With stay-at-home orders in place, many would think birth rates would’ve increased during a pandemic, but the reality is birth rates decreased.
There was a decrease in births in January 2021 compared to January 2020. Women were not getting pregnant around march and April 2020, when the first COVID-19 lockdowns occurred.
Here are a few takeaways from the national center for health statistics :
– Researchers found a 2% decline in births from 2020 to 2021
– There was a 9% drop in January 2021 as compared to January 2020
– And a decline in birth rates across all ethnicities in the first half of last year
It’s clear the COVID-19 pandemic played a role in declining of births, but more research is needed to determine the pandemic-specific factors that led to that decline, such as economic uncertainty and lack of job security.