Thank you, Ben, for your excellent work, which I was too lazy to do until now. Shame on me. :-)
However, the matter deserves a differentiated assessment. Here are some arguments:
The very young and old age groups play a subordinate role and underlie different influences. Their contributions are small. Pregnancies of very young mothers are often unwanted and in old mothers, a high proportion is due to artificial insemination. Looking at the most fertile age groups, you can see clear influences. 2021 ranks high as a result of the two lockdowns in spring 2020 and winter 2020/21.
In historical retrospect, we had similarly strong declines after the introduction of the contraceptive pill and after reunification in 1990. In both cases, the causes were clear, but the changes set in gradually and not, as in early 2022, within about two months and in exactly 9 months' time difference to the mass vaccination of fertile people. These are very strong indications.
Socioeconomic influences may have come into play later and currently cannot be separated from a direct limitation of fertility.
Highly appreciate your offer, but as you know, I hesitate to use additional "packages". But that's ok: We achieve greater security if we get the same results in two ways.
The probability of death in the first year of life changed by +5.4% from 2021 to 2022. This is the highest value in the official time series available to me since 2011. Normally the changes are negative or slightly positive.
Is there data on the pregnancy rates, and/or the miscarriage/stillbirth rates? If so, is it broken down by month? Is there any temporal correlation to jab rollouts or covid waves?
Stillbirths are available for the common only in yearly time resolution, but Kuhbandner & Reitzner obtained better grained data on request. To shorten, this topic is suspicious but subaltern in their concerning paper. Abortions (quarterly) support the thesis of a short-term impact of the mass vaccinations, as well as greater willingness to become pregnant during the lockdown months. Feel free to compare the relevant evaluations on my Substack channel https://ulflorr.substack.com/.
- Even if the decline in 2022 and 2023 is not that dramatic, the sudden drop at the beginning of 2022 (visible when looking at monthly data) is curious.
- Why do many countries (e.g. the Scandinavian ones) exhibit the same pattern as Germany?
- Why is the pattern (baby boom in 2021, followed by baby bust in 2022 and 2023) much more pronounced for the middle (30-35) age cohorts? After my holidays, I will try to check if the situation is similar for Scandinavia.
I am confused by your assessment that you "see no obvious signals". If you look at the relevant age groups between 25 and 40 on the ASFR, there is a massive crash which happens after '21 -- therefore after the vaccine, not after Covid. That crash is in the range of about 15%. It is absolutely massive. I wonder what you don't see when you look at this data.
The general fertility rate in the United States decreased by 3% from 2022, reaching a historic low. This marks the second consecutive year of decline, following a brief 1% increase from 2020 to 2021. From 2014 to 2020, the rate consistently decreased by 2% annually.
These statistics and others from provisional 2023 birth data were released by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
The new report, “Births: Provisional Data for 2023,” analyzes data from more than 99% of birth certificates issued during that year. The report shows a 2% decline from 2022, with 3,591,328 births recorded in 2023.
Other findings in the new report:
2023 birth rates
declined for women ages 20–39 years
were unchanged for females aged 10–14 and 40–49.
The birth rate for teenagers aged 15–19 was down 3% in 2023 to 13.2 births per 1,000 women.
The birth rate for women ages 20–24 (55.4) reached a record low.
The cesarean delivery rate increased for the fourth year in a row to 32.4% in 2023; the low-risk cesarean delivery rate increased to 26.6%.
The preterm birth rate was essentially unchanged at 10.41%.
The report is available on the NCHS website at www.cdc.gov/nchs.
what a wonderfully insightful posting, thanks for this. I was made aware of your writing by a colleague/friend, and I must add that your conclusions, however tentative as they--and mine--may be, are very close to my own reading of the Norwegian data:
Thanks Ben. Every analysis I've read so far failed to go back far enough in time to get a sense of the baseline.
My thought:
1. Just because a drop is on par with previous levels does not exclude the possibility of a cause behind the drop. Maybe without the fear or the shots levels would have been higher? Determining that is of course impossible.
2. It would be appropriate to compare monthly fertility rates against injection uptake- especially since the rollout was mostly by age group. This too will be difficult because monthly rates are lower and will fluctuate more than yearly rates, but it may expose a signal.
Thank you, Ben, for your excellent work, which I was too lazy to do until now. Shame on me. :-)
However, the matter deserves a differentiated assessment. Here are some arguments:
The very young and old age groups play a subordinate role and underlie different influences. Their contributions are small. Pregnancies of very young mothers are often unwanted and in old mothers, a high proportion is due to artificial insemination. Looking at the most fertile age groups, you can see clear influences. 2021 ranks high as a result of the two lockdowns in spring 2020 and winter 2020/21.
In historical retrospect, we had similarly strong declines after the introduction of the contraceptive pill and after reunification in 1990. In both cases, the causes were clear, but the changes set in gradually and not, as in early 2022, within about two months and in exactly 9 months' time difference to the mass vaccination of fertile people. These are very strong indications.
Socioeconomic influences may have come into play later and currently cannot be separated from a direct limitation of fertility.
