According to INSEE, in January, the number of births registered in France fell by 13% compared to January 2020. "The context of health crisis and high uncertainty may have discouraged couples from procreating", notes the institute, which specifies that this decrease is unprecedented since 1975.

The drop is unprecedented and spectacular.

In January, the number of births registered in France fell by 13% compared to January 2020, Insee announced Thursday.

This drop, notes the Institute for Statistical Studies, "could be linked" to the coronavirus pandemic.

The 53,900 babies born in January 2021 were mostly conceived at the start of the first confinement, introduced in mid-March 2020.

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However, "the context of health crisis and high uncertainty may have discouraged couples from procreating" or "encourage them to postpone their parenting plans for several months," observes INSEE.

Another element possibly linked: the fear of mothers to infect their newborns.

Moreover, during this first confinement of spring 2020, "the medically assisted reproduction centers were closed", observe the authors of this study, who note however that, conversely, the use of voluntary termination of pregnancy " could have been more complicated ".

Normally, medically assisted procreation births represent 3.5% and a half of the total number each year. 

An unprecedented drop since 1975

Since 2015, there has been a downward trend in the number of births, of the order of 2.5% between 2019 and 2020. But the fall observed in January is "incommensurate with the decreases that have been observed in the past" , underlines INSEE.

"You have to go back to 1975 to observe a phenomenon of such magnitude," he adds.

At the time, this decline was the consequence of the first oil shock which marked the end of the Thirty Glorious Years and the baby boom.

Births then fell by 14%.

Births also declined during the economic recessions of the early 1980s and 1990s. 

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In the months to come, observes the institute, the monthly statistics of births will make it possible to assess whether this decrease in December and January is a "one-off phenomenon at the start of a pandemic", in other words a "postponement of plans for parenthood of only a few months ".

Or on the contrary if it marks the "beginning of a more lasting trend", which would have seen the health and economic crisis encourage couples to postpone permanently, or even to abandon their project to conceive a child.