The baby bust: Evidence from Europe suggests people didn't make as many babies last year
A year ago many predicted a baby boom. With everyone locked up in their houses with little else to do... you get it. However, the latest data from Europe suggests we're almost certainly in for the opposite — a baby bust.
Data from Spain estimates that the number of babies born in December 2020 and January 2021 was down roughly 20% on the year before, equating to roughly 6,000 fewer births in each month. Data from Italy shows a similar pattern — and experts now expect the same across many countries, including the US. There is even some (albeit modest) evidence of slightly fewer Google searches for terms such as "morning sickness".
It's not hard to work out why potential parents have put off the enormous responsibility of having children given how uncertain work and personal lives have been.
It is possible of course that we get a bounce back baby boom next year, or the year after, as people make up for lost time. If we don't though, the baby bust will have accelerated a tricky trend for many countries; ageing populations. Italy and Spain, two of the countries to have reported recent births data, already have some of the lowest fertility rates in the world. In Italy each woman gives birth to 1.3 children per year on average, in Spain that number is even lower (1.26). Those rates have significant impacts on a country, something we wrote about in more detail here.