Yes, I think this might deserve a deeper dive!
I've shared the code in the linked gist at the end - if you want, you could try to play around ;)
Highly appreciate your offer, but as you know, I hesitate to use additional "packages". But that's ok: We achieve greater security if we get the same results in two ways.
And the peaks in 2016 for the younger cohorts are surely a result of the 2015 immigration wave.
and Muslim/African migrants vs. German population birth rates?
Both are going down.
year / German / foreign (children per woman, as per destatis table 12612):
2004 1,304 1,692
2005 1,291 1,663
2006 1,285 1,639
2007 1,332 1,638
2008 1,348 1,584
2009 1,331 1,570
2010 1,365 1,611
2011 1,339 1,818
2012 1,357 1,792
2013 1,367 1,798
2014 1,417 1,862
2015 1,427 1,955
2016 1,460 2,280
2017 1,453 2,151
2018 1,448 2,122
2019 1,428 2,062
2020 1,426 1,999
2021 1,487 2,006
2022 1,359 1,879
2023 1,257 1,741
insignificant changes...but...taking into account, foreigners numbers increased since 2004...you might be on to something.
One might look at data regarding infant mortality in the first year of life. That might show a different picture.
The probability of death in the first year of life changed by +5.4% from 2021 to 2022. This is the highest value in the official time series available to me since 2011. Normally the changes are negative or slightly positive.
Is there data on the pregnancy rates, and/or the miscarriage/stillbirth rates? If so, is it broken down by month? Is there any temporal correlation to jab rollouts or covid waves?
Stillbirths are available for the common only in yearly time resolution, but Kuhbandner & Reitzner obtained better grained data on request. To shorten, this topic is suspicious but subaltern in their concerning paper. Abortions (quarterly) support the thesis of a short-term impact of the mass vaccinations, as well as greater willingness to become pregnant during the lockdown months. Feel free to compare the relevant evaluations on my Substack channel https://ulflorr.substack.com/.
Thank you, there's some great info in your substack too!
My take:
https://cm27874.substack.com/p/births-in-germany-and-scandinavia
A few points:
- Even if the decline in 2022 and 2023 is not that dramatic, the sudden drop at the beginning of 2022 (visible when looking at monthly data) is curious.
- Why do many countries (e.g. the Scandinavian ones) exhibit the same pattern as Germany?
- Why is the pattern (baby boom in 2021, followed by baby bust in 2022 and 2023) much more pronounced for the middle (30-35) age cohorts? After my holidays, I will try to check if the situation is similar for Scandinavia.
I am confused by your assessment that you "see no obvious signals". If you look at the relevant age groups between 25 and 40 on the ASFR, there is a massive crash which happens after '21 -- therefore after the vaccine, not after Covid. That crash is in the range of about 15%. It is absolutely massive. I wonder what you don't see when you look at this data.
U.S. Fertility Rate Drops to Another Historic Low
For Immediate Release: April 25, 2024
Contact: CDC, National Center for Health Statistics, Office of Communication (301) 458-4800
E-mail: paoquery@cdc.gov
The general fertility rate in the United States decreased by 3% from 2022, reaching a historic low. This marks the second consecutive year of decline, following a brief 1% increase from 2020 to 2021. From 2014 to 2020, the rate consistently decreased by 2% annually.
These statistics and others from provisional 2023 birth data were released by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
The new report, “Births: Provisional Data for 2023,” analyzes data from more than 99% of birth certificates issued during that year. The report shows a 2% decline from 2022, with 3,591,328 births recorded in 2023.
Other findings in the new report:
2023 birth rates
declined for women ages 20–39 years
were unchanged for females aged 10–14 and 40–49.
The birth rate for teenagers aged 15–19 was down 3% in 2023 to 13.2 births per 1,000 women.
The birth rate for women ages 20–24 (55.4) reached a record low.
The cesarean delivery rate increased for the fourth year in a row to 32.4% in 2023; the low-risk cesarean delivery rate increased to 26.6%.
The preterm birth rate was essentially unchanged at 10.41%.
The report is available on the NCHS website at www.cdc.gov/nchs.
Hi Ben,
what a wonderfully insightful posting, thanks for this. I was made aware of your writing by a colleague/friend, and I must add that your conclusions, however tentative as they--and mine--may be, are very close to my own reading of the Norwegian data:
https://fackel.substack.com/p/how-big-is-the-baby-bust-since-2021
Thanks Ben. Every analysis I've read so far failed to go back far enough in time to get a sense of the baseline.
My thought:
1. Just because a drop is on par with previous levels does not exclude the possibility of a cause behind the drop. Maybe without the fear or the shots levels would have been higher? Determining that is of course impossible.
2. It would be appropriate to compare monthly fertility rates against injection uptake- especially since the rollout was mostly by age group. This too will be difficult because monthly rates are lower and will fluctuate more than yearly rates, but it may expose a signal.
Why did your analysis stop just before the vaccines rolled out? I think you’ve missed the most important data, or intentionally left it out.