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The pandemic has been accompanied by a significant decline in crude birth rates in high-income countries, with particularly strong declines in southern Europe:

Italy

(-9.1%),

Spain

(-8.4%) and

Portugal

(-6.6%).

This is the main conclusion of a study led by the

Italian University of Bocconi

published in the journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

(PNAS), for which numerical models have been used and data from 22 countries have been analyzed.

Pandemics are a key factor in changes in human populations, affecting both death and birth rates.

The largest pandemic of the last century, the so-called Spanish flu (1918-1919), caused

a decline in birth rates

in the

United States

, which went from 23 per 1,000 inhabitants in 1918 to 20 per 1,000 in 1919 (-13% ).

Comparable effects were seen in countries like

Great Britain, India, Japan

or

Norway

.

Now, preliminary evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has lowered birth rates in high-income countries.

To further assess the effect of this disease,

Arnstein Aassve

and his colleagues collected monthly live birth data from January 2016 to March 2021 from a total of 22 high-income countries.

After various comparative calculations, the scientists used models to account for seasonality and long-term trends.

By applying and refining the models, the data show that the pandemic has been accompanied by a significant decline in crude birth rates beyond that predicted by previous trends in seven of the 22 countries considered.

Thus, crude birth rates fell by 8.5% in

Hungary

, 9.1% in Italy, 8.4% in Spain and 6.6% in Portugal.

In addition,

Belgium, Austria

and

Singapore

also showed significant declines in crude birth rates, according to this analysis.

However, the authors note that the available data only provide information on the first wave and therefore "only allow a glimpse of the general decline during the pandemic."

The data provide information on various stages of the first wave and indicate that, in some countries, such as

France

and Spain, a recovery in birth rates was observed in March 2021, referring to the conceptions of June 2020.

For those countries, June 2020 marked the point at which the first wave of the pandemic subsided, and could consequently reflect a rebound.

According to the authors of this work, the results reveal the impact of the pandemic on population dynamics and may have political implications for childcare, housing and the labor market.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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