As usual we don't have a good explanation for what is happening. I can tell you a story that it is because of the vaccines and I can also tell you a story that it is because of people's view of the state of the world (climate catastrophe, terrible politics; eg, us presidential debate with two geriatrics, war, inflation, etc), and I can tell you a story it is because of online porn, and so on. The fact that it continues to decline at the same rate is curious.
Indeed. And that fact is not only curious but also inconvenient. Imagine that the vaccines were actually responsible for the 2022 drop in birth rates. It would have been much easier to convince people of that narrative if birth rates had rebounded.
Have you explored adjusting the birth figures for population changes? (i.e. age-specific birth rates along the same lines as for the death rates.) The rates are certainly falling but perhaps when pre-existing trends in age-adjusted rates are considered it is not as drastic as appears on first sight.
So, to what extent might the fall in birth rates in many western countries be due to shrinking cohorts of child-bearing women (or even just the average age of this cohort becoming older) and thus represent a similar phenomenon to the rise in death rates being largely due to expanding cohorts of elderly?
Might a very simple check be to look at potential correlations between the rate of change in median age per country with the rate of change in birth rate?
Tja, I've been meaning to this with the German data for quite a while...
I am working on a post on Germany and the Scandinavian countries. They all publish detailed population data, and the numbers of potential mothers are stable, or even increasing.
Ok. Remember, it is not just the total numbers but the age-distribution because the age-specific birthrates are not uniform: rising up to 31~32 and falling thereafter (not quite a bell curve but similar.
I've mentioned this before, but the only comparable sudden decline of German births in recent memory was in 1991 after reunification when births fell from 905k to 830k. Births continued to fall until 1995 (765k). Those cohorts become 31 year-olds in 2022-2026. Peak age-specific birthrate in Germany is ~31 so this will certainly be contributing to the current decline we are seeing.
For some reason I can't access genesis population databases at the moment but the population pyramid does suggest there is a significant drop in the early 30's cohort of women in Germany
There's a sudden drop in 2022 which, interestingly, does not affect the birth rates for the youngest women (25 and younger). Of course you are right that the population pyramid in combination with changing attituteds towards procreation (leading to motherhood later in life) affect overall birth rates, but it does not explain everything.
Thanks. Interesting <25 year-olds though this could be confounded by non-national mothers tending to have kids younger.
Looking at your graph, it's certainly the ages with the highest birthrates (29~37) which show the steepest declines in 2022 but then that's also partially due to the unexpected increases in 2021. Note also the rate of increasing birth rates of ages 32-39 had been slowing - perhaps even plateauing in 2021 had it not been for the lockdown baby-boom?
I would use simple 2016-2020 trend line to extrapolate a base rate for 2021 onward and multiply by single year of age population totals to estimate expected births.
It also has a bulge peaking at 33~34 years-old in 2023! As the bulge ages and shifts up the population pyramid it will also contribute to declining birth totals.
While I agree that vaccination is one of the main suspects, at least regarding the drop in 2022, cross-country correlations will not prove anything (on the "fun" sheet in the Excel file, I computed a correlation of 45% between population vaccination rate and decline in births). The time dimension has to be taken into account. For example, Ulf Lorré has some nice diagrams for Germany and Sweden: https://ulflorr.substack.com/p/birth-decline-2022-2023-in-germany
Correlations never prove anything in their own right, but they provide a signal and followed up by work such as Lorrés, one closes in on causality.
Lorrés would encounter the critique, that Sweden is just a coincidence. So his SE analysis should be done for EU as a whole and all separate EU countries. General correlation is a good start/support.
So far i have not seen simple correlation studies. so will check your "fun" out.
Does you "fun" use vaccrate for a specific age group or just general vaccrate?
You can find vaccrate for 18-24 and 25-49 age groups here:
Thanks for the link. For the 24 countries with 25-49 vaccination rate available (all except Germany), I get a correlation of 35% between vacc rate and 2022 birth rates (higher vacc rates associated with higher birth rates).
For the total sample of 37 countries, the correlation between vacc rate (specifically: no. of doses, all age groups) and effect on birth rates drops from 43% in 2022 to 11% in 2023. If there is a measurable effect of vaccinations on birth rates, it is either temporary, or overlayed with other causes.
I updated the Excel file again. Now even more fun on the "fun" page.
Just to be clear: positive correlation means that higher vaccination rate is associated with *less* decline in births (my formulation in the above comment was bad; will correct). There is no proof of vaccine damage in these correlations. I'd say that the dominating effect is the difference between Eastern and Western Europe - maybe a kind of Simpson paradoxon.
Interesting finding. Just to be annoying, i'd like to point out, that there still may be a correlation, if one we to control for east-west fertility divide.
Have you considered running a multiple regression on that?
Thanks for the update!
As usual we don't have a good explanation for what is happening. I can tell you a story that it is because of the vaccines and I can also tell you a story that it is because of people's view of the state of the world (climate catastrophe, terrible politics; eg, us presidential debate with two geriatrics, war, inflation, etc), and I can tell you a story it is because of online porn, and so on. The fact that it continues to decline at the same rate is curious.
Indeed. And that fact is not only curious but also inconvenient. Imagine that the vaccines were actually responsible for the 2022 drop in birth rates. It would have been much easier to convince people of that narrative if birth rates had rebounded.
I just submitted my comment and this popped up on my screen:
https://open.substack.com/pub/davidthunder/p/is-the-fear-of-having-children-killing
Thanks for update, CM!
