Partial fertility recuperation in Spain two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND Following the onset of the CO VID-19 pandemic a host of countries saw drastic fertility declines, followed by a variety of fertility patterns. It remains unclear whether these initial baby busts have been recuperated, and, if so, whether the recuperation occurred homogenously across mater...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDemographic research Vol. 49; pp. 465 - 478
Main Authors Fallesen, Peter, Cozzani, Marco
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Rostock Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Wissenschaften 05.09.2023
Max Planck Institut für Demografische Forschung
Subjects
Age differences
Age groups
Births
Childbirth & labor
Childlessness
Counterfactual thinking
COVID-19
Descriptive Finding
Expected values
Fertility
Fertility decline
Infants
Pandemics
Parity
Population structure
Trends
Vital statistics
Women
Spain
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Summary:BACKGROUND Following the onset of the CO VID-19 pandemic a host of countries saw drastic fertility declines, followed by a variety of fertility patterns. It remains unclear whether these initial baby busts have been recuperated, and, if so, whether the recuperation occurred homogenously across maternal age groups and parity categories. OBJECTIVE We assess period fertility recuperation as the cumulative difference between observed fertility trends and a predicted counterfactual trend simulating fertility patterns without the pandemic. We focus on Spain, the European country that suffered the most severe fertility decline during the pandemic. METHODS We use vital statistics on Spain and ARIMA models to forecast counterfactual trends in total, age-specific (15-24; 25-34; 35-49), and parity-specific (first vs. second+ births) fertility rates for the months when fertility could have been affected by the pandemic. We then calculate the cumulative residual between modeled/forecasted trends and observed fertility rates to estimate the fertility deficit and recuperation. RESULTS By December 2021, Spain had only seen a partial and heterogenous fertility recuperation, relative to expected trends. Births from women at the beginning and end of their reproductive ages and those transitioning to first child had not yet recuperated, whereas women in the middle of the fertility window and second or higher order births had fully recuperated. CONTRIBUTION We assess period fertility recuperation as the cumulative difference in observed fertility trends compared to a predicted counterfactual trend simulating fertility without the pandemic, and show a lack of period fertility recuperation. If this translates into cohort fertility decline, there may be consequences for childlessness and population structure in Spain.
ISSN:1435-9871
1435-9871
2363-7064
DOI:10.4054/DemRes.2023.49.17