Covid-19 baby bust: How the pandemic left us looking at uncertain family futures

Early visions of lockdown pictured couples having endless hours to reboot their sex life. But 120 days later, Sophie Gallagher finds the rising death toll and crashing economy has crippled any baby boom prospects

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In 1965 a blackout engulfed the whole of New York state, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and even parts of eastern Canada. It lasted 13 hours in some places, meaning families were left with nothing but candlelight and conversation. Nine months later, the media, including the New York Times, reported that as a result of couples being trapped without alternative entertainment there had been a baby boom. But the evidence was later rejected on spurious grounds.

Half a century later, the introduction of a UK nationwide lockdown on 23 March, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, solicited the same winks and nudges, even from Boris Johnson’s government. MP Nadine Dorries tweeted on 31 March: “As the minister responsible for maternity services, I’m just wondering how busy we’re going to be nine months from now.”

Countdown’s Rachel Riley similarly tweeted: “Pubs shut, football off, working from home...I predict we’ll know what a lot of you filled your time with nine months from now.” Even the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, said in a television address that his citizens should use the enforced time together to help fuel “Generation-C”. But far from a baby boom, there is mounting evidence that Covid-19 will instead see the baby bottom line go bust.

In April there were early signs that lockdown wasn’t providing the libido-boosting window to get England back to an average of 2.4 children (we are currently at 1.63 - below the replacement level meaning we have an ageing population) when a study found people were having less sex. But a European-wide LSE survey of young adults published on 11 June, confirmed suspicions: “There is no evidence of a Covid-19 baby boom in Europe,” it said.

More specifically; in France and Germany 50 per cent of people were postponing fertility plans, in Spain 29 per cent were abandoning all together. In the UK 19 per cent say children are off the cards entirely because of coronavirus. An international survey by Fidelity UK, in May, found almost half (47 per cent) of those who were thinking about starting a family say coronavirus has delayed or postponed their plans. A study from non-profit policy body Brookings, released in June, concluded the same. On 5 July, Egypt’s Deputy Minister of Health Tarek Tawfek said Egypt’s birth rates under the coronavirus are likely to decline owing to job losses and burdens on the health system.

A long period of shutdown, like this, is going to have a powerfully depressing effect - it should have been obvious right from the beginning...

Professor David Coleman: emeritus professor of demography at the University of Oxford, tells The Independent: “I never had any doubts the story of a baby boom was piffle. There isn’t any good data showing booms from shutdowns in the western world. And a long period of shutdown, like this, is going to have a powerfully depressing effect – this restriction of social contact, loss of work, all sort of anxiety about the future – it should have been obvious right from the beginning.” Some estimates have now suggested the UK could see 75,000 fewer births in the next year.

History shows us that crises cause a rupture in the fertility rate. Hurricane Katrina, which swept through New Orleans in August 2005, not only claimed the lives of more than 1,800 people, but also changed the futures of those yet to be born. Following the natural disaster, fertility – particularly in the black population – fell well below projections. For at least five years the birth rate was 4 per cent lower than normal. The same is true following earthquakes in Japan, Hurricane Maria, the spread of Ebola in West Africa, the last big famine in Finland in 1868, and even the Spanish Flu, which caused births to fall around 15 per cent.

The Institute of Family Studies (IFS) says: “The relationship between high-mortality events and future fertility patterns is well-established in academic literature.” This is a result of the “collateral survivors” theory, meaning those who do not die still suffer disruption to their life. After a hurricane this could be in the form of literal challenges like your home being destroyed. Following Covid-19 we expect to see loss of life as well as lost wages, a recession, fear about the future health of the country and trauma from having your life turned upside down.

What if I don’t find a job quickly? It’s enough of a worry putting food on the table for us – but what about a new baby?

Robert Duffy, 33, and his wife, Lisa, 31, from Reading, had been trying for a baby for six months prior to lockdown, but a shock redundancy for Robert and Lisa being furloughed from her job as a marketing assistant, means the couple no longer feel a child is financially viable (not to mention they are both filled with anxiety, which makes sex unappealing).

“We were already counting the pennies a bit anyway – everyone knows how expensive children are – but our current employment situation and the inevitable recession on the horizon just doesn’t fill me with optimism,” says Duffy. “What if I don’t find a job quickly? It’s enough of a worry putting food on the table for us – but what about a new baby?”

One study found a one per cent rise in joblessness led to a 0.8 per cent fall in the birth rate. Professor Coleman says: “Economic downturn does impact birth rate – what we would expect to happen. People will at least postpone and possibly at the end of the day might have fewer children than otherwise.” But experts warn that what we will see with Covid-19 could be worse, as the perfect storm of factors comes together. Comparisons to other pandemics, for example, the Spanish Flu, are futile as the ongoing WWI effort meant the economy did not nosedive.

Today the Bank of England has already warned the UK faces a “very sharp” recession with the economy predicted to shrink almost 30 per cent in six months. Not to mention, unemployment figures released on 16 July indicated 650,000 fewer people are on the UK payroll in June than in March, and a quarter of all workers are on furlough. Research from the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) shows that the cost of raising a child (excluding housing, childcare and council tax) from birth to 18 years old is £75,436 for a couple and £102,627 for a single parent.

As well as concerns over finances, coronavirus also brings other, more nebulous traumas: losing access to support networks, the fear of being unwell yourself, the trauma of seeing those around you become sick. Dr Heini Väisänen, lecturer in social statistics and demography at University of Southampton says reasons include: “Wanting to avoid vulnerability to Covid-19 (pregnant people are classified as a vulnerable group in the UK); wanting to avoid having to visit GP/hospital due to worries about catching it; those juggling work and childcare not wanting another child; and for some, fertility treatments have been paused.”

Lockdown also gives us a chance to be introspective while life is on pause. Amy Jones, 29, from Brighton, says lockdown helped them finally decide having a large family is not on the agenda. “It’s something I have battled myself in my head for a long time. It took a sudden bit of bravery in lockdown to truly be open about it...I told friends and family I will most likely never have my own child, and if I were this would more likely be surrogacy or adoption.”

For others it is fear of the future brought on by the pandemic: Stephanie Conway, from Cumbria, turned 30 in lockdown. “With the coming of age, I realised that the milestones I had expected to have achieved had passed me by. [But] we already have an overpopulated planet. If I don’t have a child, the world won’t end. If the global pandemic has taught me anything, it is that life is so fragile and we aren’t always promised tomorrow.”

It will be difficult to say whether any changes we may see are due to the pandemic alone, or other factors such as the Brexit transition period...

Unlike anything we’ve seen before, coronavirus brings together a venn diagram of reasons to hold off having children. And, unlike other examples, is a global problem not a local one. The IFS says: “A disease that disrupts economic activity and marital behaviours, and which infects or scares a very large number of people, may have a very large effect indeed.”

Dr Väisänen says the only area we might see an increase is in unintended pregnancy “due to more difficult access to contraceptives and increased intimate partner violence”. She says it is hard to estimate how much the birth rate will be impacted overall. “[And] it will be difficult to say whether any changes we may see are due to the pandemic alone, or other factors such as the Brexit transition period at the end of 2020.”

Typically birth rates start to recover around 10 to 11 months after a crisis. In some cases (like after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Oklahoma City bombing, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and 9/11) they even go up as a way of people processing trauma and as a subconscious insurance policy against future loss. But coronavirus is unlike any of its predecessors: with an official global death toll of 610,000 and rising, unemployment at record highs, economies on their knees and citizens scared to even leave the house, it’s hardly the dream future anyone imagines for their child.