We use monthly birth data collected by the Human Fertility Database to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on birth trends until September 2022 in 38 higher-income countries. We also present estimates of the monthly total fertility rate adjusted for seasonality. Our analysis reveals that the pandemic led to distinct swings in births and fertility rates. The initial pandemic shock was associated with a fall in births in most countries, with the sharpest drop in January 2021. Next, birth rates showed a short-term recovery in March 2021, following the conceptions after the end of the first wave of the pandemic. Most countries reported a stable or slightly increasing number of births in the subsequent months, especially in autumn 2021. Yet another, quite unexpected, downturn in births started in January 2022, linked with the conceptions in spring 2021 when the pandemic measures were mostly eased out and vaccination was gaining momentum. Taken together and contrary to some initial expectations, the coronavirus pandemic did not bring a lasting “baby bust” in most of the analyzed countries. Especially the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States experienced an improvement in their birth dynamics in 2021 compared with the prepandemic period.

中文翻译：

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大流行过山车？COVID-19 大流行期间高收入国家的出生趋势

我们使用人类生育力数据库收集的月度出生数据来分析 COVID-19 大流行对 2022 年 9 月之前 38 个高收入国家的出生趋势的影响。我们还提供了针对季节性因素调整后的每月总生育率的估计值。我们的分析表明，大流行导致出生率和生育率出现明显波动。最初的大流行冲击与大多数国家的出生率下降有关，2021 年 1 月降幅最大。接下来，随着第一波大流行结束后的受孕，出生率在 2021 年 3 月出现短期回升. 大多数国家报告称，随后几个月的出生人数稳定或略有增加，尤其是在 2021 年秋季。然而，2022 年 1 月开始出现另一次出乎意料的出生率下滑，与 2021 年春季的构想有关，当时大流行措施基本放松，疫苗接种势头强劲。总体而言，与一些最初的预期相反，冠状病毒大流行并没有在大多数被分析的国家带来持久的“婴儿潮”。尤其是北欧国家，荷兰、德国和美国在 2021 年的出生动态与大流行前相比有所改善。