Silent Generation (born more-or-less during the Great Depression) stands as witness to this. And their parents didn’t have a panoply of contraceptives available down the street.

Exactly. The Baby Boom came after a sustained Baby Bust going back to the late 1920s and further aggravated, it is worth remembering, by World War 2.

#8

Here is the article I was thinking of.

#9

I expect that winning the biggest war in the history of humanity probably had something to do with the spike in birth rates also.