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. 2023 Aug 22;120(34):e2222075120.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2222075120. Epub 2023 Aug 15.

The COVID-19 baby bump in the United States

Martha J Bailey  1   2 , Janet Currie  2   3 , Hannes Schwandt  2   4
Affiliations

The COVID-19 baby bump in the United States

Martha J Bailey et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

We use natality microdata covering the universe of US. births for 2015 to 2021 and California births from 2015 through February 2023 to examine childbearing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that 60% of the 2020 decline in US fertility rates was driven by sharp reductions in births to foreign-born mothers although births to this group comprised only 22% of all US births in 2019. This decline started in January 2020. In contrast, the COVID-19 recession resulted in an overall "baby bump" among US-born mothers, which marked the first reversal in declining fertility rates since the Great Recession. Births to US-born mothers fell by 31,000 in 2020 relative to a prepandemic trend but increased by 71,000 in 2021. The data for California suggest that US births remained elevated through February 2023. The baby bump was most pronounced for first births and women under age 25, suggesting that the pandemic led some women to start families earlier. Above age 25, the baby bump was most pronounced for women aged 30 to 34 and women with a college education. The 2021 to 2022 baby bump is especially remarkable given the large declines in fertility rates that would have been projected by standard statistical models.

Keywords: COVID-19; baby bump; fertility.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Changes in the US unemployment rate and predicted changes in births. Subtitles: (A) Seasonally adjusted unemployment rate. (B) Seasonally adjusted birth counts (actual and predicted). Legend (for B): 1. Birth counts, seasonally adjusted – solid blue. 2. Predicted birth counts based on prepandemic linear trend, 2015 to 2019 – dashed blue. 3. Predicted birth counts based on unemployment rates – red dot. Notes: (A) plots changes in the US unemployment rate from March 2015 to March 2021. (B) plots three series: the seasonally adjusted US birth counts from January 2015 to December 2021; a linear trend fit on prepandemic seasonally adjusted birth counts from 2015 to 2019 (solid line) and projected to 2020 to 2021 (dashed line); and the predicted US fertility rate based on changes in unemployment rates based on (9). See Materials and Methods for more details about seasonal adjustments and our SI Appendix, Methods Appendix for more details.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Seasonally adjusted births and deviations from prepandemic trends, by mothers’ nativity. Subtitles: (A) Births to US-born women. (B) Births to foreign-born women. (C) Percent deviations among US-born women. (D) Percent deviations among foreign-born women, by mothers’ region of birth. (E) Absolute deviations among US-born women. (F) Absolute deviations among foreign-born women, by mothers’ region of birth. Legend: (A) Births to US-born women. 1. US-born TFR (US) – green dot. 2. US-born birth counts (78% of all US births) – solid blue. 3. US-born TFR (California) – dashed green. (B) Births to foreign-born women. 1. Foreign-born TFR – green dot. 2. Foreign-born birth counts (22% of all US births) – solid blue. 3. Foreign-born TFR (California) – dashed green. (C) Percent deviations among US-born women. 1. Birth count (US) – solid blue. 2. TFR (US) –green dot. 3. TFR (California) – dashed green. (D) Percent deviations among foreign-born women, by mothers’ region of birth. 1. All foreign born – solid gray. 2. Latin America (53%) – green dot. 3. China (5.1%) – dashed blue. 4. Africa, Europe, Middle Eastern, and Other Countries (22%) – teal square. 5. Asia & Pacific (not China) (20%) – long dashed purple. (E) Absolute deviations among US-born women. 1. Birth count (US) – solid blue. 2. TFR (US) – green dot. 3. TFR (California) – dashed green. (F) Absolute deviations among foreign-born women, by mothers’ region of birth. 1. All foreign born – solid gray. 2. Latin America (53%) – green dot. 3. China (5.1%) – dashed blue. 4. Africa, Europe, Middle Eastern and Other Countries (22%) – teal square. 5. Asia & Pacific (not China) (20%) – long dashed purple. Notes: Calculations use all births occurring in the United States and stratify by whether the mother was born in or outside the United States. The legends in A and B indicate in parentheses the percent of all births in the United States in 2019 that occurred to US-born women (A) or foreign-born women (B). The legends in D and F indicate in parentheses the percent of all births in the United States to foreign-born women in 2019 occurring to women in the indicated region of birth grouping. See Materials and Methods for more details.
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