How Will COVID Affect Completed Fertility?

Birth rates in the United States have been declining since the Great Recession, and many thought that COVID-19 might accelerate this decline. And, indeed, birth rates early in the pandemic did drop substantially. However, when the economy swiftly recovered from COVID, birth rates in 2021 ticked up for the first time since 2014. The question is what happens next: is this uptick simply a temporary blip or a sign that the decade-long decline in fertility rates is over? To assess how COVID might affect completed fertility, this brief, based on a recent paper, uses a twopronged approach. First, it examines the change in birth rates by age in 2020 and 2021 using data from the National Vital Statistics System to quantify the recent COVID-era changes in birth rates. Second, to shed light on fertility trends going forward, the analysis turns from recent birth patterns, which represent a snapshot for any given year, to expectations data, which suggest how many children women anticipate having overall. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section provides some background on fertility trends and expectations. The second section describes the data and methodology. The third section presents results for the two separate approaches. The first shows that the pandemic resulted in a large initial decline in fertility in late 2020, but by the end of 2021, COVID’s independent impact on fertility was actually positive. The second finds that, according to early data on fertility expectations, the ideal number of kids has dropped sharply for women in their 20s and held steady for women in their 30s; and evidence from the Great Recession suggests that fertility will not rise as they age. If the drop in expectations holds in more comprehensive surveys, birth rates are likely to keep falling, and at a faster pace than before COVID. The final section concludes that a lower fertility rate will likely result in a smaller workforce, slower economic growth, and higher required tax rates for pay-as-you-go programs such as Social Security, but it also reflects the evolving preferences of women today.