US Birth Decline

[H. Ross Peron]

In Q1 of 2021, births were down to 842k from 890k, a 5.4% fall, this is the first quarter in which conceptions took place during a period where things had changed in society in response to COVID, deaths were up from 777k in Q1 2020 to 917k in Q1 2021, with natural increase going from 113k to -75k.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/provisional-tables.htm


The US now for the first time in its history has recorded 2 consecutive quarters of natural population decline, Q4 2020 and Q1 2021, with COVID deaths going away the total number of deaths is likely to be much lower for the rest of 2021 vs 2020.

Nonetheless it is likely that US fertility will go below 1.6 this year for the first time ever, meaning the US will be lower than a lot of European nations, the American fertility advantage over much of Europe has almost completely disappeared, Germany could overtake America in fertility this year for the first time since before ww2 for example.

Have European birth-rates been less impacted by Covid? I assume there's some differences between countries severely affected by Covid such as the UK or Italy vs. relatively less affected countries like Germany and Denmark. Still US has a fairly durable "floor" for birth rates given a high proportion of immigrants (even if immigrant fertility rates quickly converge) and especially conservative religious people.

[H. Ross Peron]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/us/declining-birthrate-motherhood.html

NY Times with some interesting data on how birth rates have declined in the US between 2007 to 2019. Interestingly the percentage of middle-aged women who have ever given birth has increased despite the decline in the birthrate overall thanks to women who simply did not have children at all previously being able to give birth much later than normal. This suggests that birth rates are both declining and being redistributed, with the most drastic declines coming in traditionally high fertility groups.