Have you explored adjusting the birth figures for population changes? (i.e. age-specific birth rates along the same lines as for the death rates.) The rates are certainly falling but perhaps when pre-existing trends in age-adjusted rates are considered it is not as drastic as appears on first sight.
So, to what extent might the fall in birth rates in many western countries be due to shrinking cohorts of child-bearing women (or even just the average age of this cohort becoming older) and thus represent a similar phenomenon to the rise in death rates being largely due to expanding cohorts of elderly?
Might a very simple check be to look at potential correlations between the rate of change in median age per country with the rate of change in birth rate?
Tja, I've been meaning to this with the German data for quite a while...
I am working on a post on Germany and the Scandinavian countries. They all publish detailed population data, and the numbers of potential mothers are stable, or even increasing.
Ok. Remember, it is not just the total numbers but the age-distribution because the age-specific birthrates are not uniform: rising up to 31~32 and falling thereafter (not quite a bell curve but similar.
I've mentioned this before, but the only comparable sudden decline of German births in recent memory was in 1991 after reunification when births fell from 905k to 830k. Births continued to fall until 1995 (765k). Those cohorts become 31 year-olds in 2022-2026. Peak age-specific birthrate in Germany is ~31 so this will certainly be contributing to the current decline we are seeing.
For some reason I can't access genesis population databases at the moment but the population pyramid does suggest there is a significant drop in the early 30's cohort of women in Germany
https://service.destatis.de/bevoelkerungspyramide/index.html#!y=2024&o=2020
There's a sudden drop in 2022 which, interestingly, does not affect the birth rates for the youngest women (25 and younger). Of course you are right that the population pyramid in combination with changing attituteds towards procreation (leading to motherhood later in life) affect overall birth rates, but it does not explain everything.
https://www.file-upload.net/download-15354308/birthratesbyageofmotherGermany.jpg.html
Unfortunately, birth rates by age of mother for 2023 are not yet available.
Thanks. Interesting <25 year-olds though this could be confounded by non-national mothers tending to have kids younger.
Looking at your graph, it's certainly the ages with the highest birthrates (29~37) which show the steepest declines in 2022 but then that's also partially due to the unexpected increases in 2021. Note also the rate of increasing birth rates of ages 32-39 had been slowing - perhaps even plateauing in 2021 had it not been for the lockdown baby-boom?
I would use simple 2016-2020 trend line to extrapolate a base rate for 2021 onward and multiply by single year of age population totals to estimate expected births.
That gives (for the 20-39y age bracket, stratified by single years) around 23,000 "excess births" in 2021, and around 38,000 "missing births" in 2022.
2021 live births 795 492; excess ~23 000; so estimated ~772 500?
2022 live births 738 819; excess ~-38 000; so estimated ~ 777 000?
How did the trend predict a decline for 2021 but rise for 2022?
I just looked at Sweden's population pyramid:
https://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/population/population-projections/population-projections/pong/tables-and-graphs/population-by-sex--age-and-country-of-birth-and-projection/
It also has a bulge peaking at 33~34 years-old in 2023! As the bulge ages and shifts up the population pyramid it will also contribute to declining birth totals.
Austria: https://www.austria.org/population
Bulge is less pronounced but still recognisable that starting in 2022 each successive cohort of 31 year-olds is smaller.
Thanks so much! Would be lovely to see correlation with doses per capita in the 15-45 age bracket.
I have found the age stratified data at eurostat. Lmk if you would like a link
While I agree that vaccination is one of the main suspects, at least regarding the drop in 2022, cross-country correlations will not prove anything (on the "fun" sheet in the Excel file, I computed a correlation of 45% between population vaccination rate and decline in births). The time dimension has to be taken into account. For example, Ulf Lorré has some nice diagrams for Germany and Sweden: https://ulflorr.substack.com/p/birth-decline-2022-2023-in-germany
Correlations never prove anything in their own right, but they provide a signal and followed up by work such as Lorrés, one closes in on causality.
Lorrés would encounter the critique, that Sweden is just a coincidence. So his SE analysis should be done for EU as a whole and all separate EU countries. General correlation is a good start/support.
So far i have not seen simple correlation studies. so will check your "fun" out.
Does you "fun" use vaccrate for a specific age group or just general vaccrate?
You can find vaccrate for 18-24 and 25-49 age groups here:
https://vaccinetracker.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/vaccine-tracker.html#age-group-tab
Thanks for the link. For the 24 countries with 25-49 vaccination rate available (all except Germany), I get a correlation of 35% between vacc rate and 2022 birth rates (higher vacc rates associated with higher birth rates).
For the total sample of 37 countries, the correlation between vacc rate (specifically: no. of doses, all age groups) and effect on birth rates drops from 43% in 2022 to 11% in 2023. If there is a measurable effect of vaccinations on birth rates, it is either temporary, or overlayed with other causes.
I will update the Excel file in the post.
Thanks for checking CM!
Could i convince you to:
Run the correlation for 2023 and 2024 for the 24 countries with the 25-49 range? :)
I updated the Excel file again. Now even more fun on the "fun" page.
Just to be clear: positive correlation means that higher vaccination rate is associated with *less* decline in births (my formulation in the above comment was bad; will correct). There is no proof of vaccine damage in these correlations. I'd say that the dominating effect is the difference between Eastern and Western Europe - maybe a kind of Simpson paradoxon.
Thanks very much!
Interesting finding. Just to be annoying, i'd like to point out, that there still may be a correlation, if one we to control for east-west fertility divide.
Have you considered running a multiple regression on that?